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Articles 1 - 30 of 276
Full-Text Articles in Legal History
Higher Law And Lincoln's Antislavery Constitutionalism: What It Means To Say The Civil War Was Fought Over Slavery, Joel A. Rogers
Higher Law And Lincoln's Antislavery Constitutionalism: What It Means To Say The Civil War Was Fought Over Slavery, Joel A. Rogers
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
The US Civil War was fought over slavery. But what do we really mean when we say that? This paper examines that question, first by exploring the idea of “higher law,” which gained tremendous traction in American society starting around 1850. Proponents of the idea claimed that laws such as the Fugitive Slave Act are immoral; that the immorality of such laws is self-evident, and that such immoral laws should be resisted—sometimes even with violence. Meanwhile, opponents of the idea of higher law were not necessarily in favor of slavery, but they opposed the use of extra-Constitutional means to bring …
Global Issues In A Globalized World: The Unescapable Dialogue Between SharīʿA And The Constitution, Paolo Davide Farah
Global Issues In A Globalized World: The Unescapable Dialogue Between SharīʿA And The Constitution, Paolo Davide Farah
Book Chapters
In an increasingly globalized world, a world in flux, which is constantly subject to rapid circulation of information, change is a dimension that we all experience in our lives with ever increasing frequency. Change, be it that of customs and fashion or that of laws and systems of government, is something which now seems impossible to escape. Change is an integral part of our unstable contemporaneity.
This is not only a continuous change but also a rapid one. In such a social and political environment, at a global and local level, it is more and more difficult to find a …
The Failed Idea Of Judicial Restraint: A Brief Intellectual History, Susan D. Carle
The Failed Idea Of Judicial Restraint: A Brief Intellectual History, Susan D. Carle
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
This essay examines the intellectual history of the idea of judicial restraint, starting with the early debates among the US Constitution’s founding generation. In the late nineteenth century, law professor James Bradley Thayer championed the concept and passed it on to his students and others, including Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Learned Hand, Louis Brandeis, and Felix Frankfurter, who modified and applied it based on the jurisprudential preoccupations of a different era. In a masterful account, Brad Snyder examines Justice Frankfurter’s attempt to put the idea into practice. Although Frankfurter arguably made a mess of it, he passed the idea of …
Gouverneur Morris And The Drafting Of The Federalist Constitution, William M. Treanor
Gouverneur Morris And The Drafting Of The Federalist Constitution, William M. Treanor
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The Salmon P. Chase Colloquium series has had two themes: One is great moments in constitutional law, and the other is people who have been forgotten but should not have been. This colloquium is primarily in the latter category—it is about a forgotten founder of the Constitution. But the Constitution has more than one forgotten founder. I did a Google search this afternoon for “Forgotten Founder” and there are a whole series of books on various people who are the Constitution’s Forgotten Founder. So the Chase Colloquium series has another decade of subjects: Luther Martin, George Mason, Charles Pinckney, Roger …
Delegation At The Founding: A Response To Critics, Julian Davis Mortenson, Nicholas Bagley
Delegation At The Founding: A Response To Critics, Julian Davis Mortenson, Nicholas Bagley
Articles
This essay responds to the wide range of commentary on Delegation at the Founding, published previously in the Columbia Law Review. The critics’ arguments deserve thoughtful consideration and a careful response. We’re happy to supply both. As a matter of eighteenth-century legal and political theory, “rulemaking” could not be neatly described as either legislative or executive based on analysis of its scope, subject, or substantive effect. To the contrary: Depending on the relationships you chose to emphasize, a given act could properly be classified as both legislative (from the perspective of the immediate actor) and also executive (from the perspective …
Taking Care With Text: "The Laws" Of The Take Care Clause Do Not Include The Constitution, And There Is No Autonomous Presidential Power Of Constitutional Interpretation, George Mader
Faculty Scholarship
“Departmentalism” posits that each branch of the federal government has an independent power of constitutional interpretation—all branches share the power and need not defer to one another in the exercise of their interpretive powers. As regards the Executive Branch, the textual basis for this interpretive autonomy is that the Take Care Clause requires the President to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” and the Supremacy Clause includes the Constitution in “the supreme Law of the Land.” Therefore, the President is to execute the Constitution as a law. Or so the common argument goes. The presidential oath to “execute …
The Declaration Of Independence, Constitution, And Slavery, Johnny B. Davis
The Declaration Of Independence, Constitution, And Slavery, Johnny B. Davis
Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue
The paper address the nature of the principles of the Declaration and the Declaration's relationship to the Constitution and how these related to slavery. The argument is that the Declaration did stand for universal equality of the individual before God and the law and therefore its principles condemned slavery. The Constitution did not embrace slavery even though it failed to ban slavery but did set the foundation for the end of slavery.
