Publisher's description: Beginning with the debates over judicial power in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 to controversial rulings on slavery, racial segregation, free speech, school prayer, abortion, and gay rights, constitutional scholar Peter Irons offers a penetrating look at the highest court in the land. Here are revealing sketches of every justice from John Jay to Stephen Breyer, as well as portraits of such legal giants as John Marshall, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Earl Warren, and Thurgood Marshall. Astute, provocative, and extremely accessible, A People's History of the Supreme Court illuminates and pays tribute to a system of justice that both reflects and parallels our country's remarkable legal history.

Foreword /Howard Zinn -- Introduction: "The Genius of the Constitution" -- "To Establish a More Perfect Union" -- "Morally Sinful by the Word of God": The law of the colonial era and its treatment of religious dissenters, women, blacks, and Indians -- "The Exigencies of the Union": The Constitutional Convention meets in 1787; James Madison and the Virginia Plan -- "Dishonorable to the National Character": The Framers debate the powers of Congress; the Great Compromise over slavery -- "The Supreme Law of the Land": The Framers debate executive power and establish the Supreme Court -- "The Country Must Finally Decide": The Framers debate a bill of rights; the final drafting and signing of the Constitution -- "The Plot Thickens Fast": The states debate and ratify the Constitution -- "The Nauseous Project of Amendments": The First Congress debates a bill of rights; the states ratify the first ten amendments -- "It Is a Constitution We Are Expounding" -- "The Court Is Now Sitting": Establishing the Supreme Court; its first sessions and members -- Hayburn's Case (1792) -- Chisholm v. Georgia (1793) -- "To Say What the Law Is": Congress passes the Sedition Act; Chief Justice John Marshall and judicial power -- Marbury v. Madison (1803) -- "These Jarring and Discordant Judgments": The impeachment of Justice Samuel Chase; conflicts between federal and state powers -- Fletcher v. Peck (1810) -- Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (1816) -- Cohens v. Virginia (1821) -- "The Good and the Wise": Federal power over the states; the Court construes the Contract Clause.