American Civil Liberties Union http://aclu.org  Founded in 1920 by Roger Baldwin, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is the United States' leading protector of individual rights. Guaranteed by the Bill of Rights-the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution-the rights include freedom of speech, assembly, and association; freedom of the press; the right to equal protection under the law; and the right to privacy. The ACLU's Web site provides a brief history of the organization and a guide to its activities on a number of issues, including criminal justice, the death penalty, and women's rights. Many of the topics are appropriate only for older students.  

The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate/constitution  It is the duty of the Supreme Court to interpret the U.S. Constitution through its decisions in cases appealed to it from lower courts. This site offers a collection of annotations from cases decided by the high court over the years. You may download the complete text of the 1992 edition of The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation as well as the 1996 and 1998 supplements to that volume, in either text or POF format. If you are seeking details on specific decisions, the database may be searched by keyword as well.  

The Constitution Society http://www.constitution.org A private, nonprofit organization formed in response to widespread noncompliance with the U.S. Constitution and concern for the threat that poses to freedom and civil rights, the Constitution Sociery promotes public education on the principles of constitutional republican government. Its Web site is loaded with information related to constitutional law, but the centerpiece of its offerings is the Liberty Library of Constitutional Classics. Within this virtual library can be found almost every major document pertaining to constitutional government.  

Know Your Rights http://www.harbornet.com/rights/states.html Ken Lombardi has done all Americans a great favor by creating this Web site, which offers direct access or links to all the constitutional documents that govern our way of life. At the federal level, the list includes the u.s. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, of course, but also features the often overlooked Preamble to the Bill of Rights, along with a brief interpretation of its meaning. The site also features the texts of most state constitutions, along with links to a number of related resources elsewhere on the Internet.

Legal Information Institute: Constitutional Law: An Overview http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/constitutional.html  A nonprofit activity of Cornell Law School, the Legal Information Institute (LII) offers an excellent introduction to the subject of constitutional law with this site, which clearly and succinctly spells out the meaning of this area of law. For those who care to delve deeper into certain aspects of the subject, LIl's site contains numerous links to additional information. The site also offers access to the full text of the Constitution, as well as related documents, including the Articles of Confederation and the Federalist Papers. Also available are state and international constitutions.

A More Perfect Union: The Creation of the U.S. Constitution http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/constitution/conhist.html  On May 25, 1787, delegates to the Constitutional Convention-meeting in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia-unanimously approved the nomination of George Washington to serve as president of the convention. Washington modestly begged in advance the forbearance of his fellow delegates should he make any errors in his leadership of the group. Thus begins the story of the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, the document that remains the framework of our political system more than 200 years later.

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law http://www.law.upenn.edu/conlaw/current.htm  First published in the spring of 1998, the University ofPennsylvania]ournal of Constitutional Law was established to provide a "forum for the interdisciplinary study of constitutional law." Its Web site contains the full text of the journal's current issue as well as all back issues. Among the subjects covered in recent issues have been Can Constitutional Borrowing Be Justified?; Constitutional Conflict with the Japanese Imperial Role; and Law Enforcement by Stereotypes and Serendipity: Racial Profiling and Stops and Searches Without Cause.

The U.S. Constitution Online http://www.usconstitution.net  If you have any questions about the U.S. Constitution, you're almost certain to find the answers at this site, which features everything from a plain-text version of the document to a detailed explanation of the amendment process. In between you'll find articles on some of the subjects most people think are covered in the Constitution but aren't and profiles of the document's framers. In a section titled The Constitution Explained, you'll find an article-by-article interpretation of the Constitution's meaning. The site even has a glossary of 18th century terms.  

International Law 

Chan Robles Virtual Law Library: Constitutional Laws of Nations http://www.chanrobies.com/worldconstitutions.htm   This site offers a virtual library of the constitutions of countries from around the world. This is part of the complex of sites created and maintained by the ChanRobles LawNet, a Philippines-wide network of lawyers and law firms. The site features an alphabetical list of countries governed by constitutions. Select any country from Albania to Zimbabwe and click on its name to access a copy of its constitution. Also available is a brief directory of additional online resources for constitutional information.

