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Conscription And The Constitution: The Original Understanding, Leon Friedman Jun 1969

Conscription And The Constitution: The Original Understanding, Leon Friedman

Michigan Law Review

The general words of the Constitution-famous phrases such as "due process," "freedom of speech," "interstate commerce," and "raise and support armies"-are not self-evident concepts. As Justice Frankfurter said, "The language of the [Constitution] is to be read not as barren words found in a dictionary but as symbols of historic experience illumined by the presuppositions of those who employed them. Not what words did Madison and Hamilton use, but what was it in their minds which they conveyed?" While the framers obviously could not have foreseen the discovery of electromagnetic radio waves or atomic energy, and had no "intent" concerning …

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An Address: The Constitution And The Dilemma Of Historicism, Roger S. Ruffin May 1969

An Address: The Constitution And The Dilemma Of Historicism, Roger S. Ruffin

San Diego Law Review

In thinking about the Constitution, we should keep in mind the commonplaces that lace our thinking. We must keep them in sight at both levels: content and character, commonplace and commonplaceness–else their importance may escape us. Maitland’s view that "the history of law must be a history of ideas" is one such commonplace. Another was noticed by Edward Corwin: the "commonplace that every age has its own peculiar categories of thought; its speculations are carried on in a vocabulary which those who would be understood by it must adopt . . . ." These are tow of the commonplaces of …

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Sturm & Whitaker: Implementing A New Constitution: The Michigan Experience, Walter D. De Vries May 1969