Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 11 of 11
Full-Text Articles in Law
Do Abolitionism And Constitutionalism Mix?, Aya Gruber
Do Abolitionism And Constitutionalism Mix?, Aya Gruber
Publications
No abstract provided.
Niccolò Machiavelli: Father Of Modern Constitutionalism, Mortimer N.S. Sellers
Niccolò Machiavelli: Father Of Modern Constitutionalism, Mortimer N.S. Sellers
All Faculty Scholarship
Niccolò Machiavelli is the father of modern constitutionalism. Constitutionalism began anew in the modern world with the study of the ancient republics and it was Machiavelli who inaugurated this revived science of politics. Five hundred years after the composition of Il Principe and the Discorsi we are still working out the implications of applying reason to the structures of law and government in pursuit of justice and the common good. Modern constitutionalism and ancient republicanism share three central beliefs: first, that government should serve justice and the common good; second, that government should do so through known and stable laws; …
Cherokee Freedmen And The Color Of Belonging, Lolita Buckner Inniss
Cherokee Freedmen And The Color Of Belonging, Lolita Buckner Inniss
Publications
This article addresses the Cherokee tribe and their historic conflict with the descendants of their former black slaves, designated Cherokee Freedmen. This article specifically addresses how historic discussions of black, red and white skin colors, designating the African-ancestored, aboriginal (Native American) and European-ancestored people of the United States, have helped to shape the contours of color-based national belonging among the Cherokee. This article also suggests that Homi K. Bhabha’s notion of postcolonial mimicry offers a potent source for analyzing the Cherokee’s historic use of skin color as a marker of Cherokee membership. The Cherokee past practice of black slavery and …
Review Of George Athan Billias, American Constitutionalism Heard Round The World, 1776-1989: A Global Perspective., John Paul Jones
Review Of George Athan Billias, American Constitutionalism Heard Round The World, 1776-1989: A Global Perspective., John Paul Jones
Law Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Daniel Defoe And The Written Constitution, Bernadette Meyler
Daniel Defoe And The Written Constitution, Bernadette Meyler
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Today, as constitutionalism spreads around the globe, it is embodied de rigueur in written documents. Even places that sustained polities for centuries without a written constitution have begun to succumb to the lure of writtenness. America, we think, spawned this worldwide force, inaugurating a radically new form of political organization when it adopted the U.S. Constitution as its foundational text. Yet the notion of the written constitution had, in fact, received an earlier imprimatur from the pen of Daniel Defoe, English novelist, political pamphleteer, and secret agent. Plying his trades in the early eighteenth century, Defoe, now known largely as …
The Riddle Of Hiram Revels, Richard A. Primus
The Riddle Of Hiram Revels, Richard A. Primus
Articles
In 1870, a black man named Hiram Revels was named to represent Mississippi in the Senate. Senate Democrats objected to seating him and pointed out that the Constitution specifies that no person may be a senator who has not been a citizen of the United States for at least nine years. Before the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, the Democrats argued, Revels had not been a citizen on account of the Supreme Court's 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford. Thus, even if Revels were a citizen in 1870, he had held that status for only two years. …
Theorists' Belief: A Comment On The Moral Tradition Of American Constitutionalism, Jospeh Vining
Theorists' Belief: A Comment On The Moral Tradition Of American Constitutionalism, Jospeh Vining
Articles
The Moral Tradition of American Constitutionalism is one of those rare works that leads us to face, at the center of law and legal thought, the largest questions about human life and human purpose. There is a special reader's shudder, a certain gestural shift in the chair, reserved for that moment of realizing where one is being led-not to the edge, but to the center, so that the questions become insistent, and whatever we and others say and do in the face of them becomes our response to them.
Democracy And Feminism , Tracy E. Higgins
Democracy And Feminism , Tracy E. Higgins
Faculty Scholarship
Although feminist legal theory has had an important impact on most areas of legal doctrine and theory over the last two decades, its contribution to the debate over constitutional interpretation has been comparatively small. In this Article, Professor Higgins explores reasons for the limited dialogue between mainstream constitutional theory and feminist theory concerning questions of democracy, constitutionalism, and judicial review. She argues that mainstream constitutional theory tends to take for granted the capacity of the individual to make choices, leaving the social construction of those choices largely unexamined. In contrast, feminist legal theory's emphasis on the importance of constraints on …
Postmodern Constitutionalism As Materialism, Francis J. Mootz Iii
Postmodern Constitutionalism As Materialism, Francis J. Mootz Iii
Scholarly Works
Professor J.M. Balkin’s recent essay in Michigan Law Review assesses the implications that postmodernism holds for constitutional law. Although I agree with Balkin about many of the specific issues that he believes must be addressed in a postmodern constitutionalism, I find that his manner of talking about postmodernism is unproductive in an important way. Balkin quite correctly argues that a postmodern constitutionalism should not mimic the fragmented and superficial culture of postmodernity, nor should it devolve simply to normative claims that postmodernity is desirable and should be embraced or adopted within the law. However, Balin’s thesis that a postmodern constitutionalism …
Book Review. The Constitutionalism Of "The Common-Law Mind", Stephen A. Conrad
Book Review. The Constitutionalism Of "The Common-Law Mind", Stephen A. Conrad
Articles by Maurer Faculty
This essay reviews the following: Constitutional History of the American Revolution, Vol. 1: The Authority of Rights by John Phillip Reid and Peripheries and Center: Constitutional Development in the Extended Polities of the British Empire and the United States, 1607-1788 by Jack P. Greene.
Levinson Builds The Kingdom: Comment On "Professing Law", Thomas L. Shaffer
Levinson Builds The Kingdom: Comment On "Professing Law", Thomas L. Shaffer
Journal Articles
This Article takes the perspective that the professed law is an idol. As such, it is false worship, which is led by false priests, and is rationalized by false prophets. Professor Shaffer proposes that those who believe in the will of God are presented with two tasks. First, one must tear down this idol, and secondly, one must then build the Kingdom. He focuses his discussion on how one can build the Kingdom, and examines the viability of a Kingdom built upon constitutionalism, citizenship, and community.