This updated comprehensive history of the American Civil Liberties Union recounts the ACLU's stormy history since its founding in 1920 to fight for free speech and explores its involvement in some of the most famous causes in American history, including the Scopes "monkey trial," the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, the Cold War anti-Communist witch hunts, and the civil rights movement. The new introduction covers the history of the organization and developments in civil liberties in the 1990s, including the U.S. Supreme Court's declaration of the Communications Decency Act as unconstitutional in ACLU v. Reno.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli leads the historic fight against the unprecedented overreach of the federal government. With Obamacare and agencies like the EPA, the FCC, and the National Labor Relations Board attempting to exercise unprecedented control over the American people, the Obama Administration was breaking federal laws, ignoring federal courts, and violating the Constitution to achieve its goals of redistributing wealth, concentrating power in Washington, and rewarding its supporters. Without enough lawmakers in Washington devoted to protecting the rule of law to stop the federal government's liberty-stealing power grab, the battle had to be waged in an unprecedented way: from the states -- just as our Founding Fathers intended. The man who led the charge was Ken Cuccinelli, the first state attorney general to argue in federal court against Obamacare, an unapologetic defender of the Constitution, and a man admirers and detractors alike said "was tea party long before there was a Tea Party." The Last Line of Defense provides a behind-the-scenes account of the myriad of legal battles in which our states were the only instruments of resistance to federal abuses of power. It is a must-read for every patriot.

Published to coincide with the ACLU's centennial, a major new book by the nationally celebrated journalist and bestselling author For a century, the American Civil Liberties Union has fought to keep Americans in touch with the founding values of the Constitution. As its centennial approached, the organization invited Ellis Cose to become its first ever writer-in residence, serving as an "embedded journalist" with complete editorial independence. The result is Cose's groundbreaking Our Democracy, If We Can Keep It: The ACLU and Its 100-Year Battle for Our Rights, the most authoritative account ever of America's premier defender of civil liberties. A vivid work of history and journalism, Our Democracy, If We Can Keep It is not just the definitive story of the ACLU but also an essential account of America's rediscovery of rights it had granted but long denied. Cose's narrative begins with World War I and brings us to today, chronicling the ACLU's role through the horrors of 9/11, the saga of Edward Snowden, and the phenomenon of Donald Trump. A chronicle of America's most difficult ethical quandaries from the Red Scare, the Scottsboro Boys' trials, Japanese American internment, McCarthyism, and Vietnam, Our Democracy, If We Can Keep It weaves these accounts into a deeper story of American freedom--one that is profoundly relevant to our present moment.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, business leaders condemned civil liberties as masks for subversive activity, while labor sympathizers denounced the courts as shills for industrial interests. But by the Second World War, prominent figures in both camps celebrated the judiciary for protecting freedom of speech. In this strikingly original history, Laura Weinrib illustrates how a surprising coalition of lawyers and activists made judicial enforcement of the Bill of Rights a defining feature of American democracy. The Taming of Free Speech traces our understanding of civil liberties to conflict between 1910 and 1940 over workers’ right to strike. As self-proclaimed partisans in the class war, the founders of the American Civil Liberties Union promoted a bold vision of free speech that encompassed unrestricted picketing and boycotts. Over time, however, they subdued their rhetoric to attract adherents and prevail in court. At the height of the New Deal, many liberals opposed the ACLU’s litigation strategy, fearing it would legitimize a judiciary they deemed too friendly to corporations and too hostile to the administrative state. Conversely, conservatives eager to insulate industry from government regulation pivoted to embrace civil liberties, despite their radical roots. The resulting transformation in constitutional jurisprudence—often understood as a triumph for the Left—was in fact a calculated bargain. America’s civil liberties compromise saved the courts from New Deal attack and secured free speech for labor radicals and businesses alike. Ever since, competing groups have clashed in the arena of ideas, shielded by the First Amendment.

A strong and lively defense of substantive due process. From reproductive rights to marriage for same-sex couples, many of our basic liberties owe their protection to landmark Supreme Court decisions that have hinged on the doctrine of substantive due process. This doctrine is controversial—a battleground for opposing views around the relationship between law and morality in circumstances of moral pluralism—and is deeply vulnerable today. Against recurring charges that the practice of substantive due process is dangerously indeterminate and irredeemably undemocratic, Constructing Basic Liberties reveals the underlying coherence and structure of substantive due process and defends it as integral to our constitutional democracy. Reviewing the development of the doctrine over the last half-century, James E. Fleming rebuts popular arguments against substantive due process and shows that the Supreme Court has constructed basic liberties through common law constitutional interpretation: reasoning by analogy from one case to the next and making complex normative judgments about what basic liberties are significant for personal self-government. Elaborating key distinctions and tools for interpretation, Fleming makes a powerful case that substantive due process is a worthy practice that is based on the best understanding of our constitutional commitments to protecting ordered liberty and securing the status and benefits of equal citizenship for all.