The 574 federally acknowledged Native nations inhabiting what is now the United States occupy a distinctive political and legal niche within the larger society. They are recognized as the original sovereigns of North America by virtue of their continuous existences and as documented in hundreds of formal diplomatic arrangements—often termed treaties—with multiple international states including […]
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Reflections on Constitutional Reform
First things first: Let me commend those who are behind this project to rethink the adequacy of the United States Constitution and to suggest some important reforms. The most important legacy of those who framed the Constitution in 1787 is less their specific handiwork, which they recognized would have inevitable flaws and imperfections—thus the need […]
Why It is Time for Our New Constitution
As unusual as these times seem in some ways, the question of constitutional change that looms in front of us—as Americans and as contributors to this symposium—is not new. It is the same question that faced James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and the other delegates who met in Annapolis in September 1786 in a precursor to […]
John Marshall, Judicial Supremacy, and a Post-Ginsburg Court
The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has rocked the nation. It has inserted the Court, whether they like it or not, into the epicenter of the presidential election. Yet, her passing in the heat of a presidential election crystalizes a deeper problem in American politics: The Supreme Court’s outsized influence in the […]
The Free Exercise Clause, New Originalism, and Reconsideration of Employment Division v. Smith
Many were drawn to the on-line symposium The First Amendment and Religious Liberty, featuring chapters from the just published Cambridge Companion of the same name. I especially benefited from essays by Donald Drakeman and Marc DeGirolami. But missing was a chapter on the big event coming this autumn in the U.S. Supreme Court, when the […]
