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Journal articles on the topic 'American Constitution'
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1
Fröschl, Thomas. "Rezeption und Einfluss der American Constitution in den deutschen Verfassungsdebatten, 1789 bis 1949." Journal of Modern European History 6, no. 1 (March 2008): 38–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.17104/1611-8944_2008_1_38.
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Perception and Impact of the American Constitution on German Constitutional Debates, 1789–1949 This article considers the impact of the American federal constitution of 1787 on German constitutional debates. Its prime chronological focus is on the nineteenth century, as this time period has so far received relatively little systematic scholarly attention. The article examines both the political rhetoric that emphasised – and often exaggerated – American influences and the practical impact these debates had on constitutions in German-speaking countries. The article highlights the extreme complexity of such developments, with very widely different perceptions of what ‹America› stood for, being used as a reference point in constitutional debates. The direct impact of American constitutional thinking on the structure and design of constitutions in German countries remained, however, very limited. It was only after the unconditional surrender of National Socialist Germany that a constitutional order emerged in the Federal Republic in 1949 that embodied significant elements of American (or more generally ‹Western›) constitutional thought, most importantly in the provisions for ‹basic rights› and a Federal Constitutional Court in the West German Basic Law.
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Tarr, G. Alan. "Civil Liberties Under State Constitutions." Political Science Teacher 1, no. 4 (1988): 8–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0896082800000362.
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Ask most political scientists about constitutional law, and they will tell you about the Federal Constitution and its interpretation by the U.S. Supreme Court. Examine a text on American constitutional law, and you will likely find the same tendency to equate constitutional law with the U.S. Constitution. Even the recent campaign for constitutional literacy during the Bicentennial of the Constitution altogether ignored the most obvious gap in Americans' constitutional knowledge—namely, the virtually total ignorance about state constitutions.This inattention to state constitutions and state constitutionalism is unfortunate, because state constitutions are assuming an increasing importance in American politics. They have served as the incubators for institutional innovations that are now receiving national attention. President Reagan's proposals for a balanced budget amendment and for an item veto both had their origins in state charters. Moreover, because most state constitutions can be amended relatively easily, they have provided an alternative avenue by which groups that are blocked in the legislative process can pursue political change. California's Proposition 13 is a case in point. Finally, state constitutions have furnished the basis for probably the most significant development in civil liberties law over the past two decades, namely, the rediscovery of state bills of rights as independent protections for civil liberties.
3
Graber, Mark A. "Why Interpret? Political Justification and American Constitutionalism." Review of Politics 56, no. 3 (1994): 415–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0034670500018908.
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This article offers a new understanding of political justification and American constitutionalism. Previous scholarship relies on philosophical justifications of constitutionalism which regard the American Constitution as the blueprint of the good society. Such claims fail to explain why persons should interpret a constitution that does not conform to their conception of political justice. Scholars could offer better reasons for interpreting an imperfect constitution if they placed greater emphasis on two other models of political justification. Institutional justifications of constitutionalism regard Constitutions as standard operating procedures for allocating the resources available for achieving the good society. Social justifications of constitutionalism regard constitutions as compromises among people of fundamentally different views. By combining philosophical, institutional and social perspectives, scholars might strengthen the case for constitutional obedience and provide better foundations for a theory of constitutional interpretation.
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Brown, Adam R., and Jeremy C. Pope. "Measuring and Manipulating Constitutional Evaluations in the States: Legitimacy Versus Veneration." American Politics Research 47, no. 5 (June 4, 2018): 1135–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1532673x18776626.
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American civil religion places the U.S. Constitution on a pedestal. Although this veneration is well-documented, it is unclear where it originates and why other constitutions do not attract the same reverence. We develop a measure of constitutional respect and conduct a randomized survey experiment testing whether new information can change respondents’ evaluations of their state or national constitutions. We find that people do respond to new information about state constitutions, but not to information about the national document, suggesting that Americans view the U.S. Constitution with the sort of veneration and reverence James Madison advocated, while viewing their state constitutions through a more Jeffersonian lens of legitimacy, one that favors continually revising these constitutions to meet the living generation’s needs.
5
Hammons, Christopher W. "Was James Madison Wrong? Rethinking the American Preference for Short, Framework-Oriented Constitutions." American Political Science Review 93, no. 4 (December 1999): 837–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2586116.
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American constitutional thought has long held that short, framework-oriented constitutions last longer than lengthy, statute-oriented constitutions. The longevity of the U.S. Constitution contributes heavily to this assumption. Not surprisingly, political scientists criticize state constitutions for their greater length and tendency to address issues better dealt with through ordinary statute law. These “defects” are frequently cited as responsible for the shorter lifespan of state constitutions. An examination of the 145 constitutions used by the American states since 1776, however, reveals a relationship among content, length, and durability that refutes the assumption that the design of the national constitution is necessarily superior. To the contrary, the analysis here reveals that longer and more detailed design of state constitutions actually enhances rather than reduces their longevity.
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Reck, Andrew J. "The Philosophical Background of the American Constitution(s)." Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 19 (March 1985): 273–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s135824610000463x.
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The Constitution of the United States was constructed by men influenced by fundamental ideas of what a republic should be. These ideas hark back to the ancient philosophers and historians, and were further articulated and developed in modern times. From time to time scholars have sought to collect and reprint selections from the classical, biblical, and modern sources upon which the Founding Fathers fed. Remarkably, however, the best anthology of these sources to understand the republican idea that undergirds the Federal Constitution was prepared on the eve of the Constitutional Convention by John Adams, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, then in London as American envoy to Great Britain and eventually the second President of the United States. I refer to Adams' A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, against the attack of M. Turgot, in his letter to Dr. Price, 22 March, 1778.
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Reck, Andrew J. "The Philosophical Background of the American Constitution(s)." Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 19 (March 1985): 273–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0957042x00004636.
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The Constitution of the United States was constructed by men influenced by fundamental ideas of what a republic should be. These ideas hark back to the ancient philosophers and historians, and were further articulated and developed in modern times. From time to time scholars have sought to collect and reprint selections from the classical, biblical, and modern sources upon which the Founding Fathers fed. Remarkably, however, the best anthology of these sources to understand the republican idea that undergirds the Federal Constitution was prepared on the eve of the Constitutional Convention by John Adams, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, then in London as American envoy to Great Britain and eventually the second President of the United States. I refer to Adams' A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, against the attack of M. Turgot, in his letter to Dr. Price, 22 March, 1778.
