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The Property Question.Pdf, William A. Edmundson Apr 2018

The Property Question.Pdf, William A. Edmundson

William A. Edmundson

The “property question” is the constitutional question whether a society’s basic resources are to be publicly or privately owned; that is, whether these basic resources are to be available to private owners, perhaps subject to tax and regulation, or whether instead they are to be retained in joint public ownership, and managed by democratic processes.  James Madison’s approach represents a case in which prior holdings are taken for granted, and the property question itself is kept off of the political agenda.  By contrast, John Rawls approach abstracts from any actual pattern of holdings, while putting the property question on the …


The Property Question.Pdf, William A. Edmundson Dec 2017

The Property Question.Pdf, William A. Edmundson

William A. Edmundson

for presentation at the Property and Political Economy Conference at the Smith Institute,
Chapman University, April 20-21, 2018
The “property question” is the constitutional question whether a society’s basic resources are
to be publicly or privately owned; that is, whether these basic resources are to be available to
private owners, perhaps subject to tax and regulation, or whether instead they are to be
retained in joint public ownership, and managed by democratic processes. James Madison’s
approach represents a case in which prior holdings are taken for granted, and the property
question itself is kept off of the political agenda. By …


Judicial Review And Non-Enforcement At The Founding, Matthew Steilen Nov 2017

Judicial Review And Non-Enforcement At The Founding, Matthew Steilen

Matthew Steilen

This Article examines the relationship between judicial review and presidential non-enforcement of statutory law. Defenders of non-enforcement regularly argue that the justification for judicial review that prevailed at the time of the founding also justifies the president in declining to enforce unconstitutional laws. The argument is unsound. This Article shows that there is essentially no historical evidence, from ratification through the first decade under the Constitution, in support of a non-enforcement power. It also shows that the framers repeatedly made statements inconsistent with the supposition that the president could refuse to enforce laws he deemed unconstitutional. In contrast, during this …


The Text Of The Standing Orders Of The Federal Convention: Jackson’S And Madison’S Texts Surveyed, Peter J. Aschenbrenner Jul 2015

The Text Of The Standing Orders Of The Federal Convention: Jackson’S And Madison’S Texts Surveyed, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Drawing on Farrand’s Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, Vol. 1, Our Constitutional Logic has reconciled the differences between the text of the standing Orders as presented in the text of William Jackson, the convention’s secretary, and James Madison, the convention’s semi-official reporter, both as edited by Max Farrand. This text will appear in Basic Texts in the Founding of Parliamentary Science Originating from the United Kingdom and United States (in MR Text Format), 2 OCL 136_5; in turn, OCL is producing the first concordance of these texts in Founding the Science of Parliamentary Procedure, 1785-1789: Basic Texts in …


The Lame Ducks Of Marbury, John C. Nagle Nov 2013

The Lame Ducks Of Marbury, John C. Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

The election of 1800 was one of the most contested - and important - in American history. After it became clear that neither President John Adams nor a Federalist majority in Congress had been reelected, they acted during the lame-duck period to preserve their influences far into the future. They did so by appointing John Marshall as Chief Justice, ratifying the Treaty with France, creating numerous new federal judicial positions, and filling many of those positions with friends, family, and Federalists (including William Marbury). Not surprisingly, Jefferson and his supporters protested these actions as contrary to the will of the …