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Full-Text Articles in Legal History
Taking Decisions Seriously, Richard D. Friedman
Taking Decisions Seriously, Richard D. Friedman
Reviews
The New Deal era is one of the great turning points of American constitutional history. The receptivity of the Supreme Court to regulation by state and federal governments increased dra- matically during that period. The constitutionalism that prevailed before Charles Evans Hughes became Chief Justice in 1930 was similar in most respects to that of the beginning of the twen- tieth century. The constitutionalism that prevailed by the time Hughes’ successor Harlan Fiske Stone died in 1946 is far more related to that of the end of the century. How this transformation occurred is a crucial and enduring issue in …
Civics 2000: Process Constitutionalism At Yale, Daniel J. Hulsebosch
Civics 2000: Process Constitutionalism At Yale, Daniel J. Hulsebosch
Michigan Law Review
One or another form of historical fidelity has long been in the repetoire of constitutional interpretation, and during the last two decades conservative jurists have searched for the "original intent" of various clauses. Increasingly, however, it is liberal law professors who are turning to history to make sense of American constitutionalism. What they find there is not a document listing eternal rights or duties but rather a multidimensional structure of government, captured as much in practice as on paper, that has metamorphosed over time. It seems we have, in that familiar phrase, a living Constitution. But interest is shifting from …
Caste, Class, And Equal Citizenship, William E. Forbath
Caste, Class, And Equal Citizenship, William E. Forbath
Michigan Law Review
There is a familiar egalitarian constitutional tradition and another we have largely forgotten. The familiar one springs from Brown v. Board of Education; its roots lie in the Reconstruction era. Court-centered and countermajoritarian, it takes aim at caste and racial subordination. The forgotten one also originated with Reconstruction, but it was a majoritarian tradition, addressing its arguments to lawmakers and citizens, not to courts. Aimed against harsh class inequalities, it centered on decent work and livelihoods, social provision, and a measure of economic independence and democracy. Borrowing a phrase from its Progressive Era proponents, I will call it the social …