Abstract
Most European and American attorneys and judges think the U.S.A. has its legal roots in English common law, and that is probably true for the many areas of U.S. law that are still controlled by the traditional common-law process of simultaneously making and applying law. Yet, with respect to constitutional law – America's greatest legal contribution to modern respect for the rule of law, the roots of the U.S. legal system are firmly planted in Europe, not England. The U.S. Constitution was inspired by French revolutionary ideas of rationalism in law; it was intended as an integrated document just like codes; and it has been interpreted by American judges to be not just a political document but binding law – law that is binding on all three branches of government, legislative, executive, and judiciary. In fact that was the holding in Marbury v. Madison, the case decided exactly two hundred years ago.
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Reference81 articles.
1. See supra note 2 (citing first casebook). Strangely, the first casebook authors saw themselves as engaged in a scientific enterprise, reflecting some ideas from code-based systems, whereby students could see the rationality of law. See id.
2. See Carr Baker v. , 369 U.S. 186 (1962) (political question doctrine narrowed)
3. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964) (apportionment overturned).
4. See, e.g., Boren Craig v. , 429 U.S. 190 (1976) (decrying “old notions” animated laws that could not be justified in a modern society).
5. Holmes, The Path of the Law, 10 Harv. L. Rev. 457 (1897).
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