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Articles 1 - 6 of 6

Full-Text Articles in Legal History

Enumeration And Other Constitutional Strategies For Protecting Rights: The View From 1787/1791, Mark A. Graber Jan 2006

Enumeration And Other Constitutional Strategies For Protecting Rights: The View From 1787/1791, Mark A. Graber

Faculty Scholarship

This paper interprets the constitution of 1791 in light of the constitution of 1787. The persons responsible for the original constitution thought they had secured fundamental rights by a combination of representation, the separation of powers, and the extended republic. The Bill of Rights, in their view, was a minor supplement to the strategies previously employed for preventing abusive government practices. Proposed amendments were less a list of fundamental freedoms than an enumeration of those rights likely to appease moderate anti-Federalists. That many vaguely phrased rights lacked clear legal meaning was of little concern to their Federalist sponsors, who trusted …


Popular Constitutionalism And The Rule Of Recognition: Whose Practices Ground U.S. Law?, Matthew D. Adler Jan 2006

Popular Constitutionalism And The Rule Of Recognition: Whose Practices Ground U.S. Law?, Matthew D. Adler

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Constitutional Fidelity, The Rule Of Recognition, And The Communitarian Turn In Contemporary Positivism, Matthew D. Adler Jan 2006

Constitutional Fidelity, The Rule Of Recognition, And The Communitarian Turn In Contemporary Positivism, Matthew D. Adler

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Universal Rights And Wrongs, Michael E. Tigar Jan 2006

Universal Rights And Wrongs, Michael E. Tigar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Our Law, Their Law, History, And The Citation Of Foreign Law, David J. Seipp Jan 2006

Our Law, Their Law, History, And The Citation Of Foreign Law, David J. Seipp

Faculty Scholarship

The objection to citation of foreign law in U.S. Supreme Court decisions is bad history and bad law. First, let me briefly review how the objection has come to prominence recently. On June 26, 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Lawrence v. Texas, striking down a same-sex sodomy statute. Justice Antonin Scalia, in the course of his dissenting opinion, wrote that the majority's citation of foreign law was "meaningless dicta," "[d]angerous dicta."' He added that the majority's opinion was "the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda."


Checks And Balances: Congress And The Federal Court, Paul D. Carrington Jan 2006

Checks And Balances: Congress And The Federal Court, Paul D. Carrington

Faculty Scholarship

This essay was published as a chapter in Reforming the Supreme Court: Term Limits for Justices (Paul D. Carrington & Roger Cramton eds, Carolina Academic Press 2006). Its point is that Congress has long neglected its duty implicit in the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers to constrain the tendency of the Court, the academy and the legal profession to inflate the Court's status and power. The term "life tenure" is a significant source of a sense of royal status having not only the adverse cultural effects noted by Nagel, but also doleful effects on the administration and enforcement of …