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Fourteenth Amendment Commons

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Constitutional Law

William & Mary Law School

Journal

Legislative Power

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Fourteenth Amendment

A General Theory Of Governance: Due Process And Lawmaking Power, Louise Weinberg Feb 2013

A General Theory Of Governance: Due Process And Lawmaking Power, Louise Weinberg

William & Mary Law Review

This Article proposes a general theory describing the nature and sources of law in American courts. Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins is rejected for this purpose. Better, more general theory is available, flowing from the Due Process Clauses. At its narrowest, the proposed theory is consonant with Erie but generalizes it, embracing federal as well as state law and statutory as well as decisional law in both state and federal courts. More broadly, beyond this unification of systemic thinking, the interest-analytic methodology characteristic of due process extends to a range of substantive constitutional problems. These include problems concerning both the …


Interpreting The Fourteenth Amendment: Two Don'ts And Three Dos, Garrett Epps Dec 2007

Interpreting The Fourteenth Amendment: Two Don'ts And Three Dos, Garrett Epps

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

A sophisticated reading of the legislative record of the framing of the Fourteenth Amendment can provide courts and scholars with some general interpretive principles to guide their application of the Amendment to current legal problems. The author argues that two common legal conceptions about the Amendment are, in fact, misconceptions. The first is that the Amendment was chiefly concerned with the immediate situation of freed slaves in the former slave states. Instead, he argues, the legislative record suggests that the framers were broadly concerned with the rights not only of freed slaves but also of foreign-born immigrants in the North …