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Bruce Ackerman offers a sweeping reinterpretation of our nation's constitutional experience and its promise for the future. Integrating themes from American history, political science, and philosophy, "We the People" confronts the past, present, and future of popular sovereignty in America. Only this distinguished scholar could present such an insightful view of the role of the Supreme Court. Rejecting arguments of judicial activists, proceduralists, and neoconservatives, Ackerman proposes a new model of judicial interpretation that would synthesize the constitutional contributions of many generations into a coherent whole. The author ranges from examining the origins of the dualist tradition in the "Federalist Papers" to reflecting upon recent, historic constitutional decisions. The latest revolutions in civil rights, and the right to privacy, are integrated into the fabric of constitutionalism. Today's Constitution can best be seen as the product of three great exercises in popular sovereignty, led by the Founding Federalists in the 1780s, the Reconstruction Republicans in the 1860s, and the New Deal Democrats in the 1930s. Ackerman examines the roles played during each of these periods by the Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court. He shows that Americans have built a distinctive type of constitutional democracy, unlike any prevailing in Europe. It is a dualist democracy, characterized by its continuing effort to distinguish between two kinds of politics: normal politics, in which organized interest groups try to influence democratically elected representatives; and constitutional politics, in which the mass of citizens mobilize to debate matters of fundamentalprinciple. Although American history is dominated by normal politics, our tradition places a higher value on mobilized efforts to gain the consent of the people to new governing principles.In a dualist democracy, the rare triumphs of constitutional politics determine the course of
List of contents
Acknowledgments PART 1: DISCOVERING THE CONSTITUTION 1. Dualist Democracy 2. The Bicentennial Myth 3. One Constitution, Three Regimes 4. The Middle Republic 5. The Modern Republic 6. The Possibility of Interpretation PART 2: NEO-FEDERALISM 7. Publius 8. The Lost Revolution 9. Normal Politics 10. Higher Lawnmaking 11. Why Dualism? Notes Index
About the author
Bruce Ackerman is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University and the award-winning author of eighteen books, including
Social Justice in the Liberal State and his multivolume constitutional history
We the People. His book
The Stakeholder Society (written with Anne Alstott) served as a basis for Tony Blair¿s introduction of child investment accounts in the United Kingdom. He contributes frequently to the
New York Times,
Washington Post, and
Los Angeles Times. Ackerman is a member of the American Law Institute and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the recipient of the American Philosophical Society¿s Henry M. Phillips Prize for lifetime achievement in jurisprudence.
Summary
Integrating themes from American history, political science, and philosophy, We the People confronts popular sovereignty in America. Rejecting arguments of judicial activists, proceduralists, and neoconservatives, Ackerman’s new model of judicial interpretation synthesizes the constitutional contributions of many generations into a coherent whole.
