The United States was founded on the principle that government exists to protect the natural rights of the governed, including, especially, the natural right to liberty. The Declaration of Independence says so explicitly. The Constitution — signed 233 years ago today — is clearly an attempt to give practical expression to that principle. The Constitution...
The Constitutional Convention delegates who assembled in Philadelphia in 1787 understood that preventing bad or incompetent rulers from doing too much damage was an important part of their task.
RALEIGH — American law needs fixed rules and formal boundaries, not an ever-changing set of guidelines based on a judge’s whims. Richard Epstein, professor of law and director of the Classical Liberal Institute at New York University, explained why during a recent public presentation for the John Locke Foundation. After the speech, he shared more details with Carolina Journal Radio.
RALEIGH — Right-leaning lawyers and legal analysts agree that the courts are a vital venue for preserving constitutional rights. But they note a surprising trend of conservative support for using judicial activism to achieve that aim rather than the traditional conservative deference to state and federal legislative decisions. Supporters of judicial activism note that, in The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton envisioned an active role for judicial review.
RALEIGH — As tuition costs climb, student loan debts accumulate, and recent graduates struggle to find jobs, more people are questioning whether the American system of higher education is working as well as it could. Kenneth Starr, president of Baylor University and well-known independent counsel for federal government investigations from 1994 to 1999, visited North Carolina recently to discuss whether higher education is “working hard or hardly working.” While in Raleigh, Starr discussed higher education’s challenges during an interview with Mitch Kokai for Carolina Journal Radio.
For non-lawyers, the “Lochner” in this book’s title refers to the Supreme Court’s 1905 decision in Lochner v. New York, which author David Bernstein (of George Mason University Law School) argues has been misrepresented terribly by “progressive” intellectuals. Among lawyers, the standard view of Lochner is that it was a perverse triumph of ideological judicial activism over a statute meant to protect workers. Bernstein shows that view to be mistaken, as his subtitle — “defending individual rights against progressive reform” — indicates. Instead of being demonized, the court’s decision should be extolled for its shielding of individual liberty against authoritarianism.
David McCullough’s books are not a quick or an easy read, and The Greater Journey is no exception. The cast of characters and historical information are extensive and detailed. However, like his other books, his approach is so engaging that you do not want to put the book down. It leaves the reader wanting to know more and read more of the works by writers like Oliver Wendell Holmes, Victor Hugo, and James Fenimore Copper. I found myself longing to go to Paris and see the Louvre.
Is there a right to earn a living? Most Americans would answer, “Of course there is, but … .” Following that “but” you would get a long list of exceptions and qualifications that whittle away at the right, such as “but the individual must have a license as required by law,” “but only if he charges reasonable prices for his work or goods,” or “but he is subject to regulations that protect the public interest.” Pile on enough of those restrictions and the right dies the death of a thousand cuts. Attorney Timothy Sandefur’s book demonstrates that the right to earn a living is succumbing to that fate. The constant encroachments of statutes, regulations, and court decisions has altered the legal landscape to the point where it is more accurate to say that we may ask for permission to work and engage in commerce than that we have a right to do so.
Lochner v. New York is an often-mentioned but misunderstood 1905 Supreme Court decision that lends its name to this excellent analysis of constitutional jurisprudence by Professor Michael J. Phillips. Phillips, professor emeritus of business administration at Indiana University, has written probably the best book by a nonlawyer on any aspect of constitutional law, and the best survey of the Lochner line of cases by anyone. This book is a penetrating revisionist history of a key period in our legal history.
A distinguished panel of academic thinkers discussed academic freedom in the wake of September 11 as part of the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy’s conference in Chapel Hill Oct. 26. The conference focused on “challenges facing higher education in North Carolina.” By Jon Sanders.