8
Osuchowska, Marta, and Aleksandra Syryt. "Konstytucyjne podstawy wolności religijnej w wybranych państwach Europy i Ameryki Łacińskiej." Polski Przegląd Stosunków Miedzynarodowych, no. 5 (May 3, 2018): 89. http://dx.doi.org/10.21697/ppsm.2015.05.04.
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The constitutional basis for religious freedom in selected countries in Europe and Latin AmericaReligion helps man keep his own identity. It enables him to participate in a common heritage. The study provides the constitutional basis for religious freedom in the individual dimension in selected countries in Europe and Latin America. The authors discuss the provisions on religious freedom enshrined in the constitutions of Italy, Spain and Portugal, as well as Argentina, Chile and Colombia.The analysis leads to the conclusion that religious freedom is a human right protected both in the constitutions of European countries as well as in the constitutions of Latin American countries.The inclusion of the provisions on religious freedom in the individual dimension in the constitutions is due to certain similarities of the system of European and Latin American. Common features of both systems is that Europe and Latin America belong to the so-called Western civilization. The legal systems of Latin American countries formed primarily on the basis of Roman law.Although the wording of the provisions on religious freedom in the individual dimension in the constitutions of Latin American countries is similar to the editorial rules of the constitution states of Europe, in practice there are other ways to implement this freedom and guarantees its protection.
9
Lewis, Andrew R., William D. Blake, Stephen T. Mockabee, and Amanda Friesen. "American Constitutional Faith and the Politics of Hermeneutics." Politics and Religion 13, no. 1 (July 16, 2019): 57–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s175504831900021x.
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AbstractAs more debates in American politics become constitutional questions, effective citizens must engage in constitutional interpretation. While most Americans venerate the Constitution as a part of a national, civil religion, levels of constitutional knowledge are also very low. In this paper, we analyze how ordinary Americans approach the task of constitutional interpretation. An analysis of two cross-sectional surveys indicates constitutional hermeneutics are a product of political factors, religious affiliation, and biblical interpretive preferences. We also present the results of a survey experiment where the manipulation of a clergy's interpretation of a biblical passage affects how respondents interpret both scripture and the Constitution, providing a potential causal mechanism for learning how to engage in hermeneutics.
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Hulsebosch, Daniel J. "The Ancient Constitution and the Expanding Empire: Sir Edward Coke's British Jurisprudence." Law and History Review 21, no. 3 (2003): 439–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3595117.
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One of the great, unrecognized ironies in Anglo-American constitutional history is that Sir Edward Coke, the seventeenth-century mythologist of the “ancient constitution” and the English jurist most celebrated in early America, did not believe that subjects enjoyed the common law and many related rights of Englishmen while overseas. “The common law,” Coke declared in Parliament in 1628, “meddles with nothing that is done beyond the seas.” The ancient constitution was an English constitution and, though non-English subjects of the English king could enjoy its liberties and privileges while in England, it did not apply to anyone outside that realm. The jurisprudence that gave intellectual shape to colonial resistance before, and to notions of the rule of law after, the American Revolution was not intended by its primary author to benefit Americans. Whether or not the ancient constitution existed time out of mind, it did not extend to land out of sight.
11
BASSOK, OR. "Interpretative theories as roadmaps to constitutional identity: The case of the United States." Global Constitutionalism 4, no. 3 (October 26, 2015): 289–327. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s2045381715000167.
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AbstractAs long as the American Constitution serves as the focal point of American identity, many constitutional interpretative theories also serve as roadmaps to various visions of American constitutional identity. Using the debate over the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, I expose the identity dimension of various interpretative theories and analyse the differences between the roadmaps offered by them. I argue that according to each of these roadmaps, courts’ authority to review legislation is required in order to protect a certain vision of American constitutional identity even at the price of thwarting Americans’ freedom to pursue their current desires. The conventional framing of interpretative theories as merely techniques to decipher the constitutional text or justifications for the Supreme Court’s countermajoritarian authority to review legislation and the disregard of their identity function is perplexing in view of the centrality of the Constitution to American national identity. I argue that this conventional framing is a result of the current understanding of American constitutional identity in terms of neutrality toward the question of the good. This reading of the Constitution as lacking any form of ideology at its core makes majority preferences the best take of current American identity, leaving constitutional theorists with the mission to justify the Court’s authority to diverge from majority preferences.
12
Kidd, Colin. "THE GRAIL OF ORIGINAL MEANING: USES OF THE PAST IN AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL THEORYProthero Lecture." Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 26 (September 29, 2016): 175–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0080440116000104.
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ABSTRACTOriginalist jurisprudence, which enjoins a faithful adherence to the values enshrined in the late eighteenth-century Constitution, has become a prominent feature of contemporary American conservatism. Recovering the original meaning of the Constitution is far from straightforward, and raises major issues of historical interpretation. How far do the assumed historical underpinnings of originalist interpretation mesh with the findings of academic historians? To what extent has the conservative invocation of the Founding Fathers obscured a lost American Enlightenment? Nor is ‘tradition’ in American Constitutional law an unproblematic matter. How far does a desire to restore the original meaning of the Constitution ignore the role of ‘stare decisis’ (precedent) in America's common law heritage? It transpires, moreover, that the various schemes of historical interpretation in American Constitutional jurisprudence do not map easily onto a simple liberal–conservative divide.
13
Falcão, Monique, and Ricardo Falbo. "LATIN AMERICAN AND BRAZILIAN CONSTITUTIONALISM: THE RIGHTS OF THE TRADITIONAL PEOPLES." PANORAMA OF BRAZILIAN LAW 4, no. 5-6 (May 26, 2018): 172–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.17768/pbl.v4i5-6.34432.
