The Constitution of the United States affects the daily life of every American in powerful and often unrecognized ways. Yet ever since the Constitution's adoption in 1787, its meaning - the way it is applied in actual cases - has been hotly debated. For more than two hundred years, the Supreme Court of the United States has been responsible for interpreting and defining the Constitution's meaning. In It Is So Ordered, Retired Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, who led the Supreme Court during his seventeen-year tenure, examines fourteen of the pivotal cases and historical events that defined the Constitution's real-life application. With this series of richly crafted stories, Chief Justice Burger explains how our nation's charter evolved. Here are the triumphs and tragedies of American constitutional law. In Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) the Court assured that states could not burden interstate commerce, paving the way for phenomenal commercial growth in America. In Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), the Court ruled against the freedom of a slave and set the stage for the horrors of the Civil War. In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Court endorsed the nightmare of state-sponsored segregation of the freed slaves. Taken together, the great cases Chief Justice Burger has chosen to explore have laid the foundation for the most successful political and economic system in history. Nevertheless, they remind us that democracy, with its often inconvenient checks and balances, is not always neat and orderly. Instead, Chief Justice Burger believes democracy is people - men and women with all their virtues and flaws - working together to produce ordered liberty. Throughout It Is So Ordered, Chief Justice Burger brings alive the historical figures who helped shape the United States - Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, and Harry Truman, among many others. And he brings to light "forgotten" heroes like Chief Justice John Marshall, who as the fourth Chief Justice gave the unproven judicial branch the power and wisdom it needed to survive, particularly in the seminal case of Marbury v. Madison. Indeed, we learn that the great stroke in Marbury had its intellectual origins in the Court's 1796 decision in Ware v. Hylton, argued (unsuccessfully) by none other than John Marshall himself. The history of many of the difficult and controversial issues we ask our Constitution to address today is reflected in It Is So Ordered. A uniquely authoritative view of our nation's most vital document, it is a work of compelling interest to citizens, pundits, and politicians alike.