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Full-Text Articles in Law
Taking States (And Metaphysics) Seriously, Sanford Levinson
Taking States (And Metaphysics) Seriously, Sanford Levinson
Michigan Law Review
Sotirios A. Barber has written many incisive and important books, in addition to coediting an especially interesting casebook on constitutional law and interpretation. He is also a political theorist. An important part of his overall approach to constitutional theory is his philosophical commitment to “moral realism.” He believes in the metaphysical reality of moral and political truths, the most important of which, for any constitutional theorist, involve the meanings of justice and the common good. He not only believes in the ontological reality of such truths — that is, that these truths are more than mere human conventions or social …
From Commonwealth To Constitutional Limitations: Thomas Cooley's Michigan, 1805-1886, Robert Allan Olender
From Commonwealth To Constitutional Limitations: Thomas Cooley's Michigan, 1805-1886, Robert Allan Olender
SJD Dissertations
In response to what he perceived as the challenges associated with republican governance in the later portions of the nineteenth century, Michigan’s Thomas McIntyre Cooley penned his treatise concerning constitutional limitations on legislative power. In it, Cooley offered a vision of government where courts would check government power and would raise constitutional barriers against the impact of improper influences on legislators. As a student of history, Cooley grounded his beliefs and doctrines in experience, not philosophical reflections. Believing that “the fruits of speculative genius in government are of little value,” Cooley submitted that governing structures and law “must be the …