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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Vitality Of The American Sovereign, Todd E. Pettys
The Vitality Of The American Sovereign, Todd E. Pettys
Michigan Law Review
The proposition that "the people" are the preeminent sovereign in the United States has long been a tenet of American public life. The authors of the Declaration of Independence characterized the American people's sovereignty as a "self-evident" truth when announcing the colonies' decision to sever their ties with Great Britain, the delegates to the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 invoked the people's sovereignty when framing the nation's Constitution, and Americans today exercise their sovereignty each time they cast their ballots on Election Day. Yet what prerogatives, precisely, does the people's sovereignty entail? In modern America, where neither a bloody revolution nor …
How To Constitutionalize International Law And Foreign Policy For The Benefit Of Civil Society?, Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann
How To Constitutionalize International Law And Foreign Policy For The Benefit Of Civil Society?, Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann
Michigan Journal of International Law
All societies have adopted rules in order to reconcile conflicts among the short-term interests of their citizens with their common long-term interests. All societies have learned that rule-making and rule-enforcement require government powers, as well as "checks and balances" against abuses of such powers. Constitutionalism has emerged as the most important human invention for protecting equal rights of the citizens against such abuses. It rests on the rationality of Ulysses who, when approaching the island of the sirens and knowing of their dangers, ordered his companions to bind him to the mast and not to release him under any circumstances.' …
Abstract Democracy: A Review Of Ackerman's We The People, Terrance Sandalow
Abstract Democracy: A Review Of Ackerman's We The People, Terrance Sandalow
Reviews
We the People: Foundations is an ambitious book, the first of three volumes in which Professor Ackerman proposes to recast conventional understanding of and contemporary debate about American constitutional law. Unfortunately, the book's rhetoricinflated, self-important, and self-congratulatory-impedes the effort to come to terms with its argument. How, for example, does one respond to a book that opens by asking whether the reader will have "the strength" to accept its thesis? Or that announces the author's intention of "engaging" two of the most influential works of intellectual history of the past several decades-and then discusses one in two and one-half pages …
Apportionment Of Representation In The Legislature: A Study Of State Constitutions, Elizabeth Durfee
Apportionment Of Representation In The Legislature: A Study Of State Constitutions, Elizabeth Durfee
Michigan Law Review
This paper is concerned with the rules found in our state constitutions for apportionment of representation in the state legislature. It does not attempt to solve the problems of high-tension politics that are involved in the making and remaking of such rules; it goes no deeper than an exposition of existing rules. Even on this level it is not exhaustive. Since the constitutions exhibit manifold variations, from simple directions which are scarcely more than a declaration of policy to complex rules for the formation of districts, no attempt will be made to classify all the different types of provisions. With …
The Abnegation Of Self-Government, Thomas M. Cooley
The Abnegation Of Self-Government, Thomas M. Cooley
Articles
The fundamental idea underlying the government of every State of the American Union is that the people rule. Upon this the American people have erected their constitutional structure, and to thi!J thcir laws and their conduct are supposed to conform. Their constitutions, State and National, tho they may be said to have grown out of their circumstances, were not forced upon them by the circumstances, and simply accepted with little or no volition on their part, as has very commonly been the case with government in other countries; but the controlling principle was adopted deliberately by them, from a conviction …