Constitutions/Constituciones Politicas http://www.georgetown.edu/LatAmerPoIitical/Constitutions/constitutions.html  The Political Database of the Americas, an arm of Georgetown University's Center for Latin American Studies, was formed to create a single electronic repository for the constitutions of member countries of the Organization of American States. The database includes the complete texts of the current constitutions from throughout North and South America, as well as earlier versions of these documents for many countries. In all cases, the documents appear in the language in which they were originally written. Translations are available for many.

East European Constitutional Review http://www.law.nyu.edu/eecr  In the wake of the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, an explosion of democratization followed that included a flurry of constitution writing to establish new governmental frameworks for nearly 20 countries. Established in 1992, the East European Comtitutional Review monitors and reports on "the challenges and obstacles of postsocialist law and politics." The Review's Web site offers the complete text of articles appearing its current issue, as well as an archive of issues dating back to Spring-Summer 1997.

FACT: First Amendment Cyber. Tribune http://w3.trib.com/FACT  The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the freedoms of speech, press, religion, and. peaceable assembly. It's probable that no other amendment to the U.S. Constitution has come under greater attack. This site, edited by an editor and writer for Wyoming's Casper Star-Tribune, which hosts the site, offers loads of information about First Amendment rights and what is being done to defeat ongoing efforts to abridge those rights. You'll find a collection of thoughtful essays exploring such issues as censorship on the Internet and religious liberty.

Hieros Gamos: The Comprehensive Law and Government Portal: Constitutional Law  http://www.hg.org/conlaw.html One of the more comprehensive legal networks on the Internet, Hieros Gamos (Greek for the "harmonization of seeming opposites") offers an excellent introduction to the subject of constitutional law with this gateway site. You'll find links to constitutional documents from around the world, including those from individual countries as well as supranational organizations, such as the United Nations and European Union. Particularly helpful is the news page, which features the latest headlines on developments affecting this area of the law. Some of the topics are only appropriate for older students.

Legal History

The Federalist Papers http://www.mcs.net/~knautzr/fed/fedpaper.html As masterful a document as the U.S. Constitution seems to us today, it's somewhat hard to believe that it almost failed to win the ratification by nine states it needed to take effect. To help convince New Yorkers of the need to ratify this document, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, with some help from John Jay, wrote a total of 85 essays, collectively known today as the Federalist Papers. In these essays, they described how the government mandated by the Constitution would work and made their case for choosing this form of government. This site offers the complete text of all 85 essays, as well as a number of other important documents, including the Constitution itself plus the Bill of Rights, Amendments to the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Anti-Federalist Papers.

Legal History and Philosophy http://www.commonlaw.com For anyone who enjoys delving into the history and philosophy of the law, attorney Thomas P. Vincent has thrown together a grab bag of historical documents that should prove fascinating. His site features everything from the thoughts of Judge Learned Hand about the essential meaning of freedom to excerpts from the Code of Hammurabi. Other gems to be found here include excerpts from a 1648 document titled Lauues and Libertyes of Massachusetts, quotes from Abraham Lincoln, and selections from Laws of the Cherokee Nation.  

Archives of American Public Address http://douglass.speech.nwu.edu An archive of more than 100 speeches important in U.S. political history. Searchable, or browsable by speaker, title, date, or controversy /movement (e.g., care for the poor, civil rights, free speech, slavery, state's rights, war & peace, and women's suffrage). From the Northwestern University School of Speech, this site also provides resources for the study of rhetoric. The Speech Guides and Notes section, by time periods, contains the full-text of An Outline of American History, USIA, 1994, as well as links to a wide variety of Web sites. Additionally, they provide biographical material on Frederick Douglass.

Bibliography or list of sources

MLA style  http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_mla.html

Note: Most of the above sites are provided through Visalia Unified's subscription to WebFeet www.webfeetguides.com. Some sites found on The Librarian's Index to the Internet www.lii.org

Collected May 2002

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