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This article presents the XXI’s constitutionalism as the doctrine of the constitutional law hich supposes to be a theoretical framework able to assure the interpretation of the political and social processes from which political constitutions emerge. Thus, the 88’s Brazilian Constitution proceeded to the recognition of the fundamental rights and norms regarding theprotection of minority rights. The purpose of this work is to investigate if this supposed innovative characteristic of the 88’s Brazilian Constitution is able or not to set historicalconstitutionalism as the continuity or maintenance of the conservative processes of the politicaland social status quo in the country. This article intends to discuss the nature of constitutional changes and the impacts of these changes on the development of constitutionalism in Brazil by analyzing the extent to which political, social, and cultural latin-american processes influenced changes in Brazilian constitutionalism.
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Falcão, Monique, and Ricardo Falbo. "LATIN AMERICAN AND BRAZILIAN CONSTITUTIONALISM: THE RIGHTS OF THE TRADITIONAL PEOPLES." PANORAMA OF BRAZILIAN LAW 4, no. 5-6 (May 26, 2018): 172–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.17768/pbl.v4i5-6.p172-196.
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This article presents the XXI’s constitutionalism as the doctrine of the constitutional law hich supposes to be a theoretical framework able to assure the interpretation of the political and social processes from which political constitutions emerge. Thus, the 88’s Brazilian Constitution proceeded to the recognition of the fundamental rights and norms regarding theprotection of minority rights. The purpose of this work is to investigate if this supposed innovative characteristic of the 88’s Brazilian Constitution is able or not to set historicalconstitutionalism as the continuity or maintenance of the conservative processes of the politicaland social status quo in the country. This article intends to discuss the nature of constitutional changes and the impacts of these changes on the development of constitutionalism in Brazil by analyzing the extent to which political, social, and cultural latin-american processes influenced changes in Brazilian constitutionalism.
15
Falcão, Monique, and Ricardo Falbo. "LATIN AMERICAN AND BRAZILIAN CONSTITUTIONALISM: THE RIGHTS OF THE TRADITIONAL PEOPLES." PANORAMA OF BRAZILIAN LAW 4, no. 5-6 (May 31, 2017): 172–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.17768/pbl.y4.n5-6.p172-196.
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This article presents the XXI’s constitutionalism as the doctrine of the constitutional law hich supposes to be a theoretical framework able to assure the interpretation of the political and social processes from which political constitutions emerge. Thus, the 88’s Brazilian Constitution proceeded to the recognition of the fundamental rights and norms regarding theprotection of minority rights. The purpose of this work is to investigate if this supposed innovative characteristic of the 88’s Brazilian Constitution is able or not to set historicalconstitutionalism as the continuity or maintenance of the conservative processes of the politicaland social status quo in the country. This article intends to discuss the nature of constitutional changes and the impacts of these changes on the development of constitutionalism in Brazil by analyzing the extent to which political, social, and cultural latin-american processes influenced changes in Brazilian constitutionalism.
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Falcão, Monique, and Ricardo Falbo. "LATIN AMERICAN AND BRAZILIAN CONSTITUTIONALISM: THE RIGHTS OF THE TRADITIONAL PEOPLES." PANORAMA OF BRAZILIAN LAW 4, no. 5-6 (May 26, 2018): 172–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.17768/pbl.y4n5-6.p172-196.
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This article presents the XXI’s constitutionalism as the doctrine of the constitutional law hich supposes to be a theoretical framework able to assure the interpretation of the political and social processes from which political constitutions emerge. Thus, the 88’s Brazilian Constitution proceeded to the recognition of the fundamental rights and norms regarding theprotection of minority rights. The purpose of this work is to investigate if this supposed innovative characteristic of the 88’s Brazilian Constitution is able or not to set historicalconstitutionalism as the continuity or maintenance of the conservative processes of the politicaland social status quo in the country. This article intends to discuss the nature of constitutional changes and the impacts of these changes on the development of constitutionalism in Brazil by analyzing the extent to which political, social, and cultural latin-american processes influenced changes in Brazilian constitutionalism.
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Lyons, David. "Constitutional Interpretation and Original Meaning." Social Philosophy and Policy 4, no. 1 (1986): 75–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0265052500000443.
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I. CONSTITUTIONAL ORIGINALISMBy “originalism” I mean the familiar approach to constitutional adjudication that accords binding authority to the text of the Constitution or the intentions of its adopters. At least since Marbury, in which Chief Justice Marshall emphasized the significance of our Constitution's being a written document, originalism in one form or another has been a major theme in the American constitutional tradition.
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MARTÍNEZ CUEVAS, MARÍA DOLORES. "THE DEFENCE OF THE DEMOCRATIC CONSTITUTION IN EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES: THE LAW OF EXCEPTION IN COMPARATIVE LAW AND IN SPANISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY." Spanish Journal of Legislative Studies, no. 3 (December 1, 2019): 1–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.21134/sjls.vi3.1394.
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Abstract: In this paper we examine the appropriateness and significance of the law of exception in the Spanish constitutional order. For this, we have examined the models of Comparative Law that Spain has followed to restore its disturbed constitutional order. Basically, historically, concern arose at the time of North American and French Revolutions of how to incorporate into the Constitution the institutions related to their protection. British singularity was also manifested in the way of understanding and including specific protection for the defence of the Constitution and the law of exception, with institutions such as martial law or habeas corpus. The suspension of habeas corpus as an extraordinary instrument of protection of the state organization was considered in the American Constitution of 1787, and is thought of as a precedent of Article 55.1 of the current Spanish Constitution of 1978. During the period between 1812 and 1869, the law of exception contemplated in Spanish Historical Constitutions covers only the suspension of guarantees. The republican Constitution of 1931 conserved the outline of the Constitution of 1869, with certain relevant alterations. The most significant normative instruments of this legislation were the Law of Defence of the Republic and the Law of Public Order of 1933. After the publication of this last Law, it became the extraordinary norm that has most deeply and habitually been put into practice, since Spain has experienced practically a permanent situation of "constitutional abnormality". This highlights the fact that a Law of Public Order for the defence of the constitutional regime established by the Second Republic could be transferred in many of its precepts, with very similar contents to the Francoist Law of Public Order that was able to remain in force until much later, being finally repealed by the Organic Law of LO 1/1992, of Protection of Citizen Safety.
