Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Michigan Law Review

Legal History

Constitutional interpretation

Articles 1 - 15 of 15

Full-Text Articles in Law

Translating The Constitution, Jack M. Balkin May 2020

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.


Coin, Currency, And Constitution: Reconsidering The National Bank Precedent, David S. Schwartz May 2020

Coin, Currency, And Constitution: Reconsidering The National Bank Precedent, David S. Schwartz

Michigan Law Review

Review of Eric Lomazoff's Reconstructing the National Bank Controversy: Politics and Law in the Early American Republic.


Fixing America's Founding, Maeve Glass May 2020

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.


The Cunning Of Reason: Michael Klarman's The Framers' Coup, Charles Fried Apr 2018

The Cunning Of Reason: Michael Klarman's The Framers' Coup, Charles Fried

Michigan Law Review

A review of Michael J. Klarman, The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution.


Saving Originalism, Robert J. Delahunty, John Yoo Apr 2015

Saving Originalism, Robert J. Delahunty, John Yoo

Michigan Law Review

It is sometimes said that biographers cannot help but come to admire, even love, their subjects. And that adage seems to ring true of Professor Amar, the foremost “biographer” of the Constitution. He loves it not just as a governing structure, or a political system, but as a document. He loves the Constitution in the same way that a fan of English literature might treasure Milton’s Paradise Lost or Shakespeare’s Macbeth. He loves the Constitution not just for the good: the separation of powers, federalism, and the Bill of Rights. He also loves it for its nooks and crannies, idiosyncrasies, …


Assessing The State Of The State Constitutionalism, Jim Rossi Apr 2011

Assessing The State Of The State Constitutionalism, Jim Rossi

Michigan Law Review

Robert Williams's The Law of American State Constitutions is an impressive career accomplishment for one of the leading academic lawyers writing on state constitutions. Given the need for a comprehensive, treatise-like treatment of state constitutions that transcends individual jurisdictions, Williams's book will almost certainly become the go-to treatise for the next generation of state constitutional law practitioners and scholars. The U.S. Constitution has a grip on how the American legal mind approaches issues in American constitutionalism, but an important recurring theme in Williams's work (as well as that of others) is how state constitutions present unique interpretive challenges. More than …


The Supreme Court As Constitutional Interpreter: Chronology Without History, Herbert Hovenkamp May 1992

The Supreme Court As Constitutional Interpreter: Chronology Without History, Herbert Hovenkamp

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Constitution in the Supreme Court: The Second Century, 1888-1986 by David P. Currie


The Law's Conscience: Equitable Constitutionalism In America, Neil A. Riemann May 1991

The Law's Conscience: Equitable Constitutionalism In America, Neil A. Riemann

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Law's Conscience: Equitable Constitutionalism in America by Peter Charles Hoffer


Judicial Review And American Democracy, Stanley S. Sokul May 1989

Judicial Review And American Democracy, Stanley S. Sokul

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Judicial Review and American Democracy by Albert P. Melone and George Mace


The Believer And The Powers That Are, Elizabeth Ferguson May 1988

The Believer And The Powers That Are, Elizabeth Ferguson

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Believer and the Powers That Are by John T. Noonan, Jr.


Toleration And The Constitution, Judith L. Hudson May 1987

Toleration And The Constitution, Judith L. Hudson

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Toleration and the Constitution by David A.J. Richards


The Rise Of Modern Judicial Review: From Constitutional Interpretation To Judge-Made Law, Ward A. Greenberg May 1987

The Rise Of Modern Judicial Review: From Constitutional Interpretation To Judge-Made Law, Ward A. Greenberg

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Rise of Modern Judicial Review: From Constitutional Interpretation to Judge-Made Law by Christopher Wolfe


The Rise And Fall Of The "Doctrine" Of Separation Of Powers, Philip B. Kurland Dec 1986

The Rise And Fall Of The "Doctrine" Of Separation Of Powers, Philip B. Kurland

Michigan Law Review

As the Constitution of the United States nears its two hundredth anniversary, there is a frenzy of celebration. However awesome the accomplishment, I submit that it is no slander to recognize that the 1787 document was born of prudent compromise rather than principle, that it derived more from experience than from doctrine, and that it was received with an ambivalence in no small part attributable to its ambiguities. Indeed, its most stalwart supporters doubted its capacity for a long life. It should not be surprising, then, that even today there is disagreement over whether the Constitution of 1787 is now …


Conscription And The Constitution: The Original Understanding, Leon Friedman Jun 1969

Conscription And The Constitution: The Original Understanding, Leon Friedman

Michigan Law Review

The general words of the Constitution-famous phrases such as "due process," "freedom of speech," "interstate commerce," and "raise and support armies"-are not self-evident concepts. As Justice Frankfurter said, "The language of the [Constitution] is to be read not as barren words found in a dictionary but as symbols of historic experience illumined by the presuppositions of those who employed them. Not what words did Madison and Hamilton use, but what was it in their minds which they conveyed?" While the framers obviously could not have foreseen the discovery of electromagnetic radio waves or atomic energy, and had no "intent" concerning …


Reappraisal Of Federal Question Jurisdiction, G. Merle Bergman Nov 1947

Reappraisal Of Federal Question Jurisdiction, G. Merle Bergman

Michigan Law Review

For some time I have been reading and listening to criticisms directed toward decisions which the Supreme Court has rendered in cases involving federal question jurisdiction. The general 'tenor of this criticism is that these decisions demonstrate a surprising lack of uniformity and conscious purpose. Writers profess to search in vain for sound logic in the Court's opinions. They point up instead the anomaly which is reflected when cases involving a substantial federal issue are tried in state courts, while those in which no real federal issue is involved are nevertheless accepted for trial in the federal courts. This result, …