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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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September 3, 2013|Article V Convention, Constitutional Convention, Michael Stern, Robert Natelson

A Limited Article V Convention

by Mike Rappaport|

Readers of this blog may remember that I have argued that the Constitution allows for the states to call for a limited Article V convention and that this convention can even be limited to deciding whether to propose a specific amendment.  See also here and here.  Under this legal regime, a runaway convention would be unconstitutional.

Two interesting posts on this subject have been recently written.  First, Michael Stern, a former House of Representatives Senior Counsel, agrees that the states can apply for an Article V convention limited to deciding whether to propose a specific amendment.  Relying on scholarship from yours truly, from Robert Natelson and from himself, Stern argues that text, structure, purpose, and history support this conclusion.  Stern’s post is an excellent summary of the scholarship and itself is a form of blogging scholarship.

Second,  Robert Natelson describes three different waves of constitutional scholarship on the subject of limited conventions.  The first wave:

consisted of publications from the 1960s and 1970s, typically by liberal academics who opposed conservative efforts to trigger a convention. Examples include articles by Yale’s Charles Black, William and Mary’s William Swindler . . . and Harvard’s Lawrence Tribe.

Typically, these authors concluded that an Article V “constitutional convention” (as they called it) could not be limited to a single subject.  The mistakes these authors made can be attributed partly to the agenda-driven nature of their writings, and their failure to examine many historical sources. They seldom ventured beyond The Federalist Papers and a few pages from the transcript of the 1787 Constitutional Convention.

I would add that these authors did not engage in a careful effort to read the constitutional text. 

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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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Law & Liberty’s focus is on the classical liberal tradition of law and political thought and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law & Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

The opinions expressed on Law & Liberty are solely those of the contributors to the site and do not reflect the opinions of Liberty Fund.
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