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Glass, Maeve Herbert. "Bringing Back the States: A Congressional Perspective on the Fall of Slavery in America." Law & Social Inquiry 39, no. 04 (2014): 1028–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/lsi.12111.
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In the aftermath of America's Civil War, national lawmakers who chronicled the fall of slavery described the North as a terrain of states whose representatives assembled in Congress, as evidenced in Henry Wilson's The Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America (1872–77) and Alexander Stephens's A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States (1868–70). Beginning in the early 1900s, scholars who helped establish the field of American constitutional history redescribed the national government as the voice of the Northern people and the foe of the states, as evidenced in Henry Wilson's The Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America (1872–1877) and Alexander Stephens's A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States (1868–1870), a first generation of scholars writing during the Progressive Era redescribed the national government as the voice of the Northern people and the foe of the states, as evidenced in William A. Dunning's Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction (1898), John W. Burgess's The Civil War and the Constitution (1901–1906), and James G. Randall's Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln (1926). Although a second generation of scholars uncovered traces of the lawmakers' perspective of states, new efforts in the wake of the civil rights movement to understand the internal workings of political parties and the contributions of ordinary Americans kept the study of national lawmakers and their states on the margins of inquiry, as evidenced in leading revisionist histories of Reconstruction, including Harold Hyman's A More Perfect Union: The Impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on the Constitution (1973), Michael Les Benedict's A Compromise of Principle: Congressional Republicans and Reconstruction, 1863–1869 (1974a), and Eric Foner's Reconstruction: An Unfinished Revolution (1988). Today, the terrain of Northern states remains in the backdrop, as illustrated in recent studies featuring the wartime national government, including James Oakes's Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861–1865 (2012) and Mark E. Neely, Jr.'s Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation: Constitutional Conflict in the American Civil War (2011), as well as studies of the mechanisms of constitutional change during Reconstruction, including relevant sections of Bruce Ackerman's We the People II: Transformations (1998) and Akhil Reed Amar's America's Constitution: A Biography (2005). This review essay argues that incorporating the states back into this century‐old framework will open new lines of inquiry and provide a more complete account of federalism's role in the fall of slavery. In particular, a return to the archives suggests that in the uncertain context of mid‐nineteenth‐century America, slavery's leading opponents in Congress saw the Constitution's federal logic not simply as an obstacle, but as a crucial tool with which to mobilize collective action and accommodate wartime opposition at a time when no one could say for sure what would remain of the United States.
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Benewick, Robert. "Towards a Developmental Theory of Constitutionalism: The Chinese Case." Government and Opposition 33, no. 4 (October 1998): 442–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-7053.1998.tb00461.x.
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CONSTITUTIONS, CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM AND CONSTITUTIONAL conflict are once again commanding attention. The celebrations of the bicentennial of the American constitution, the implementation of constitutional reform in Canada, the Labour government's programme for constitutional change in the United Kingdom, the seemingly intractable conflict in Northern Ireland, and transfers of sovereignty to the European Union from its constituent states, testify to this. Equally, if not more challenging, have been the upheavals in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union and its reconstituted states, the ‘third’ wave of democratization across the developing world, the experiment in participatory constitutionalism in South Africa and the return of Hong Kong to China. Of the 179 countries that elect their governments out of a total of 192 countries in the world, 176 have codified constitutions. Constitutions, however, that are not fully mature or operative and are not based on the principles or drafted with the advice of those nations that have developed and entrenched their constitutions tend to be disregarded, or even dismissed. Moreover, writing a constitution is one exercise, implementing, and interpreting it is a far more complex and delicate undertaking. So how are social scientists to evaluate the process?
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Pankov, A. N. "CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES AND PECULIARITGIES OF THE 1987 CONSTITUTION." MGIMO Review of International Relations, no. 4(31) (August 28, 2013): 275–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.24833/2071-8160-2013-4-31-275-281.
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The article analyzes the stages of constitutional development of the Philippines, the principles and characteristics of the various constitutional acts adopted in the American colonial period and after the country's legal independence. Particular attention is paid to the principles and the specific characteristics of the current constitution of 1987, as well as the constitution of 1935, which was the first basic law, which laid the foundations of western constitutional model and the basic principles characteristic of the constitutions of democratic countries, including progressive for that time legal status of the individual, based on the "Bill of Rights" and directly borrowed from the American constitutional system. The question of the national state of one of the countries in South-East Asia is also analyzed which is of considerable scientific interest in terms of the perception of the Western model of democracy and attempts at planting on alien for these models of socio-economic and political framework. The author mentions how, after the provision of legal independence from the U.S. in 1946, the Philippines went the way of the serious distortion of the principles of "Western democracy". There was a wide gap between the formal democratic constitutional institutions of the Western model and the actual breaking of on the basis of eastern states with traditionally immature social structure, backward productive forces. The author shows that the U.S. attempts to impose its former colony model of American state and legal institutions that would facilitate the establishment of the South- East Asia "window of Western democracy", and could serve as a role model for the layout of other countries, not only in South-East Asia but also in Africa and Latin America, suffered a fiasco.
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Martínez Dalmau, Rubén. "Democratic Constitutionalism and Constitutional Innovation in Ecuador." Latin American Perspectives 43, no. 1 (March 4, 2015): 158–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0094582x15571277.
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Since the renewal of constituent power in the 1991 Colombian constitution, various democratic constitutions in Latin American countries have undertaken important structural changes in both the organization of public powers, the democratic legitimacy of power, and the constitutional reform of rights. Among these new constitutional texts in Latin America, the 2008 Ecuadorean constitution, with sumak kawsay (living well) as its axiological basis, stands out for its originality and theoretical advances as the first case of transitional constitutionalism. All these constitutions, however, are faced with an enforcement problem that hinders their operation as instruments of social transformation. Desde la renovación del poder constituyente en la Constitución colombiana de 1991, varias constituciones democráticas en los países de América Latina han llevado a cabo importantes cambios estructurales tanto en la organización de los poderes públicos, la legitimidad democrática del poder, y la regeneración constitucional de los derechos. Entre estos nuevos textos constitucionales en América Latina, la constitución de Ecuador 2008, con el sumak kawsay (buen vivir) como su base axiológica, destaca por su originalidad y avances teóricos como el primer caso de constitucionalismo de transición. Todas estas constituciones, sin embargo, se enfrentan a un problema de aplicación que dificulta su funcionamiento como instrumentos de transformación social.
