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Constitutional Law

University of Michigan Law School

Series

1992

Constitutional interpretation

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Abstract Democracy: A Review Of Ackerman's We The People, Terrance Sandalow Jan 1992

Abstract Democracy: A Review Of Ackerman's We The People, Terrance Sandalow

Reviews

We the People: Foundations is an ambitious book, the first of three volumes in which Professor Ackerman proposes to recast conventional understanding of and contemporary debate about American constitutional law. Unfortunately, the book's rhetoricinflated, self-important, and self-congratulatory-impedes the effort to come to terms with its argument. How, for example, does one respond to a book that opens by asking whether the reader will have "the strength" to accept its thesis? Or that announces the author's intention of "engaging" two of the most influential works of intellectual history of the past several decades-and then discusses one in two and one-half pages …


Constitutional Interpretation, Terrance Sandalow Jan 1992

Constitutional Interpretation, Terrance Sandalow

Book Chapters

"[W]e must never forget," Chief Justice Marshall admonished us in a statement pregnant with more than one meaning, "that it is a constitution we are expounding." Marshall meant that the Constitution should be read as a document "intended to endure for ages to come, and, consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs." But he meant also that the construction placed upon the document must have regard for its "great outlines" and "important objects." Limits are implied by the very nature of the task. There is not the same freedom in construing the Constitution as in constructing …