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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Fixation Thesis: The Role Of Historical Fact In Original Meaning, Lawrence B. Solum
The Fixation Thesis: The Role Of Historical Fact In Original Meaning, Lawrence B. Solum
Lawrence B. Solum
The central debate in contemporary constitutional theory is the clash between originalists and living constitutionalists. Originalism is the view that the original meaning of the constitutional text should constrain or bind constitutional practice—paradigmatically, the decision of constitutional cases by the United States Supreme Court. Living constitutionalists contend that the content of constitutional law should evolve over time in response to changing values and circumstances. One of the central questions in this debate is over the question whether the meaning of the constitutional text is fixed or changeable. This essay makes the case for the Fixation Thesis—the claim that the linguistic …
Full Faith And Conflict Of Law: The Peculiar Legacy Of Legal Federalism, Sheldon D. Pollack
Full Faith And Conflict Of Law: The Peculiar Legacy Of Legal Federalism, Sheldon D. Pollack
Sheldon D Pollack
The new constitution crafted by the delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was a major improvement over its predecessor (the ill-fated Articles of Confederation), especially in concentrating greater political authority at the center of the confederation, it imposed a flawed constitutional structure on the new regime based on the same untenable proposition that undermined the national government of the Confederacy—namely, that it was possible to preserve the states as separate “sovereign” political organizations within the political union. In adopting a federal constitutional structure for the new republic (as opposed to a “consolidated” or “unitary” government), the Founders institutionalized a …