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Evan Bernick Subscribe

Evan Bernick is a visiting lecturer at Georgetown University Law Center and a fellow of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution.

July 17, 2017|A Great Power of Attorney, Bolling v. Sharpe, fiduciary obligations, fiduciary powers, Gary Lawson, Guy Seidman, McCulloch v. Maryland, Necessary and Proper Clause, Originalism, Robert Natelson, Yates v. U.S.

Getting to the Essence of the 1787 Document

by Evan Bernick|

Gary Lawson and Guy Seidman’s important new book, “A Great Power of Attorney”: Understanding the Fiduciary Constitution, seeks to explain what the Constitution of the United States is. While that might appear to be a goal that could only be achieved with a massive tome (or perhaps several of them), the book runs about 200 pages and is focused narrowly on the question of what kind of document “We the People” ratified in 1788. The Constitution has been called a contract, a compact, a covenant, a charter, and (by one of the coauthors in a previous writing) a recipe—all of which…

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May 24, 2016|Greg Weiner, judicial engagement, Judicial Restraint, Judicial Review, Mark Tushnet

Does Judicial Engagement Empower Progressives? Answering Professor Weiner’s Challenge

by Evan Bernick|

Professor Mark Tushnet is nothing if not candid. In a series of posts written for the Balkinization legal site, Tushnet exhorts his fellow Progressives to look around, recognize that a majority of appellate judges are now Democratic appointees, and abandon “defensive crouch liberalism.” Instead of “looking over their shoulders for retaliation by conservatives,” Tushnet proposes (among other things) that Progressives compile lists of Supreme Court cases “to be overruled at the first opportunity” on the grounds that they were “wrong the day they were decided,” and take a “hard-line approach” with conservatives in the culture wars.

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February 1, 2016|Judicial Review in an Objective Legal System, Tara Smith

Taming the Law’s Coercion

by Evan Bernick|

“To do things by law is to do them by force.” So writes Professor Tara Smith in the introduction to her incisive and important new book, Judicial Review in an Objective Legal System, reminding us of the gravity of the stakes involved in judicial review. A court’s decision to uphold government conduct may result in the deprivation of liberty, property, or even life. Carrie Buck (and more than 60,000 other young Americans deemed “socially inadequate” by predatory state health boards) may be forcibly sterilized in the name of  eugenics purposes. Fred Korematsu (and 120,000 other American citizens of Japanese ancestry) may…

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Book Reviews

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

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The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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Liberty Classics

Rereading Politica in the Post-Liberal Moment

by Glenn A. Moots

Althusius offers a rich constitutionalism that empowers persons to thrive alongside one another in deliberate communities.

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James Fenimore Cooper and the American Experiment

by Melissa Matthes

In The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper defended democracy against both mob rule and majority tyranny.

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Podcasts

Stuck With Decadence

A discussion with Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat discusses with Richard Reinsch his new book The Decadent Society.

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Can the Postmodern Natural Law Remedy Our Failing Humanism?

A discussion with Graham McAleer

Graham McAleer discusses how postmodern natural law can help us think more coherently about human beings and our actions.

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Did the Civil Rights Constitution Distort American Politics?

A discussion with Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell discusses his new book, The Age of Entitlement.

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America, Land of Deformed Institutions

A discussion with Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin pinpoints that American alienation and anger emerges from our weak political, social, and religious institutions.

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Recent Posts

  • The Just Restraint of the Vicious

    For some contemporary criminal justice reformers, devotion to ideology leads to illogical conclusions about human nature and character change.
    by Gerard T. Mundy

  • Too Immature to be Punished?

    When I look back on my own life, I think I knew by the age of ten that one should not strangle old ladies in their beds.
    by Theodore Dalrymple

  • A Badge of Discrimination

    The British National Health Service has spoken: Wear the badge or declare yourself to be a bigot.
    by Theodore Dalrymple

  • A Judicial Takeover of Asylum Policy?

    Thuraissigiam threatens to make both the law and the facts in every petition for asylum—and there are thousands of them—a matter for the courts.
    by Thomas Ascik

  • The Environmental Uncertainty Principle

    By engaging in such flagrant projection, the Times has highlighted once again the problem with groupthink in the climate discussion.
    by Paul Schwennesen

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