Steve Durden: I Am Textualism
Michael Ramsey
Steve Durden (Florida Coastal School of Law) has posted I Am Textualism (Cleveland State Law Review, Vol. 59, No. 431, 2011) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This essay, consisting of merely 1100 words, satirizes textualism, particularly as applied to the Constitution. Inspired by the idea of something being all things to all people in […]
Originalism on the Web
Michael Ramsey
Robert Parry: Ron Paul’s False Founding Narrative.
Barry Friedman & Daniel Deacon: The Constitutional Legitimacy of the Dormant Commerce Clause
Michael Ramsey
Barry Friedman (New York University School of Law) and Daniel Deacon have posted A Course Unbroken: The Constitutional Legitimacy of the Dormant Commerce Clause (Virginia Law Review, Vol. 97, p. 1877, 2011) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The dormant Commerce Clause, though a longstanding feature of American constitutional law, is of dubious legitimacy. Or […]
Maryland Law Review Symposium on the Thirteenth Amendment
Michael Ramsey
From the University of Maryland Law Review's most recent issue, now available on line: Symposium: The Maryland Constitutional Law Schmooze, focusing on the Thirteenth Amendment, with among other things some interesting discussion of the Thirteenth Amendment's original meaning, and a bit on originalism generally. Papers include: Foreword: Plus or Minus One: The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, Mark A. […]
Randall P. Bezanson: Whither Freedom of the Press?
Michael Ramsey
Randall P. Bezanson (University of Iowa College of Law) has posted Whither Freedom of the Press? (Iowa Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The essay is a critique of the treatment of the freedom of the press clause in the Supreme Court's opinion in Citizens United. It is a critique, also, of […]
Originalism on the Web
Michael Ramsey
A Sense of the Oregon Constitution by Bradley J. Nicholson is a treatise on the Oregon Constitution "informed by in-depth investigation of the underlying theories, sources, and original understanding of the state constitution." I've linked to various sources that use originalism to interpret state constitutions, but it would be interesting to know more systematically the […]
Eugene Volokh on Freedom of the Press
Michael Ramsey
Eugene Volokh: The Original and Traditional Meaning of "Freedom … of the Press." With a followup post: The Framers and the Difference between Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press. Both posts draw on Professor Volokh's recently published article in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review The Freedom…of the Press, from 1791 to 1868 to Now […]
Hannibal Travis: On the Original Understanding of the Crime of Genocide
Michael Ramsey
Hannibal Travis (Florida International University College of Law) has posted On the Original Understanding of the Crime of Genocide on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article is an extended exercise in "genocide originalism." To wit, some leading genocide scholars have propounded a purportedly “legal” definition that is unduly narrow. Purportedly based on the drafting […]
Originalism on the Web
Michael Ramsey
Ari Ezra Waldman: Antonin Scalia, Textualism, and What's Next for Prop 8.
Originalism on the Web
Michael Ramsey
Rob Natelson: Original intent? Understanding? Meaning?