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Substance Above All: The Utopian Vision Of Modern Natural Law Constitutionalists, Thomas B. Mcaffee

Scholarly Works

Modern natural law constitutionalists assert that the Constitution, properly understood, includes a kind of general trump card in the form of a moral reality which provides (or is, at any rate, thought to provide) a measure of all positive legal acts--whether framed in terms of the values of natural equality, natural rights, or “simple justice.”

This article explores why “trump card” natural law constitutionalism cannot by its nature adequately confront crucial issues of institutional design and democratic theory. In thus putting questions of moral substance ahead of crucial issues of authority, natural law constitutionalism appears to rest on a naive, …

Comment, The Augustan Constitution And Our Natural Rights Tradition: Is There A Conflict?, Thomas B. Mcaffee

Scholarly Works

Professor Hoffheimer has provided us with a striking picture of two important strands of our constitutional heritage. The first, which he labels “Augustan constitutionalism,” descended from classical political thought and the English constitution. Its focus is on the governmental powers that it legitimates, and its themes relate to the forms of government; in the American context, this means that its focus is on separation of powers, checks and balances, and (in general) the problem of organizing and dividing government authority. The second, which he calls the “natural rights tradition,” roots government's legitimacy--and indeed its origin and purpose--in the protection of …