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Full-Text Articles in Law
Prayer Amendment: A Justification, Charles E. Rice
Prayer Amendment: A Justification, Charles E. Rice
Journal Articles
It is customary for each house of Congress to open its daily sessions with prayer delivered by its Chaplain. One might conclude that if the lawmakers of the nation are entitled to ask for divine blessing upon their work, so are the rest of us, including school children. Not so. For the Supreme Court of the United States has drawn the line. Legislators may pray, so far at least, but school children may not. Thus it was that the courts intervened to prevent the holding of "a period for the free exercise of religion" in the Netcong, New Jersey, public …
American Civil Liberties And Constitutional Change, Donald P. Kommers
American Civil Liberties And Constitutional Change, Donald P. Kommers
Journal Articles
This essay is an attempt to analyze, for the non-American reader especially, some of the factors that affect the condition of civil liberties in the United States. It deals mainly with the U.S. Supreme Court and its effort to define the limits of personal freedom within the framework of the American constitutional system. This effort has been a main preoccupation of the Supreme Court during the last two decades or so as the social conflicts besetting America have taken the form, as they usually do, of constitutional conflicts that the Court must eventually decide. Most of these questions have represented …