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Gageler, Stephen. "James Bryce and the Australian Constitution." Federal Law Review 43, no. 2 (June 2015): 177–200. http://dx.doi.org/10.22145/flr.43.2.1.
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James Bryce was a contemporary of Albert Venn Dicey. Bryce published in 1888 The American Commonwealth. Its detailed description of the practical operation of the United States Constitution was influential in the framing of the Australian Constitution in the 1890s. The project of this article is to shed light on that influence. The article compares and contrasts the views of Bryce and of Dicey; Bryce's views, unlike those of Dicey, having been largely unexplored in contemporary analyses of our constitutional development. It examines the importance of Bryce's views on two particular constitutional mechanisms – responsible government and judicial review – to the development of our constitutional structure. The ongoing theoretical implications of The American Commonwealth for Australian constitutional law remain to be pondered.
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Rayment-Law, Eric. "The American Judiciary Through the Lens of The Federalist Papers." Agora: Political Science Undergraduate Journal 1 (March 27, 2011): 10–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.29173/agora10084.
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The manner in which a Supreme Court justice ought to rule in any given case before him or her is a controversial topic in America, with a number of American lawmakers feeling that each justice should exercise “judicial restraint.” Those who feel this way often subscribe to the interpretive strategies of strict construction or originalism, which both cast judges as activists who have a political agenda, imposing it on America while ignoring the Constitution. As a remedy to their grievances, constructionists propose that the constitutional text should be rigorously adhered to while constitutional rights should be narrowly defined. Similarly, originalists propose that the Justices of the American Supreme Court interpret the law according to the intentions of the founding generation. This paper assesses the validity of these interpretive strategies by entertaining the originalist argument (albeit modified) and deferring judgment in this matter to The Federalist number seventy-eight and number ten. Upon analysis of these American founding documents, it is found that the intent of the founding generation to indeed create a judiciary that adheres to the parameters set by the Constitution, but also one that possesses room to incorporate their own judicial philosophies into their legal interpretations as opposed to one that exercises strict judicial restraint.
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Lewis, John David. "CONSTITUTION AND FUNDAMENTAL LAW: THE LESSON OF CLASSICAL ATHENS." Social Philosophy and Policy 28, no. 1 (November 30, 2010): 25–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s026505251000004x.
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AbstractThe question of what constitutions should do is deeply connected to what constitutions are. In the American founding conception, a constitution was a fundamental law, hierarchically superior to the decisions of the legislature, and intended to act as a restraint on legislative action. Despite the massive gulf between the ancient Greeks and the Americans, classical Athens offers an important lesson about how the failure to recognize fundamental laws can lead to catastrophic consequences. The evidence suggests that the Athenians understood the need for conceptual, procedural, and institutional distinctions between the fundamental laws and the more specific decrees of the governing institutions. The Athenian and American experiences also suggest that certain philosophical positions conditioned their understanding of their fundamental laws, and guided the practices that followed from that understanding.
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Ray, Clyde. "John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, and the Construction of Constitutional Legitimacy." Law, Culture and the Humanities 15, no. 1 (May 27, 2016): 205–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1743872116650867.
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This study considers Chief Justice John Marshall’s famous opinion in Marbury v. Madison (1803) as a vehicle for investigating contemporary interpretations of both John Marshall and the concept of constitutional legitimacy. In it, I examine how Marshall’s opinion located legitimacy in several aspects of the Constitution, including its protection of rights, its embodiment of the consent of the governed, and its ability to organize and direct national politics. Thus, I suggest that Marshall offers a more comprehensive theory of constitutional legitimacy than many recent conceptualizations. Yet more than simply uniting existing approaches to constitutional legitimacy, I demonstrate that Marbury offers a unique theory of the Constitution’s moral legitimacy as well. This analysis of Marbury invites a new appraisal of Marshall as not only a legal and political thinker, but also a constitutional theorist with a distinctive understanding of the American Constitution and its role in the early years of the republic.
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Adkison, Danny M., and Lisa McNair Palmer. "American Government Textbooks and The Federalist Papers." Political Science Teacher 1, no. 1 (1988): 1–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0896082800000015.
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It seems appropriate in this bicentennial year to examine the treatment introductory American government textbooks give the U.S. Constitution. Nearly every text devotes a chapter (typically, the second) to the events leading up to, and the writing of, the Constitution. But what of the political theory on which the Constitution is based? The Constitution, by itself, is too brief and devoid of theory to provide students with an overall assessment of that document. The source that is often relied upon by constitutional scholars to provide that theory is The Federalist Papers. It is the textbooks' treatment of these essays that we will explore here.The Federalist Papers were 85 newspaper editorials written by Hamilton, Madison, and jay, under the pseudonym Publius, in support of ratification of the proposed Constitution. The first essay was published October 27, 1787, and when the last essay was published, the authors had written 175,000 words. This was an average of 1,000 words a day, and was about 35 times the length of the Constitution itself.Hamilton initiated the project in reaction to another set of pseudonymous literature published in New York. New York support of the Constitution was essential, and it was doubtful that the state would ratify. As the seat of the central government, New York was in a pivotal position on the eastern seaboard. It had a lively commerce, and thus was not eager for change. Governor George Clinton staunchly opposed ratification. New York had not signed the Constitution because all of its delegates, except Hamilton, had left in protest and no one signatory was authorized to approve the document for the state.
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Kalscheur, Gregory A. "Christian Scripture and American Scripture: An Instructive Analogy?" Journal of Law and Religion 21, no. 1 (2006): 101–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0748081400002836.
