Constitutional Commentary articles from June 1996

Constitutional Commentary archives from June 1996

The Coase Theorem and the Eleventh Amendment.
June 22, 1996... The Supreme Court's recent Seminole decision(1) is sure to rekindle the scholarly debate about the proper interpretation of the Eleventh Amendment, adding to an already impressively voluminous literature. So far as we know, however, no one has...

The constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
June 22, 1996... The new constitution of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina is clearly a transitional document. It is, of course, the product of civil war, of "ethnic cleansing," and of (well justified) mutual mistrust. It was created as part of the peace...

The original intention of original understanding.
June 22, 1996... In 1985, amid mounting interest in the idea of a return to a "jurisprudence of original intention," the Harvard Law Review published H. Jefferson Powell's important article on "The Original Understanding of Original Intent."(1) In this acute and...

Albion Tourgee: remembering Plessy's lawyer on the 100th anniversary of Plessy v. Ferguson.
June 22, 1996... Albion Winegar Tourgee(1) (May 2, 1838-May 21, 1905) is the lawyer who brought (and lost) the landmark nineteenth century civil rights case challenging Louisiana's law segregating railroad cars. Since 1996 is the 100th anniversary of Plessy v....

The aftermath of Thornton. (U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton)
June 22, 1996... I. INTRODUCTION While term limits on state officials are quite common,(1) and raise no serious federal constitutional problems,(2) term limits on federal legislators are a different matter. In US. Term Limits v. Thornton(3) the Supreme Court,...

The Supreme Court in the Early Republic: The Chief Justiceships of John Jay and Oliver Ellsworth.
June 22, 1996... Let's be blunt. These have not been happy times for us legal romantics. What, you may well ask, is a "legal romantic?" A legal romantic, to be distinguished from a "legal nihilist,"(3) is someone who believes that there actually is some content...