A “living” constitution. Runaway courts. Legislating from the bench. These phrases come up a lot in the national political debate. They raise the ire of many Americans. But where did the ideas come from? Why do courts play a role so alien to the one the American Founders outlined? And how did unelected judges gain so much power in our democratic republic? Political scientist and legal philosopher Bradley C. S. Watson provides the answers in this important book. To understand why courts today rule the way they do, Watson shows, you must go back more than a century. You’ll find the philosophical and historical roots of judicial activism in the late nineteenth century. Watson traces a line from social Darwinism and pragmatism, through the rise of Progressivism, to our situation today. Living Constitution, Dying Faith reveals a radical transformation of American political thought. This ebook features a new introduction examining the latest developments—which only highlight the prescience of Watson’s arguments.

At its core this book is intellectual history, tracing the work of progressive historians as they in turn wrote the history of progressivism. In Progressivism: The Strange History of a Radical Idea, Bradley C. S. Watson presents an intellectual history of American progressivism as a philosophical-political phenomenon, focusing on how and with what consequences the academic discipline of history came to accept and propagate it. This book offers a meticulously detailed historiography and critique of the insularity and biases of academic culture. It shows how the first scholarly interpreters of progressivism were, in large measure, also its intellectual architects, and later interpreters were in deep sympathy with their premises and conclusions. Too many scholarly treatments of the progressive synthesis were products of it, or at least were insufficiently mindful of two central facts: the hostility of progressive theory to the Founders’ Constitution and the tension between progressive theory and the realm of the private, including even conscience itself. The constitutional and religious dimensions of progressive thought—and, in particular, the relationship between the two—remained hidden for much of the twentieth century. This pathbreaking volume reveals how and why this scholarly obfuscation occurred. The book will interest students and scholars of American political thought, the Progressive Era, and historiography, and it will be a useful reference work for anyone in history, law, and political science.

The New Deal is often said to represent a sea change in American constitutional history, overturning a century of precedent to permit an expanded federal government, increased regulation of the economy, and eroded property protections. John Compton offers a surprising revision of this familiar narrative, showing that nineteenth-century evangelical Protestants, not New Deal reformers, paved the way for the most important constitutional developments of the twentieth century. Following the great religious revivals of the early 1800s, American evangelicals embarked on a crusade to eradicate immorality from national life by destroying the property that made it possible. Their cause represented a direct challenge to founding-era legal protections of sinful practices such as slavery, lottery gambling, and buying and selling liquor. Although evangelicals urged the judiciary to bend the rules of constitutional adjudication on behalf of moral reform, antebellum judges usually resisted their overtures. But after the Civil War, American jurists increasingly acquiesced in the destruction of property on moral grounds. In the early twentieth century, Oliver Wendell Holmes and other critics of laissez-faire constitutionalism used the judiciary’s acceptance of evangelical moral values to demonstrate that conceptions of property rights and federalism were fluid, socially constructed, and subject to modification by democratic majorities. The result was a progressive constitutional regime—rooted in evangelical Protestantism—that would hold sway for the rest of the twentieth century.

Taking Rites Seriously is about how religious beliefs and religious believers are assessed by judges and legal scholars and are sometimes mischaracterized and misunderstood by those who are critical of the influence of religion in politics or in the formation of law. Covering three general topics - reason and motive, dignity and personhood, nature and sex - philosopher and legal theorist Francis J. Beckwith carefully addresses several contentious legal and cultural questions over which religious and non-religious citizens often disagree: the rationality of religious belief, religiously motivated legislation, human dignity in bioethics, abortion and embryonic stem cell research, reproductive rights and religious liberty, evolutionary theory, and the nature of marriage. In the process, he responds to some well-known critics of public faith - including Brian Leiter, Steven Pinker, Suzanna Sherry, Ronald Dworkin, John Rawls, and Richard Dawkins - as well as to some religiously conservative critics of secularism, such as the advocates for intelligent design.

This authoritative, balanced, and accessible reference resource provides readers with a wide-ranging survey of capital punishment in America, including its history, its legal and cultural foundations, and racial and economic factors in its application. This carefully crafted primer on the history and present state of capital punishment in the United States examines cultural, political, and legal factors and developments, as well as key figures, groups, and movements, by consolidating a wide variety of material into a single, convenient source. Utilizing a rich and varied array of scholarship and primary sources, this work examines historical, political, cultural, and legal factors and developments that have shaped the contours of capital punishment throughout American history. It examines key figures and organizations who have played pivotal roles in debates over the death penalty; provides readers with illuminating coverage of laws, cases, and the people involved; discusses the experiences of death row inmates; and explores questions and controversies revolving around the socioeconomic factors that influence the use of capital punishment.

This book details the origins of American progressivism and its enduring effects on American politics and constitutionalism in the twenty-first century.

He who can change the Constitution controls the Constitution. So who does control the Constitution? The answer has always been: “the people.” The people control the Constitution via the Article V amending process outlined in the Constitution itself. Changes can only be made through Article V and its formal procedures. Article V has always provided a means of perfecting the Constitution in an explicit, democratically authentic, prudent, and deliberative manner. In addition to changing the Constitution Article V also allowed the people to perfect and preserve their Constitution at the same time. In recent years Article V has come under attack by influential legal scholars who criticize it for being too difficult, undemocratic, and too formal. Such scholars advocate for ignoring Article V in favor of elite adaptation of the Constitution or popular amendment through national referendums. In making their case, critics also assume that Article V is an unimportant and expendable part of the Constitutional structure. One notable scholar called the Constitution “imbecilic” because of Article V. This book shows that, to the contrary, Article V is a unique and powerful extension of the American tradition of written constitutionalism. It was a logical extension of American constitutional development and it was a powerful tool used by the Federalists to argue for ratification of the new Constitution. Since then it has served as a means of “perfecting” the US Constitution for over 200 years via a wide range of amendments. Contrary to contemporary critics, the historical evidence shows Article V to be a vital element in the Constitutional architecture, not an expendable or ancillary piece. This book defends Article V against critics by showing that it is neither too difficult, undemocratic, nor too formal. Furthermore, a positive case is made that Article V remains the most clear and powerful way to register the sovereign desires of the American public with regard to alterations of their fundamental law. In the end, Article V is an essential bulwark to maintaining a written Constitution that secures the rights of the people against both elites and themselves.