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As a Jesuit priest whose ministry includes the teaching of constitutional law, I regularly struggle with the task of interpreting two foundational normative texts: the Bible and the U.S. Constitution. The Bible plays a central normative role in the life of the Church, while the Constitution provides a normative framework for American law and politics. These texts ground the ongoing lives of both the Church and the American political community. Both of these textually constituted communities face the challenge of appropriating for contemporary experience a normative text produced in a significantly different historical context. But can American constitutional lawyers learn anything from the ways in which the Bible has been interpreted within the life of the Church?Jaroslav Pelikan, eminent historian of the Church's doctrinal tradition and Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale, believes that those engaged in the enterprise of constitutional interpretation can indeed learn something from the history of biblical interpretation. Drawing on a life-long “study of the twenty centuries of interpreting Christian Scriptures,” Pelikan offers his new book,Interpreting the Bible and the Constitution, in the hope that it “may be of some help and illumination … to those who stand in the tradition of the two centuries of interpreting American Scripture.” (37)
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Pablo Contreras and Domingo Lovera. "A constitued constituent process? Chile’s failed attempt to replace Pinochet’s constitution (2013-2019)." Revista de Estudos Constitucionais, Hermenêutica e Teoria do Direito 13, no. 3 (May 24, 2022): 297–314. http://dx.doi.org/10.4013/rechtd.2021.133.03.
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Chile’s 1980 constitution was forcibly imposed by a bloody dictatorship. Its original sin, however, was not the only democratic fault. The rules or constitutional locks were designed to have a protected democracy that limited the exercise of popular sovereignty. Until today, Chile is the only Latin American democracy that has not yet replaced the substantive normative grounds upon which the dictatorship cemented its power. The paper examines how the theory of constituted constituent power may have ambivalent results, by taking Chile’s case study. In particular, it assess the attempt of former President Bachelet to replace the Constitution under the current rules. Although such project initially had the potential to truly transform Chile’s constitutio
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Zuckert, Michael. "NATURAL RIGHTS AND IMPERIAL CONSTITUTIONALISM: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN AMALGAM." Social Philosophy and Policy 22, no. 1 (January 2005): 27–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0265052505041026.
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Robert Nozick worked in a Lockean tradition of political philosophy, a tradition with deep resonance in the American political culture. This paper attempts to explore the formative moments of that culture and at the same time to clarify the role of Lockean philosophy in the American Revolution. One of the currently dominant approaches to the revolution emphasizes the colonists' commitments to their rights, but identifies the relevant rights as “the rights of Englishmen,” not natural rights in the Lockean mode. This approach misses, however, the way the Americans construed their positive or constitutional rights in the light of a Lockean background theory. In a word, the Americans recreated an amalgam of traditional constitutional principles and Lockean philosophy, an amalgam that nearly guaranteed that they and the British would speak past each other. The ambiguities and uncertainties of the British constitution as extended to the colonies provided an incentive to the Americans (but not the British) to look to Locke as a guide to their rights, thereby helping win a place for Lockean theory in American political thinking.
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Posner, Richard A. "National Security and Constitutional Law. Précis: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency." Israel Law Review 42, no. 2 (2009): 217–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021223700000534.
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In my recent book Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency (2006), I argue for a way of understanding constitutional law that would enable sensible adjustments to the pressures that arise when a nation is confronted with a serious threat to the safety or other well-being of its people; and I tried to show how the method that I was advocating could be used to resolve some of the constitutional issues that have arisen in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001. The analysis is limited to American constitutional law; whether it has possible applications to the law of Israel or of any other foreign country, I leave for others to decide, though, given the audience, I drop a few hints in this Paper.The starting point of my analysis is recognition that constitutional law, at least in America (but this is even more true of what passes for “constitutional law” in Israel), is very largely the creation of judges rather than of the framers or ratifiers of formal constitutions. The United States Constitution is 222 years old (1787–2009), though the amendments are younger (but the most influential of them—the first ten—the Bill of Rights, by just a few years). Some of the provisions, in both the original Constitution and in the Bill of Rights and later amendments, are precise; but many are not, and it is the vague or open-ended ones that figure most largely in debates over the legal limits of measures to protect national security. Terms like “due process of law,” “unreasonable searches and seizures,” “freedom of speech,” and “habeas corpus” are not self-defining; nor have judges been willing to confine them to the same meaning they had for the framers or to the core meaning that they would have to be given to have any significance at all. Because American judges do not adhere strictly to precedent, the meaning impressed by judicial decisions on constitutional texts is tentative, especially when a case arises that is not within the heartland of a previous decision because of the novelty of its facts or a shift in the social or political context of the relevant issues.
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Grubb, Farley. "Testing for the Economic Impact of the U.S. Constitution: Purchasing Power Parity Across the Colonies versus Across the States, 1748–1811." Journal of Economic History 70, no. 1 (March 2010): 118–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022050710000070.
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The U.S. Constitution removed real and monetary trade barriers between the states. By contrast, these states when they were British colonies exercised considerable real and monetary sovereignty over their borders. Purchasing power parity is used to measure how much economic integration between the states was gained in the decades after the Constitution's adoption compared with what existed among the same locations during the late colonial period. Using this measure, the short-run effect of the Constitution on economic integration was minimal. This may have been because the Constitution did not eliminate all the institutional barriers to interstate trade before 1812.“No idea is more firmly planted in American history than the idea that one of the most difficult problems during the Confederation was that of barriers to trade between state and state. There had been such barriers in colonial times …”Merrill Jensen1“The ‘secret’ of American economic growth, English legal scholar Sir Henry Maine wrote in 1886, lay in ‘the [constitutional] prohibition against levying duties on commodities passing from State to State … . It secures to the producer the command of a free market over an enormous territory of vast natural wealth …’”Charles W. McCurdy2
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Pacheco Baldó, Rosa María. "American Constitution and the Spanish Constitutions of 1812 and 1978." HUMAN REVIEW. International Humanities Review / Revista Internacional de Humanidades 11, Monográfico (December 21, 2022): 1–8. http://dx.doi.org/10.37467/revhuman.v11.4219.
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This paper analyses the American Constitution of 1787 and the Spanish Constitutions of 1812 and 1978. The objective is to analyse their structures and the changes they have undergone throughout history, to find differences that can be explained by the different cultural values that these two groups normally display. As will be seen, the cultural dimension of uncertainty avoidance, amongst others, is the one that has a greater presence in this study. The conclusions drawn from this study show that cultural groups change throughout history, but the cultural roots that they inherit seem to be present through the times.
