In their program “A Decade of Study of the Constitution,” Robert A. Goldwin and his collaborators at the American Enterprise Institute have consistently published the most readable and stimulating discussions of contemporary constitutional issues to have appeared in America. The virtues of previous AEI books such as How Democratic is the Constitution? are embodied, on...
William J. Brennan, Jr., has retired from the Supreme Court. In three decades on the nation’s highest court Brennan did more, perhaps, than any other American politician except for Lyndon Johnson to promote the agenda of the liberal left: the antiwhite racism of the “Jim Snow” system, radical feminism, the reduction of the authority of...
Terry Eastland, formerly of the Reagan Justice Department, has written a learned book explaining that, according to the Constitution, embarrassing crimes in an administration can only be investigated by prosecutors on a leash held by the President whom those crimes embarrass. Eastland’s target is Title VI of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, which...
Two of the most vilified judges in US history have probably been Judge Robert H. Bork and Chief Justice Roger Taney. Both gained notoriety early in their appointments by demonstrating their willingness to fire opponents of a domineering President’s policy (Taney, when in the Jackson administration, fired directors of the Bank of the United States...
The evident purpose of Taming the Prince is to provide a respectable philosophical pedigree for the usurpations and abuses of power by American Presidents since FDR. (Professor Mansfield dedicates the book to his father, “constant advocate of a strong presidency from Franklin Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan.”) Where conservatives such as Corwin, Kendall, Burnham, and Samuel...