Slavery, segregation, abortion, workers' rights, the power of the
courts. These issues have been at the heart of the greatest
constitutional controversies in American history. And in this concise
and thought-provoking volume, some of today's most distinguished legal
scholars and commentators explain for a general audience how five
landmark Supreme Court cases centered on those controversies shaped the
country's destiny and continue to affect us even now. The book is a
profound exploration of the Supreme Court's importance to America's
social and political life. It is also, as many of the contributors show,
an intriguing reflection of what some have seen as an important trend in
legal scholarship away from an uncritical belief in the essentially
benign nature of judicial power.
Robert George opens with an illuminating survey of the themes that unite
and divide the five cases. Other contributors then examine each case in
detail through a lively commentary-and-response format. Mark Tushnet and
Jeremy Waldron exchange views on Marbury v. Madison, the pivotal 1803
case that established the power of the courts to invalidate legislation.
Cass Sunstein and James McPherson discuss Dred Scott v. Sandford
(1857), the notorious case that confirmed the rights of slaveowners,
declared that black people could not be American citizens, and is often
seen as a cause of the Civil War. Hadley Arkes and Donald Drakeman
explore the legacy of Lochner v. New York (1905), a case that ushered
in decades of judicial hostility to social welfare laws. Earl Maltz and
Walter Murphy assess Brown v. Topeka Board of Education (1954), the
famous case that ended racial segregation in public schools. Finally,
Jean Bethke Elshtain and George Will tackle Roe v. Wade (1973), still
a flashpoint a quarter of a century later in the debate over abortion.
While some of the contributors show sympathy for strong judicial
interventions on social issues, many across the ideological spectrum are
sharply critical of judicial activism.
A compelling introduction to the greatest cases in U.S. constitutional
law, this is also an enlightening glimpse of the state of the art in
American legal scholarship.
