Current Issue
Winter 2023
The Soul of a Free Government: The Influence of John Adams’s A Defence on the Constitutional Convention
by Mary Sarah Bilder
February 15, 2023
Contrary to the conventional modern view, John Adams’s A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (1787) was deeply influential on the Constitutional Convention.“Not a Lawyer’s Contract:” Reflections on FDR’s Constitution Day Address
by Gerard N. Magliocca
February 15, 2023
Franklin Roosevelt’s oration marking the sesquicentennial of the Constitution’s proposal is the most profound discussion of our founding document by a modern president.The Public Defender Movement in the Age of Mass Incarceration: Georgia’s Experience
by Robert L. Tsai
February 15, 2023
Focusing on the efforts of the Southern Center for Human Rights, this article offers a grassroots history of the creation of the first statewide public defender in the State of Georgia in 2003.
Editorial Board
Editor-in-Chief
- David S. Schwartz
Senior Editorial Advisors
- Mary Sarah Bilder
- Jud Campbell
- Jonathan Gienapp
- Risa Goluboff
- John Mikhail
- Farah Peterson
- Richard Primus
- Bertrall Ross
- Rachel Shelden
- Franita Tolson
- Robert L. Tsai
Editorial Assistant
- Jack E. Miller
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Editors
- Gregory Ablavsky
- Richard Albert
- William Baude
- Maggie Blackhawk
- Pamela Brandwein
- Holly Brewer
- Tomiko Brown-Nagin
- Andrew Coan
- Saul Cornell
- Mary L. Dudziak
- Max Edling
- Laura F. Edwards
- Sam Erman
- Daniel R. Ernst
- M.S. Flaherty
- Matthew L.M. Fletcher
- William E. Forbath
- Maeve Glass
- Sarah Barringer Gordon
- Mark A. Graber
- Joanna Grisinger
- Ariela Gross
- Roderick Hills
- Daniel Hulsebosch
- Martha S. Jones
- Laura Kalman
- Mark Killenbeck
- Michael J. Klarman
- Heinz Klug
- Anna O. Law
- Thomas H. Lee
- Sanford Levinson
- Gerard Magliocca
- Jane Manners
- Maeva Marcus
- Julian Davis Mortenson
- Cynthia L. Nicoletti
- Victoria Nourse
- William J. Novak
- James E. Pfander
- Jack N. Rakove
- Gautham Rao
- Christopher W. Schmidt
- Sarah A. Seo
- Jed Shugerman
- Reva Siegel
- Brad Snyder
- Clyde S. Spillenger
- Matthew Steilen
- Karen Tani
- George Thomas
- Mark Tushnet
- Anne Twitty
- Michael Vorenberg
- Rosemarie Zagarri
- Mary Ziegler
About the Journal of American Constitutional History
Who We Are
The Journal of American Constitutional History is a peer-reviewed web-based journal publishing high-quality scholarship on U.S. constitutional history. Our editorial board includes over 60 leading scholars in the field.
Why We're Here
We seek to promote inter- and multi-disciplinary scholarly dialogue on constitutional history at a time when law office history is increasingly casting its shadow over both scholarship and jurisprudence. Our Journal provides a space for scholarship that tries to understand the past, rather than to distort it to influence present controversies.
With a rapid and hassle-free publication process, the Journal of American Constitutional History offers an attractive alternative to both student-edited law reviews and print peer-review journals.
What We Publish
We seek articles from the disciplines of law, history, or political science that focus on historical questions touching on the American Constitution or constitutional development, or that contain a substantial element of historical analysis in addressing contemporary issues of U.S. constitutional law. We accept articles of varying lengths and allow authors to conform to the norms and citation styles of their disciplines.