Includes bibliographical references (pages 243-244) and index.

What made the Constitution: revolution and confederation : The trouble begins ; "If this be treason, make the most of it" ;Jefferson stakes out America's rights ; Jefferson's view of the British empire: a federation of independent states ; Gun smoke- and fear of domestic tyranny ; A state is a state is a...country --Federalism vs. nationalism at the Philadelphia convention : A constitution for the "United States" ; Reforming the confederation ; A vision of national government: the Virginia plan ;Monarchists and nationalists and federalists- oh my! -- Selling the Constitution : A rocky road ; Federalists battle republicans over the Bill of Rights ; It all comes down to Virginia ; But what about The Federalist? ; The question of sovereignty: never really explained ; Who ratified the Constitution: "the American people" or the sovereign states? -- Judges: power hungry from the beginning : Judging the judges ; The Court's first steps ; The Eleventh Amendment: protecting the states from the Supreme Court ; Finally, a bill of rights ; The Washington factor ; The trouble with France ; Washington crusades for a whiskey tax ; Jay's treaty sparks controversy ; Breaking the law is...against the law ; The federalists' secret weapon: judges ; Jefferson and Madison argue for states' rights -- The imperial judiciary: it started with Marshall : High crimes and misdemeanors abound ; Impeaching Justice Chase ; The Supreme Court's march through Georgia (and Virginia) ; Madison's banking flip-flops ; "The wolf by the ear" ; The Dartmouth review ; The "great lama of the mountains" vs. Marshall ; Marshall finds the elastic in the commerce clause ; Marshall nullifies the Declaration of Independence ; State sovereignty? never heard of it ; Marshall finally gets one right --Undoing Marshall and undoing the Union : "The object and end of all government" ; Taney tackles the commerce and contracts clauses ; The War for Southern Independence ; All men are (not really) born free and equal ; Dred Scott v. Sandford --

The War for Southern Independence as a constitutional crisis : Taney examines 'the very definition of tyranny" ; The Emancipation Proclamation ; The "reconstitution" of the Constitution -- The pro-segregation Supreme Court : "Instrumentalities of the state"? sounds like socialism to me ; Segregation is in the eye of the beholder ; Supreme logic: a corporation is like a freed slave ; IT depends on your definition of "is" ; The income tax was unconstitutional -- The Court vs. FDR : Uncle Sam wants you! ; Can you put that protest on hold until after the war? ; The political platform of the Supreme Court: pro-war, pro-child labor ; The Supreme Court vs. the Roosevelt Democrats -- The grand wizard's imperial court : "Updating" the framers ; How the Constitution got "incorporated" rather than interpreted ; How the Ku Klux Klan separated church from state ; The Supreme Court v. Christianity -- The court on pornography, crime, and race : The "inarticulate roars" of the court ; Freedom of pornography ; The Supremes and criminal law ; Cruel and unusual punishment ; Brown v. Board of Education and its offspring ; The civil rights legislation of the 1960s -- The court's brave new world: from affirmative action to sodomy : Affirmative action ; Sex discrimination and the Fourteenth Amendment ; The Supreme Court and privacy ; The Supreme Court's electoral interventions.

An introduction to constitutional law in the United States looks at the role of the Supreme Court in defending the Constitution and discusses the historical rulings and changes that have gone against the document.