Slavery And The History Of Congress's Enumerated Powers, Jeffrey Schmitt
Slavery And The History Of Congress's Enumerated Powers, Jeffrey Schmitt
Arkansas Law Review
In his first inaugural address, President Abraham Lincoln declared, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” Like virtually all Americans before the Civil War, Lincoln believed in what historians call the “national consensus” on slavery. According to this consensus, Congress’s enumerated powers were not broad enough to justify any regulation of slavery within the states. Legal scholars who support the modern reach of federal powers have thus conventionally argued …
America’S Racial Stain: The Taint Argument And The Limits Of Constitutional Law And Rhetoric, Louis Michael Seidman
America’S Racial Stain: The Taint Argument And The Limits Of Constitutional Law And Rhetoric, Louis Michael Seidman
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
How should reformers respond to America’s racial stain? The problem is more complex than many imagine. Political activists usually attempt to promote change by taking advantage of a gap between current reality and a touchstone they use to measure the normative desirability of that reality. But what if the touchstone itself is infected by the reality that activists want to change?
Questions raised by this problem do not lend themselves to definitive answers, and this essay does not offer them. Instead, I suggest a variety of responses that attempt to grapple with the difficulty. I also offer tentative assessments of …
The Meaning, History, And Importance Of The Elections Clause, Eliza Sweren-Becker, Michael Waldman
The Meaning, History, And Importance Of The Elections Clause, Eliza Sweren-Becker, Michael Waldman
Washington Law Review
Historically, the Supreme Court has offered scant attention to or analysis of the Elections Clause, resulting in similarly limited scholarship on the Clause’s original meaning and public understanding over time. The Clause directs states to make regulations for the time, place, and manner of congressional elections, and grants Congress superseding authority to make or alter those rules.
But the 2020 elections forced the Elections Clause into the spotlight, with Republican litigants relying on the Clause to ask the Supreme Court to limit which state actors can regulate federal elections. This new focus comes on the heels of the Clause serving …
The Return Of A Judicial Artifact? How The Supreme Court Could Examine The Question Of The Nondelegation Doctrine’S Place In Future Cases, Dalton Davis
Helms School of Government Undergraduate Law Review
No abstract provided.
Texas: A Weak Governor State, Or Is It?, Ron Beal
Texas: A Weak Governor State, Or Is It?, Ron Beal
St. Mary's Law Journal
The current Texas Constitution was adopted in 1876 and was written after the Civil War and the Reconstruction Period when Federal troops occupied the State. The general perception is that the Federal troops used the Governor, in essence, to impose a form of dictatorship over the people. It was clearly the intent of the new constitution’s framers to create a very weak governor form of government in order to spread its powers to many independently elected officials. It provided that the state officers who were appointed by the Governor and approved by the Senate were semi-independent from the Governor by …
Self-Determination In American Discourse: The Supreme Court’S Historical Indoctrination Of Free Speech And Expression, Jarred Williams
Self-Determination In American Discourse: The Supreme Court’S Historical Indoctrination Of Free Speech And Expression, Jarred Williams
Honors Theses
Within the American criminal legal system, it is a well-established practice to presume the innocence of those charged with criminal offenses unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Such a judicial framework-like approach, called a legal maxim, is utilized in order to ensure that the law is applied and interpreted in ways that legislative bodies originally intended.
