The Great John Marshall, Part 3
There has been a effort in the law schools—and at times in the Supreme Court—to appropriate Marshall as a model for liberal activism.
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The Great John Marshall, Part 2
Modern accounts of the XYZ affair are bad enough, but they do not begin to capture the insulting nature of the repeated French demands.
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The Great John Marshall: Part 1
John Marshall helped secure adoption of the Constitution.
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John Marshall Refuted Claims that the Feds Have “Inherent Sovereign Authority”
Chief Justice John Marshall refuted “inherent sovereign authority” claims.
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Abolish the CDC and NIH
(Above: The CDC campus in Atlanta; Reuters) This essay was first printed in The Epoch Times on October 31, 2021;
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Why McCulloch v. Maryland—now 200 years old—is not a ‘big government’ manifesto
In the 20th century, the Supreme Court cited McCulloch to uphold unprecedented federal spending and regulatory programs. Law school constitutional law courses sometimes treat McCulloch the same way. . . . [But] this approach is the product of historical ignorance.
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Chief Justice John Marshall: Not the Big Government Guy You Might Think
Chief Justice John Marshall (in office 1801-1835) is often identified with an expansive “big government” interpretation of the Constitution. Fans
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Struggling With Nullification
Does a state have the right to nullify federal statutes the state considers unconstitutional? This depends largely on how you
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Did the Founders expect the Courts to Declare Laws Unconstitutional?
Every so often I’m asked whether the Founders anticipated judicial review. In other words, whether the Founders expected the courts
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The greatly misunderstood Chief Justice John Marshall
One of the most enduring myths in American constitutional history is that Chief Justice John Marshall was a judicial activist
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