The People Themselves Popular Constitutionalism and Judicial Review

by Kramer, Larry D.

• ISBN13: 9780195306453
• ISBN10: 0195306457
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780199883448
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-12-08
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

In this groundbreaking interpretation of America's founding and of its entire system of judicial review, Larry Kramer reveals that the colonists fought for and created a very different system--and held a very different understanding of citizenship--than Americans believe to be the norm today."Popular sovereignty" was not just some historical abstraction, and the notion of "the people" was more than a flip rhetorical device invoked on the campaign trail. Questions of constitutional meaning provoked vigorous public debate and the actions of government officials were greeted withcelebratory feasts and bonfires, or riotous resistance. Americans treated the Constitution as part of the lived reality of their daily existence. Their self-sovereignty in law as much as politics was active not abstract.

Author Biography

Larry Kramer is Richard E. Lang Professor of Law and Dean of Stanford Law School. He served as a law clerk to Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., of the United States Supreme Court and taught at the law schools of the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, and New York University before moving to Stanford. He has written extensively in both academic and popular journals on topics involving the role of courts in society.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Popular Constitutionalism	3	(6)
In Substance, and in Principle, the Same as It Was Heretofore
The Customary Constitution	9	(26)
A Rule Obligatory Upon Every Department
The Origins of Judicial Review	35	(38)
The Power under the Constitution Will Always Be in the People
The Making of the Constitution	73	(20)
Courts, as Well as Other Departments, Are Bound by That Instrument
Accepting Judicial Review	93	(35)
What Every True Republican Ought to Depend On
Rejecting Judicial Supremacy	128	(17)
Notwithstanding This Abstract View
The Changing Context of Constitutional Law	145	(25)
To Preserve the Constitution, as a Perpetual Bond of Union
The Lessons of Experience	170	(37)
A Layman's Document, Not a Lawyer's Contract
The Continuing Struggle for Popular Constitutionalism	207	(20)
As an American
Popular Constitutionalism, Circa 2004	227	(22)
Epilogue
Judicial Review Without Judicial Supremacy	249	(6)
Notes	255	(84)
Index	339