The central aim of this piece in relation to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution is to investigate whether the Supreme Court of the United States has utilized a specific legal maxim within cases that dispute government speech or expression regulation. …
2nd Annual Women In Law Leadership Lecture: A Fireside Chat With Debra Katz, Esq. 03-03-2021, Roger Williams University School Of Law
2nd Annual Women In Law Leadership Lecture: A Fireside Chat With Debra Katz, Esq. 03-03-2021, Roger Williams University School Of Law
School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events
No abstract provided.
Delegation At The Founding, Julian Davis Mortenson, Nicholas Bagley
Delegation At The Founding, Julian Davis Mortenson, Nicholas Bagley
Articles
This article refutes the claim that the Constitution was originally understood to contain a nondelegation doctrine. The founding generation didn’t share anything remotely approaching a belief that the constitutional settlement imposed restrictions on the delegation of legislative power---let alone by empowering the judiciary to police legalized limits. To the contrary, the overwhelming majority of Founders didn’t see anything wrong with delegations as a matter of legal theory. The formal account just wasn’t that complicated: Any particular use of coercive rulemaking authority could readily be characterized as the exercise of either executive or legislative power, and was thus formally valid regardless …
Self-Determination In American Discourse: The Supreme Court’S Historical Indoctrination Of Free Speech And Expression, Jarred Williams
Self-Determination In American Discourse: The Supreme Court’S Historical Indoctrination Of Free Speech And Expression, Jarred Williams
Honors Theses
Within the American criminal legal system, it is a well-established practice to presume the innocence of those charged with criminal offenses unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Such a judicial framework-like approach, called a legal maxim, is utilized in order to ensure that the law is applied and interpreted in ways that legislative bodies originally intended.
The central aim of this piece in relation to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution is to investigate whether the Supreme Court of the United States has utilized a specific legal maxim within cases that dispute government speech or expression regulation. …
The People's Court: On The Intellectual Origins Of American Judicial Power, Ian C. Bartrum
The People's Court: On The Intellectual Origins Of American Judicial Power, Ian C. Bartrum
Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)
This article enters into the modern debate between “consti- tutional departmentalists”—who contend that the executive and legislative branches share constitutional interpretive authority with the courts—and what are sometimes called “judicial supremacists.” After exploring the relevant history of political ideas, I join the modern minority of voices in the latter camp.
This is an intellectual history of two evolving political ideas—popular sovereignty and the separation of powers—which merged in the making of American judicial power, and I argue we can only understand the structural function of judicial review by bringing these ideas together into an integrated whole. Or, put another way, …
The Case Of The Dishonest Scrivener: Gouverneur Morris And The Creation Of The Federalist Constitution, William M. Treanor
The Case Of The Dishonest Scrivener: Gouverneur Morris And The Creation Of The Federalist Constitution, William M. Treanor
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
At the end of the Constitutional Convention, the delegates appointed the Committee of Style and Arrangement to bring together the textual provisions that the Convention had previously agreed to and to prepare a final constitution. Pennsylvania delegate Gouverneur Morris drafted the document for the Committee, and, with few revisions and little debate, the Convention adopted Morris’s draft. For more than two hundred years, questions have been raised as to whether Morris covertly altered the text in order to advance his constitutional vision, but modern legal scholars and historians studying the Convention have either ignored the issue or concluded that Morris …
Constitutional Skepticism And Local Facts, Louis Michael Seidman
Constitutional Skepticism And Local Facts, Louis Michael Seidman
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Are written constitutions evil? In his new book, Constitutional Idolatry and Democracy, Brian Christoper Jones argues that they are. He claims that written constitutions fail to unite societies, degrade democratic engagement, and obstruct necessary constitutional maintenance. This review of his book argues that he is mostly right about the effects of the American Constitution, but that the effects of other constitutions will vary depending upon local facts.
From Parchment To Dust: The Case For Constitutional Skepticism (Introduction), Louis Michael Seidman
From Parchment To Dust: The Case For Constitutional Skepticism (Introduction), Louis Michael Seidman
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
This is the introduction to a new book entitled "From Parchment to Dust: The Case for Constitutional Skepticism." The introduction sets out a preliminary case for constitutional skepticism and outlines the arguments contained in the rest of the book.
