Word: bill
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...built from scratch. Though the House has not yet voted on the proposal, many Senators remained skeptical toward the Schlesinger plan. Labeling it a "half measure," South Carolina Democrat Ernest Hollings declared, "The best solution would be just to tear the whole thing down and send the Soviets the bill...
...role was conscious or evolutionary, it is clear that in anticipation of a congressional ban on CIA contact with the contras, Casey and National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane turned to North to run the secret war in Nicaragua. Says Neil Livingstone, a consultant on counterterrorism who worked with North: "Bill Casey was not prepared to fight the bureaucratic battles. He knew there were a lot of people who could raise great problems if they went public with their concerns. He turned the NSC into the Washington station...
...accommodationists, the interpretations since 1947 have been based on a skewed reading of history. The late Justice Potter Stewart, for example, contended that in 1789-91 Congress and those states that ratified the Bill of Rights intended merely to prevent the establishment of a single national religion and keep the Federal Government from interfering with the established churches in various states. Accommodationists delight in noting that Jefferson allowed the Bible and a hymnal to be used to teach reading when he headed the District of Columbia school board, and that he signed a treaty in which the U.S. Government paid...
...faults: the belief that everything can be settled by compromise." In other words, the basic Constitution was too balanced, and thus logically flawed: What moderate compromises are available when a nation seeks to retain the institution of slavery? The answer to the Constitution's excessive symmetry was the Bill of Rights, which did not overturn the basic document but represented a risky extension into the realms of individual freedom that many of the framers thought dangerous. So here was the Enlightenment house with an ell attached, and a riddle: yes, the main structure was perfect, and, yes, it needed continuous...
...entire century, adding the late 18th century expansiveness of Blake and Wordsworth to the wary constraints of Pope. The century that began in the Age of Reason ended in the Age of Romanticism, and the Constitution accommodated that severe transition. If the basic text is an Enlightenment document, the Bill of Rights is a homage to Romantic thought, challenging not so much the specifics of the basic Constitution as its earnest sense of permanence. Amendments did not promise answers to sentimental wishes, but they did build in rooms for restlessness. Amendments promised more, and "more" is a Romantic idea...