Constitutional ethos : liberal equality for the common good / Alexander Tsesis
- Author
- Tsesis, Alexander
- Published
- New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2017.
- Physical Description
- x, 206 pages ; 25 cm
- Contents
- Part I. Sources of Constitutional Law -- 1. Principled constitutional discourse -- 2. Declaration of Independence in historical relief -- 3. Declaration of Independence and the American dream -- 4. The Preamble and General Welfare -- Part II. Ethos and Maxims -- 5. Constitutional ethos -- 6. Maxims and government power -- 7. Maxim of constitutional governance -- Part III. Interpretive Contexts and Application -- 8. Theoretical alternatives -- 9. Maxim constitutionalism today.
- Summary
- "[This book] is a groundbreaking investigation into the fundamental principles of constitutional principle, meaning, and interpretation. It explores the core purposes of American representative democracy in light of historical sources, recent precedents, and contemporary debates. Alexander Tsesis argues that a central norm of U.S. law can be derived from the Declaration of Independence and Preamble. This book develops a theory of constitutional law structured on the public duty to protect individual rights for the general welfare. The maxim of constitutional governance synthesizes the protection of individual and public rights. … A pluralistic system must respect human dignity and govern for the betterment of the body politic. Those mandates set the terms for exercising legitimate power at the federal, state, and local levels to protect individual rights to achieve the common good of civil society. Tsesis demonstrates that ethos is binding on the conduct of all three branches of government and their officeholders. His argument challenges the more common U.S. perspective among academics and judges, who typically discount the existence of any objective constitutional value, regarding the document as a construct of social norms. To the contrary, Tsesis shows that the people established the terms of the nation's founding documents to protect universal, unalienable rights. … Many scholars with leanings in legal realism and process theory believe the authority of government is a social construct created by popular majorities; Tsesis convincingly demonstrates, to the contrary, that even those laws enacted by popular majorities are not authoritative unless they accord with a central maxim of constitutionalism, which is the protection of individual rights for the common good." -- Publisher's website.
- Subject(s)
- ISBN
- 9780199359844 (hardcover : alk. paper)
0199359849 (hardcover : alk. paper)
9780199359868 (epub)
0199359865 - Bibliography Note
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 185-199) and index.
- Source of Acquisition
- Purchased with funds from the James F. Robb Fund; 2017
- Endowment Note
- James F. Robb Fund
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