Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in Law
That Elusive Consensus: The Historiographic Significance Of William E. Nelson's Works On Judicial Review, Mark Mcgarvie
That Elusive Consensus: The Historiographic Significance Of William E. Nelson's Works On Judicial Review, Mark Mcgarvie
Chicago-Kent Law Review
This essay provides a historiographical context for Nelson’s work on judicial review. It argues that Nelson’s integration of intellectual and legal history not only rebutted the instrumentalist historiography that prevailed when he undertook his work on Marshall and judicial review, but also fostered an appreciation of the need to place legal actors in the intellectual context in which they acted. Highlighting the influence of Bernard Bailyn’s pathfinding work on popular sovereignty upon Nelson’s development of his consensus theory, the essay contends that Nelson’s work changed the course of academic readings of Marshall’s jurisprudence to be consistent with a broader acceptance …
Original Intent And The Fourteenth Amendment: Into The Black Hole Of Constitutional Law, Paul Finkelman
Original Intent And The Fourteenth Amendment: Into The Black Hole Of Constitutional Law, Paul Finkelman
Chicago-Kent Law Review
This article explores and examines William E. Nelson’s masterful study of the origins and adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, The Fourteenth Amendment: From Political Principal to Judicial Doctrine (1988). The article explains that a quarter of a century after he wrote this book, Nelson’s study of the origins and adoption of the Amendment remains the best exploration of these issues. His book illustrates the difficulties of determining the “original intent” of the framers of this complicated and complex Amendment. At the same time, however, Nelson demonstrates that for many issues we can come to a strong understanding of the goals …
Rejecting The Legal Process Theory Joker: Bill Nelson's Scholarship On Judge Edward Weinfeld And Justice Byron White, Brad Snyder
Rejecting The Legal Process Theory Joker: Bill Nelson's Scholarship On Judge Edward Weinfeld And Justice Byron White, Brad Snyder
Chicago-Kent Law Review
My contribution to this tribute places Bill Nelson’s scholarship about Judge Edward Weinfeld and Justice Byron White within several contexts. It is a personal history of Nelson the law student, law clerk, and young scholar; an intellectual history of legal theory since the 1960s; an examination of the influence of legal theory on Nelson’s scholarship based on his writings about Weinfeld and White; and an example of how legal historians contend with the subject of judicial reputation. Nelson was one of many former Warren Court and Burger Court clerks who joined the professoriate and rejected the legal process theory that …