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NILSEN, HÅVARD FRIIS. "REPUBLICAN MONARCHY: THE NEO-ROMAN CONCEPT OF LIBERTY AND THE NORWEGIAN CONSTITUTION OF 1814." Modern Intellectual History 16, no. 1 (June 13, 2017): 29–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1479244317000191.
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The Norwegian Constitution of 1814 was the last in a series of European constitutions inspired by the American and French examples between 1776 and 1814 of which today the American and the Norwegian examples are the only two left. This paper revisits the debates preceding the Norwegian 17 May 1814 Constitution and argues that republican ideas of liberty as independence from arbitrary power formed the intellectual background and context of the debates. This breaks with standard narratives in Norwegian history where the constitution is described as an early example of liberalism. The republican influence forces us to revise the conventional reading of the Norwegian Constitution, and may further provide us with new keys to interpret the intellectual roots of the “Nordic model.” The author suggests that the present high levels of economic equality, egalitarianism and trust in the Scandinavian countries may have their intellectual origins in a particular “Scandinavian republicanism,” inspired by the example of the American republicans in the late eighteenth century.
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Gritsenko, Elena. "Direct Effect of the Constitution: Specific Features of the Russian Model from a Comparative Perspective." Sravnitel noe konstitucionnoe obozrenie 30, no. 5 (2021): 76–117. http://dx.doi.org/10.21128/1812-7126-2021-5-76-117.
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The differences in the interpretation of the direct effect of a constitution are mainly caused by the peculiarities of understanding the essence of the constitution and the rule of law, the relation between the national, supranational and international law in a legal system, the specifics of the perceived constitutional concept of basic rights, the limits of private autonomy and the action of constitutional rights in public and private relations. Furthermore, a model of constitutional review and the national judicial system play a key part. The American approach, based on the distinction between common law and constitutional law, creates difficulties in the constitutionalization of the common law. These problems, along with the peculiarities of American federalism, are reflected in the state action doctrine as a tool outlining the mechanisms and limits of constitutional rights and the state’s duties to protect them. However, the solution of the question about the horizontal application of the Constitution depends, rather, not on objective criteria, but the discretion of the court. A different model of the direct action of the Constitution and basic rights has been developed in the German legal system. The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany opened the way for the constitutionalization of sectoral legislation, as well as for the recognition of the mediated horizontal action of constitutional rights in private relations. Post-socialist states developing within the continental legal family, mostly without any reservations, accepted the idea of direct action of the Constitution and fundamental rights in vertical and horizontal relations. This is largely due to the socialist tradition: the Constitution is not perceived as an act addressed to the state, but is regarded as an act addressed to the whole society. In this regard, the current Russian Constitution enshrines the universal obligation for public and private actors to observe the Constitution and allows it to be applied in private relations. The principle of the direct effect requires the court to detect possible conflicts and solve them, using available constitutional means. This mechanism of courts applying the Constitution still needs fine-tuning. In this regard, the issue of ensuring that courts apply the Constitution continues to be a challenge for Russia.
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Morciego, María Soledad Racet, and María Eugenia Grau Pirez. "Marco Constitucional de Protección a los Consumidores en Cuba. Apuntes a Propósito de la Constitución de 2019." REVISTA INTERNACIONAL CONSINTER DE DIREITO 14, no. 14 (June 30, 2022): 513–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.19135/revista.consinter.00014.24.
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This article offers an assessment of the right to protection of consumers from its recognition as a fundamental right with its inclusion in the Cuban Constitution of 2019. It starts from a brief historical outline of the development of this right in the country, performs theoretical analysis about its nature, in addition to an exegetical analysis of the constitutional precept and the technical-legal configuration according to the theory of rights, as well as the legal comparison with other Latin American constitutions.
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Siburian, H. M. Sahat Radot. "Constitution Formulation and Amendment in Indonesian and American Legal System: A Comparative Study." Journal of Law and Legal Reform 3, no. 1 (January 31, 2022): 39–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.15294/jllr.v3i1.49536.
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The purpose of this study is to find out the comparison of constitutional law in Indonesia and the United States in terms of the development of the constitution and the mechanism for changing the constitution (UUD). The method used in this research is in the form of legal research. The type of research used for this approach is normative legal research. As in the United States constitution, Article V regulates how to amend the constitution. Meanwhile, in Indonesia, the mechanism for this change is regulated in Article 37 of the 1945 Constitution (UUD). The United States and Indonesia are countries that have adopted a presidential system of government with a republican form of government. In addition, the state institution authorized to make changes to the constitution of each country is the legislature. If in the United States the one who can amend the Constitution is the Congress consisting of the House of Representatives and the Senate, then in Indonesia the authority to make changes to the Constitution is the MPR, which includes the DPR and DPD. Then, the form of the constitution used by the two countries is the same as the Written Constitution. The existence of the United States Constitution is actually an effort to realize the principles stated in a Declaration of Independence (1776). The Declaration is based on French philosophical and English Enlightenment schools. The main purpose of the United States constitution is to guarantee the rights of the states.
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Ball, Milner S. "Constitution, Court, Indian Tribes." American Bar Foundation Research Journal 12, no. 1 (1987): 1–140. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-4469.1987.tb00531.x.
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We claim that the “constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof… shall be the supreme law of the land.” But we also claim to recognize the sovereignty of Native American nations, the original occupants of the land. These claims—one to jurisdictional monopoly, the other to jurisdictional multiplicity— are irreconcilable. Two hundred years have produced no resolution of the contradiction except at the expense of the tribes and the loss to non-Indians of the Indians' gift of their diflerence. This article explores the bearing of American constitutional law upon Native American tribes.
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Moseley, James D. "The Constitution of 1787, Based on Reason and Revelation." Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 30, no. 1 (2018): 145–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/jis2018301/29.
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The framers of the U.S. Constitution of 1787 understood that its principles are those of the Declaration of Independence, based upon reason and revelation, “the laws of nature and nature’s God.” Yet, following so-called progressivism at the turn of the twentieth century, the principles of the American founding were questioned by historicism and moral relativism in the social sciences and humanities, with the most egregious effects today in constitutional law. This has been called “the crisis of the West.” Some perceive that the United States lacks a strong moral foundation, and call for redrawing the Constitution. However, before doing so, we may want to better understand its founding principles. We need to turn to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, as found in reason and revelation, which support the moral order of the Constitution. John Quincy Adams and Abraham Lincoln referred to passages from the Bible to illustrate the preeminent position of the Declaration to the Constitution. And they, like the founders, believed the Constitution’s principles must be adhered to for the nation to survive.
