Fifth Amendment

The Fifth Amendment allows the government to buy private property for the public good. "Public good" being the expansion of white neighborhoods.

James Oakes’s deeply researched book argues that two very different readings of the 1787 charter put the United States on a course of all but inevitable conflict.

From Seneca Village to “urban renewal,” the government has claimed Black property—rarely with the “just compensation” promised by the Fifth Amendment.

During the 1860 presidential election, political parties dueled over the intent of the framers.

Decades before the Miranda decision, a Washington triple-homicide paced the way to protect criminal suspects.

The blacklist didn’t just ruin many workers’ careers — it narrowed the range of acceptable movies and contributed to the conservatism of the 1950s.

The Supreme Court has found protections for people’s privacy in several constitutional amendments – and used it as a basis for some fundamental protections.

Did the Confederacy have a constitutional right to secede? And did Lincoln violate the Constitution in forcing them back into the Union and freeing the slaves?

In his new book, The Crooked Path to Abolition, James Oakes argues that the Constitution was an antislavery document.