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Jefferson's Constitutions, Gerald F. Leonard
Jefferson's Constitutions, Gerald F. Leonard
Faculty Scholarship
Between 1787 and 1840, the Constitution gained a far more democratic meaning than it had had at the Founding, and Thomas Jefferson was a key figure in the process of democratization. But, while more democratic in inclination than many of the Framers, he fell far short of the radically democratic constitutionalism of his most important acolytes, Martin Van Buren and Andrew Jackson. This chapter of Constitutions and the Classics explains that Jefferson was actually much less attached to democracy and more to law as the heart of the republican Constitution. Compared to the 1830s founders of the nation’s democratic Constitution, …
Constitutional Exaptation, Political Dysfunction, And The Recess Appointments Clause, Jay D. Wexler
Constitutional Exaptation, Political Dysfunction, And The Recess Appointments Clause, Jay D. Wexler
Faculty Scholarship
The so-called Recess Appointments Clause of the Constitution provides that: “The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.”1 As of only a few years ago, I considered this clause so minor and quirky that I included it in a book about ten of the Constitution’s “oddest” clauses, right alongside such clearly weird provisions as the Title of Nobility Clause and the Third Amendment.2 Though I recognized that the Recess Appointments Clause was probably the least odd …