Research Catalog

Title

Original intent and the framers of the Constitution : a disputed question / Harry V. Jaffa, with Bruce Ledewitz, Robert L. Stone, George Anastaplo ; foreword by Lewis E. Lehrman.

Author

Jaffa, Harry V.

Publication

Washington, D.C. : Regnery Gateway ; Lanham, MD : Distributed to the trade by National Book Network, c1994.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xv, 408 p.; 24 cm.

Summary

• Original Intent and the Framers of the Constitution: A Disputed Question is a unique contribution to the debate, begun by Attorney General Edwin Meese in the second Reagan administration, over the "original intentions of the Framers." Professor Jaffa agrees entirely with Meese's opinion that there is a need to confine judges to interpreting, not making law. Jaffa also agrees that original intent, rightly understood, is the only sound basis of constitutional jurisprudence. But he contends that Meese, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and Judge Robert Bork - original intent's leading conservative proponents - have misunderstood its meaning. The Framers, and Abraham Lincoln, their greatest proponent, believed that the Constitution was anchored in the principles of natural law invoked by the Declaration of Independence.^
• Rehnquist and Bork are moral relativists and legal positivists, says Professor Jaffa, who repudiate the very existence of natural law and deny that the Declaration of Independence has any role whatsoever in constitutional interpretation. Nearly all the great constitutional controversies of our time have swirled around the meaning of the "due process" and "equal protection" clauses of the 14th Amendment. Professor Jaffa contends that it is impossible to interpret the intent of the 14th Amendment without understanding the conflict between the principles and the compromises of the antebellum Constitution. This conflict came to a head in 1857 in the case of Dred Scott.^
• Professor Jaffa shows that Rehnquist, Bork, and Meese have completely misunderstood that case, attributing to "substantive due process" or "judicial usurpation" what was in fact a failure on the part of the Court to understand that in a federal territory the black man's human nature gave him constitutional standing, slavery in the states to the contrary notwithstanding. Jaffa also shows that in their determined effort to avoid recourse to the Declaration in their interpretation of Dred Scott, Rehnquist, Bork, and Meese are heirs, not of the Founding Fathers but of the father of the Confederacy, John C. Calhoun. Present-day conservative jurisprudence, in its positivist rejection of the Declaration, the Framers, and Lincoln is descended from Calhoun, not the Framers. Jaffa shows in Original Intent that this jurisprudence is no more principled than its liberal opposition; it merely seeks different results.

Subject

• Constitutional law > United States
• Constitutional history > United States

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

pt. I. Foreword: On Jaffa, Lincoln, Marshall, and Original Intent / Lewis E. Lehrman -- pt. II. What Were the "Original Intentions" of the Framers of the Constitution of the United States? -- Appendix II-A: Attorney General Meese, the Declaration, and the Constitution -- Appendix II-B: Are These Truths Now, or Have They Ever Been, Self-Evident? -- Appendix II-C: Original Intent and Justice Rehnquist / Harry V. Jaffa -- pt. III. Three Critiques. Judicial Conscience and Natural Rights: A Reply to Professor Jaffa / Bruce Ledewitz. Professor Harry V. Jaffa Divides the House: A Respectful Protest and a Defense Brief / Robert L. Stone. Seven Questions for Professor Jaffa -- Appendix III-A: The Founders of Our Founders: Jerusalem, Athens, and the American Constitution -- Appendix III-B: The Ambiguity of Justice in Plato's Republic -- Appendix III-C: Private Rights and Public Law: The Founders' Perspective / George Anastaplo -- pt. IV. Jaffa Replies to His Critics. Judicial Conscience and Natural Rights: A Reply to Professor Ledewitz / Harry V. Jaffa. "Who Killed Cock Robin?" A Retrospective on the Bork Nomination and a Reply to "Jaffa Divides the House" / Harry V. Jaffa -- Appendix IV-A: The Closing of the Conservative Mind / Harry V. Jaffa. Seven Answers for Professor Anastaplo / Harry V. Jaffa. An Epilogue to Seven Answers / Harry V. Jaffa. Professor Jaffa and That Old-Time Religion / George Anastaplo. "Our Ancient Faith," A Reply to Professor Anastaplo / Harry V. Jaffa -- pt. V. Afterword. Four Letters to Edwin Meese III.

ISBN

089526496X (acid-free paper)

LCCN

^^^93005881^

OCLC

123242826

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library