The Odd Clauses: Understanding the Constitution Through Ten of Its Most Curious Provisions

About this book

If the United States Constitution were a zoo and the First Fourth and Fourteenth amendments were a lion a giraffe and a panda bear respectively then The Odd Clauses would be a special exhibit of shrews wombats and bat-eared foxes. Past the ever-popular monkey house and lion cages Boston University law professor Jay Wexler leads us on a tour of the lesser-known clauses of the Constitution the clauses that like the yeti crab or platypus rarely draw the big audiences but are worth a closer look. Just as ecologists remind us that even a weird little creature like a shrew can make all the difference between a healthy environment and an unhealthy one understanding the odd clauses offers readers a healthier appreciation for our constitutional system. With Wexler as your expert guide through this jurisprudence jungle youll see the Constitution like youve never seen it before. Including its twenty-seven amendments the Constitution contains about eight thousand words but the well-known parts make up only a tiny percentage of the entire document. The rest is a hodgepodge of provisions clauses and rules including some historically anachronistic some absurdly detailed and some crucially important but too subtle or complex to get popular attention. This book is about constitutional provisions like Section 2 of the Twenty-first Amendment the letters of marque and reprisal clause and the titles of nobility clausesthose that promote key democratic functions in very specific and therefore seemingly quite odd ways. Each of the books ten chapters shines a much-deserved light on one of the Constitutions odd clausesits history its stories its controversies its possible future. The Odd Clauses puts these intriguing beasts on display and allows them to exhibit their relevance to our lives our governments structure and the integrity of our democracy.