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Ziller, Jacques. "National Constitutional Concepts in the New Constitution for Europe." European Constitutional Law Review 1, no. 2 (May 19, 2005): 247–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1574019605002476.
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Notion of constitutional concept varies over time and space. Constitution for Europe as a further step in guaranteeing rights and separating powers. Amongst others French, Italian, German and Swedish national concepts in the Treaties of the European Communities and of the European Union. Several causes for difficult tracing of national concepts in the Constitution for Europe. Convention method: instead of by diplomats and EU experts, drafting by members of Parliament and (former) members of Government. More room for national concepts. The Intergovernmental Conference: the Empire strikes back, but with mixed impact. Parallels with other constitution making procedures. Concept of constitution: structure and size no argument for denying constitutional character; Constitution octroyée v. contrat social; Franco-American revolution v. British tradition.
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Gibson, Josh. "The Chartists and the Constitution: Revisiting British Popular Constitutionalism." Journal of British Studies 56, no. 1 (January 2017): 70–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jbr.2016.121.
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AbstractDespite having a powerful influence on the historiography of radicalism and nineteenth-century politics for the past several decades, the language of the constitution has not recently received scholarly attention. In Chartist and radical historiography, the constitution is usually treated as a narrative of national political development. This article extends the horizons of Chartist constitutionalism by exploring its similarities with American constitutionalism. By doing so, it also opens up questions regarding the ideas of the movement. Like the Americans sixty years before, the Chartists were confronted by a parliament that they believed had superseded its constitutional authority. This perception was informed by a belief that the constitution rested on the authority of the fixed principles of fundamental law, which they argued placed limits beyond which Parliament had no power to reach. As a result, the Chartists imagined that the British constitution functioned like a written constitution. To support this claim, they drew on a sophisticated interpretation of English law that argued that the common law was closely related to natural law.
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Driver, Justin. "The courts, the schools, and the Constitution." Phi Delta Kappan 100, no. 3 (October 22, 2018): 14–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0031721718808258.
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Although, at one time, many observers believed that the courts and the schools should have little to do with each other, Justin Driver argues that the public school has, in recent decades, served as the single most significant site of constitutional interpretation in the nation’s history. He traces four reasons for this growing intersection between schools and the courts. First, public schools touch a larger number of Americans than any other government institution. Second, decisions related to public schools present a lens through which to view American history. Third, cases involving schools frequently highlight contentious legal doctrines. And, fourth, the Supreme Court itself has highlighted the schools’ role in how Americans understand the Constitution.
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Silverstein, Gordon. "One Constitution, Indivisible? The Insular Cases and American Constitutional Interpretation." PS: Political Science & Politics 50, no. 02 (March 31, 2017): 520–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1049096516003115.
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HARRIS, IAN. "PROFESSOR DWORKIN, THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION AND A THIRD WAY." Cambridge Law Journal 57, no. 2 (July 1998): 284–300. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0008197398000038.
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Ronald Dworkin wishes to read the UNITED States' constitution in terms of political principles, treating it as a source of law deriving from these. But the terms of the constitution, where they are not institutional, are mostly prohibitions and as such do not prescribe rights. Indeed the constitution on the whole does not prescribe rights, but instead refers to or enumerates rights which it does not prescribe. There are exceptions in the fifth and sixth Amendments, but as these explicitly prescribe rights this implies that the other constitutional terms are not prescriptive in this way. The view presented in this article, however, does not endorse the original intention thesis.There is a third way of reading the constitution. This is in terms of the most prominent though most neglected part of the text, the preamble. This approach provides a reading which is inconsistent with the original intention thesis in that the categories of the preamble are so general that they cannot be confined to purely eighteenth century meanings. The third way is also inconsistent with Dworkin's, because the constitution provides no prescriptive principles except in its preamble, and those do not correspond to the range of prescriptions Dworkin has in mind. The third way suggests we need to read the Articles and Amendments of the constitution in terms of the preamble, and to address specific issues in these terms. This reading embraces inter alia a far wider range of political concerns than Dworkin has addressed and implies a modification of the type of liberalism he has developed.
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McDowell, Gary L. "Coke, Corwin and the Constitution: The “Higher Law Background” Reconsidered." Review of Politics 55, no. 3 (1993): 393–420. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0034670500017605.
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In recent years the debate over the nature and extent of judicial power in the United States has been dominated by questions concerning moral theory, unwritten constitutions, and natural law. In a significant sense, the contemporary discussion is but the continuation of the theory of judicial review first put forth by Edward S. Corwin in 1910–1911; it was this theory that the “higher law background” of American constitutional law derived from the dicta of Sir Edward Coke's opinion in Bonham's Case (1610) that was given its most complete expression in Corwin's famous two-part article in the Harvard Law Review in 1928–29. The fact is, the influence of Coke's opinion in Bonham's Case came from within the scholarly world; its significance stems not from history but from the historians; it was largely Corwin's creation. This paper seeks to correct the record and to show the deficiencies of Corwin's understanding about the relationship of the “higher law” to the American Constitution.
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Murphy, Paul L., and David Thelen. "The Constitution and American Life." American Journal of Legal History 34, no. 1 (January 1990): 95. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/845359.
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Wunder, John R., and Leonard W. Levy. "Encyclopedia of the American Constitution." American Historical Review 92, no. 5 (December 1987): 1266. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1868618.
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Carver, Mary L. "The American Constitution and Religion." Journal of Church and State 57, no. 3 (June 30, 2015): 574–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jcs/csv045.
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Kaminski, John P., Leonard W. Levy, and Kenneth L. Karst. "Encyclopedia of the American Constitution." Journal of American History 74, no. 4 (March 1988): 1409. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1894525.
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Burger, Warren E. "Obstacles to an American constitution." Journal of Legal History 8, no. 3 (December 1987): 237–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01440368708530906.
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