Are We All Common Good Constitutionalists Now?
John Ehrett ’21 analyzes the role Vermeule’s book plays
in calling for a return to better legal reasoning. Yet, even Vermeule’s
solution may not address the root of the problem.
natural rights
A Jurisprudential Red Pill: Part I
Evelyn Blacklock examines Prof. Adrian Vermeule’s “Common Good Constitutionalism” and the alternative it offers to the status quo camps of jurisprudence.
Waiting for Dobbs
Hadley Arkes recalls that day, back in 1986, when Justice Byron White, one of the original dissenters in Roe v. Wade, startled Justice John Paul Stevens by suggesting that he too could accept Roe and a “right to abortion” in some form. Stevens seemed genuinely baffled. What White was offering was an understanding that would keep Roe v. Wade as a shell, while the substance was removed. Professor Arkes tries to reconstruct that argument here as an anticipation of what might happen if the Supreme Court seeks to take “the low door under the whole” in the Dobbs case—sustaining the law in Mississippi while affecting not to overrule Roe v. Wade.
Recovering a Conservative State Legal Theory
Jeffrey Bristol engages with Holden Tanner and Jesse Merriam about the role of historical originalism in state and federal structure. He argues that the federal constitution is unique from other nations in that it retains a long, public discourse and history that has matured with fundamental perception and that has been vital to both its conception and meaning.
Founder’s Keepers: Arkes on Mary Eberstadt’s Review of Judge Robert Conrad’s “John Fisher & Thomas More”
Prof. Hadley Arkes on a review that Mary Eberstadt wrote of Judge Conrad’s book “John Fisher & Thomas More”
And All the Students Said, “Amen”
By offering a voluntary prayer, the government introduces its students to religion in a way that is not coercive or intrusive. It is, rather, a traditional acknowledgement of religion, even if it simply constitutes a recognition of the theistic origins of our unalienable rights.
Our Divided House: A Review of Charles Kesler’s Crisis of Two Constitution
Prof. Gerard Bradley reviews “Crisis of Two Constitutions” by Charles Kesler, analyzing whether we’ve hit our Weimar moment or not.
No free exercise for Aztecs—or abortionists
Jordan Ballor presents the proper limits for religious liberty. Strong belief isn’t enough to justify actions that violate the natural law.
Churches: An Existence of Their Own or Creatures of the Sovereign?
JWI and First Liberty’s CRCD Co-hosted a webinar with Profs. Adam MacLeod and Robert Miller. They discussed the relationship of churches and the government, and whether churches have an existence of their own or if they simply exist from a grant of the government.
Judge Pryor’s Friendly Fire
Prof. Arkes defends “A Better Originalism” against Judge William Pryor’s critique.
