Summary
Contents
Thoroughly revised and updated for this Fifth Edition, Judges on Judging offers insights into the judicial philosophies and political views of those on the bench. Broad in scope, this one-of-a-kind book features “off-the-bench” writings and speeches in which Supreme Court justices, as well as lower federal and state court judges, discuss the judicial process, constitutional interpretation, judicial federalism, and the role of the judiciary. Engaging introductory material provides students with necessary thematic and historical context making this book the perfect supplement to present a nuanced view of the judiciary. “Judges on Judging is consistently rated by my students as their favorite book in my class. No other single volume provides them with such a clear and accessible sense of what judges do, what courts do, and the way judges think about their roles and their courts.” —Douglas Edlin, Dickinson College
Our Democratic Constitution
Our Democratic Constitution
The United States is a nation built on principles of human liberty—a liberty that embraces concepts of democracy. The French political philosopher Benjamin Constant understood the connection. He distinguished between liberty as practiced by the ancient Greeks and Romans and the “liberty” of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century “moderns.”1 Writing thirty years after the French Revolution and not long after the adoption of our American Constitution, Constant said that the “liberty of the ancients” consisted of an “active and constant participation in collective power.” The ancient world, he added, believed that liberty consisted of “submitting to all ...