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Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places : Why State Constitutions Contain America's Positive Rights / Emily Zackin.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Princeton Studies in American Politics: Historical, International, and Comparative Perspectives ; 132Publisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2013]Copyright date: ©2013Edition: Core TextbookDescription: 1 online resource (248 p.) : 2 line illus. 8 tablesContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780691155784
  • 9781400846276
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 342.73085 23
LOC classification:
  • KF4750.Z95 Z33 2017
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Chapter 1. Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places -- Chapter 2. Of Ski Trails and State Constitutions -- Chapter 3. Defining Positive Rights -- Chapter 4. Why Write New Rights? -- Chapter 5. Education -- Chapter 6. Workers' Rights -- Chapter 7. Environmental Protection -- Chapter 8. Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index -- Backmatter
Summary: Unlike many national constitutions, which contain explicit positive rights to such things as education, a living wage, and a healthful environment, the U.S. Bill of Rights appears to contain only a long list of prohibitions on government. American constitutional rights, we are often told, protect people only from an overbearing government, but give no explicit guarantees of governmental help. Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places argues that we have fundamentally misunderstood the American rights tradition. The United States actually has a long history of enshrining positive rights in its constitutional law, but these rights have been overlooked simply because they are not in the federal Constitution. Emily Zackin shows how they instead have been included in America's state constitutions, in large part because state governments, not the federal government, have long been primarily responsible for crafting American social policy. Although state constitutions, seemingly mired in trivial detail, can look like pale imitations of their federal counterpart, they have been sites of serious debate, reflect national concerns, and enshrine choices about fundamental values. Zackin looks in depth at the history of education, labor, and environmental reform, explaining why America's activists targeted state constitutions in their struggles for government protection from the hazards of life under capitalism. Shedding much-needed light on the variety of reasons that activists pursued the creation of new state-level rights, Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places challenges us to rethink our most basic assumptions about the American constitutional tradition.
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Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781400846276

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Chapter 1. Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places -- Chapter 2. Of Ski Trails and State Constitutions -- Chapter 3. Defining Positive Rights -- Chapter 4. Why Write New Rights? -- Chapter 5. Education -- Chapter 6. Workers' Rights -- Chapter 7. Environmental Protection -- Chapter 8. Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index -- Backmatter

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Unlike many national constitutions, which contain explicit positive rights to such things as education, a living wage, and a healthful environment, the U.S. Bill of Rights appears to contain only a long list of prohibitions on government. American constitutional rights, we are often told, protect people only from an overbearing government, but give no explicit guarantees of governmental help. Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places argues that we have fundamentally misunderstood the American rights tradition. The United States actually has a long history of enshrining positive rights in its constitutional law, but these rights have been overlooked simply because they are not in the federal Constitution. Emily Zackin shows how they instead have been included in America's state constitutions, in large part because state governments, not the federal government, have long been primarily responsible for crafting American social policy. Although state constitutions, seemingly mired in trivial detail, can look like pale imitations of their federal counterpart, they have been sites of serious debate, reflect national concerns, and enshrine choices about fundamental values. Zackin looks in depth at the history of education, labor, and environmental reform, explaining why America's activists targeted state constitutions in their struggles for government protection from the hazards of life under capitalism. Shedding much-needed light on the variety of reasons that activists pursued the creation of new state-level rights, Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places challenges us to rethink our most basic assumptions about the American constitutional tradition.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 30. Aug 2021)