JACH 1:1

The inaugural (Winter 2023) issue of the Journal of American Constitutional History, published by the University of Wisconsin Law School, whose David S. Schwartz is Editor-in-Chief, is now live.  

The Soul of a Free Government: The Influence of John Adams’s A Defence on the Constitutional Convention by Mary Sarah Bilder

Contrary to the conventional modern view, John Adams’s A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (1787) was deeply influential on the Constitutional Convention.

“Not a Lawyer’s Contract:” Reflections on FDR’s Constitution Day Address by Gerard N. Magliocca

Franklin Roosevelt’s oration marking the sesquicentennial of the Constitution’s proposal is the most profound discussion of our founding document by a modern president.

The Public Defender Movement in the Age of Mass Incarceration: Georgia’s Experience by Robert L. Tsai

Focusing on the efforts of the Southern Center for Human Rights, this article offers a grassroots history of the creation of the first statewide public defender in the State of Georgia in 2003.

--Dan Ernst