Obergefell and the New Nullification
Perhaps we should add this affirmation to the orientation session for federal judges: The Supremacy Clause means the Constitution and laws arising under it outrank their state counterparts. It does not mean the judiciary is supreme over the coordinate national branches of government. Judge David Bunning of the Eastern District of Kentucky did not quite assert the latter in ruling this week, correctly, that an elected county clerk cannot exempt herself from a decision, however errant, of the Supreme Court. He flirted with it, though: “Our form of government will not survive," he wrote, "unless we, as a society, agree to respect…
Resistance Yes, Nullification No
This week, I’m drumming my ConLaw students through the nullification debates. Also, the local newspaperman decided that the Greves are probably entitled to some paper(s), though not necessarily the one(s) they ordered. Though probably unrelated, the events invite reflection. Trust me: there’s a point.
“The People Themselves” and the Beauty of a Well-Constructed System:James Madison, the Crisis of 1798, and Constitutional Safeguards
In response to: Sound the Alarm to the People: James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and the Principles of 1798
Colleen Sheehan is one of our best students of James Madison. Over a span of years, she has produced a series of significant and insightful articles and book chapters that treat the Virginian’s political thought with a special emphasis on his conception of the role of public opinion in politics. In 2009 she drew together much of her previous scholarship in her book, James Madison and the Spirit of Republican Self-Government. [1] With the present essay, which builds on and draws from her book, Sheehan probes further the question of the proper role for state legislatures and the people themselves…
More Responses
I am pleased to participate in this Law and Liberty forum and to comment on Colleen Sheehan’s “Sounding the Alarm to the People.” In my view Sheehan’s characterization of Madison is right on the mark. In particular I agree with her: 1) that Madison recognized the federal government might sometimes exercise power dangerously, in ways…
Sound the Alarm to the People: James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and the Principles of 1798
In the pages of The Federalist, Publius reassured not only his contemporaries but future generations of Americans, that if there be times in the life of our republic in which one or more branches of the national government should shamelessly exercise power beyond that prescribed by the Constitution, the state legislatures will be ever ready to mark the violation and “sound the alarm to the people.”[1] Nine years after the institution of the new government under the Constitution, in response to the notorious Alien and Sedition Acts, the state legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia did precisely this. Thomas Jefferson drafted the…
Responses
Colleen Sheehan is one of our best students of James Madison. Over a span of years, she has produced a series of significant and insightful articles and book chapters that treat the Virginian’s political thought with a special emphasis on his conception of the role of public opinion in politics. In 2009 she drew together…
I am pleased to participate in this Law and Liberty forum and to comment on Colleen Sheehan’s “Sounding the Alarm to the People.” In my view Sheehan’s characterization of Madison is right on the mark. In particular I agree with her: 1) that Madison recognized the federal government might sometimes exercise power dangerously, in ways…
