The famous case of New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) involved an advertisement, written by civil rights advocates in Montgomery, Alabama and published by the New York Times, criticizing the Montgomery police department for its handling of civil rights issues. The advertisement did not mention Montgomery’s police commissioner, Lester Bruce (L.B.) Sullivan. Nevertheless, Sullivan rightly […]
On Madison’s Majoritarianism
As Madison argued both in 1833 and in 1787-88, majority rule reflects the best version of democratic governance given the limitations of human nature and our constitutional arrangements. We tend to think of James Madison as the founder who inspired our understanding of the complex relationship between majority rule and minority rights. We attribute to […]
