Civil Liberties and the Bill of Rights

The civil liberties and constitutional rights our nation's citizens possess—not only in theory, but in the courtroom, where the state can be forced to honor those liberties—are a uniquely American invention. And when we were taught history and learned about the Constitution and Bill of Rights, we were always made aware of that uniqueness, of the extraordinary experiment that gave every citizen of this new nation a gift possessed by no others. But what, exactly, was that gift? What liberties and rights did the Founders intend us to have? As Professor Finn shows in this course, almost everything about the Constitution, no matter how unwavering its words might appear, is more complicated than it seems at first reading, leaving a legacy of questions that multiplies with each passing decade.

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