An Analysis Of The Competing Views On The Interpretation Of The U.S. Constitution, Joseph Longo
An Analysis Of The Competing Views On The Interpretation Of The U.S. Constitution, Joseph Longo
Senior Honors Theses
This thesis will examine the competing interpretations of the United States Constitution and the different effects these interpretations would have on the American government and legal systems. By examining legal precedents and different philosophical views, the varying interpretations will be examined and put through real-world scenarios. The founding of America was over 200 years ago, but philosophical views throughout history shall be used in the understanding of the different interpretations and real-world consequences. The thesis will not claim that one interpretation is proper and the perfect one for the United States, rather it will challenge each view in an attempt …
A More Perfect Union: The Emoluments Clause, Grant C. Rasak
A More Perfect Union: The Emoluments Clause, Grant C. Rasak
Pepperdine Law Review
America’s Framers crafted the Emoluments Clause to preserve institutional integrity, mitigate undue influences, and best serve the American People. The Emoluments Clause influenced the course of the Constitutional Convention, as the Pennsylvania Delegation championed resolute reforms. Benjamin Franklin, working alongside James Wilson, advocated for strengthening domestic and international practices by crafting the Emoluments Clause. The Framers proposed a system of self-government which sought to establish public trust, mitigate corrupt practices, and promote institutional integrity. The Pennsylvania Delegation summoned Wilson, under the tutelage of Franklin, to champion the Emoluments Clause. Wilson proposed a new notion of national unity by placing profound …
Fixing America's Founding, Maeve Glass
Fixing America's Founding, Maeve Glass
Michigan Law Review
Review of Jonathan Gienapp's The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era.
Translating The Constitution, Jack M. Balkin
Translating The Constitution, Jack M. Balkin
Michigan Law Review
Review of Lawrence Lessig's Fidelity and Constraint: How the Supreme Court Has Read the American Constitution.
Confessions, Convictions And Controversy: An Examination Of False Confessions Leading To Wrongful Convictions In The United States Throughout History, Kirandeep Kaur
Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity
No abstract provided.
Law Library Blog (January 2020): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law
Law Library Blog (January 2020): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law
Law Library Newsletters/Blog
No abstract provided.
The Constitutionality Of The Self-Pardon And Its Compatibility With Lockean Prerogative, Michael Kelley
The Constitutionality Of The Self-Pardon And Its Compatibility With Lockean Prerogative, Michael Kelley
NYLS Law Review
No abstract provided.
Keeping Faith With Nomos, Steven L. Winter
Forgotten Federal-Missionary Partnerships: New Light On The Establishment Clause, Nathan Chapman
Forgotten Federal-Missionary Partnerships: New Light On The Establishment Clause, Nathan Chapman
Scholarly Works
Americans have long disputed whether the government may support religious instruction as part of an elementary education. Since Everson v. Board of Education (1947), the Supreme Court has gradually articulated a doctrine that permits states to provide funds, indirectly through vouchers and in some cases directly through grants, to religious schools for the nonreligious goods they provide. Unlike most other areas of Establishment Clause jurisprudence, however, the Court has not built this doctrine on a historical foundation. In fact, in Trinity Lutheran v. Comer (2017), the dissenters from this doctrine were the ones to rely on the founding-era record.
Intriguingly, …
Motives And Fiduciary Loyalty, Stephen R. Galoob, Ethan J. Leib
Motives And Fiduciary Loyalty, Stephen R. Galoob, Ethan J. Leib
Faculty Scholarship
How, if at all, do motives matter to loyalty? We have argued that loyalty (and the duty of loyalty in fiduciary law) has a cognitive dimension. This kind of “cognitivist” account invites the counterargument that, because most commercial fiduciary relationships involve financial considerations, purity of motive cannot be central to loyalty in the fiduciary context. We contend that this counterargument depends on a flawed understanding of the significance of motive to loyalty. We defend a view of the importance of motivation to loyalty that we call the compatibility account. On this view, A acts loyally toward B only if …