Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2010
Abstract
This essays examines Barry Friedman’s book, The Will of the People, and its thesis that, with lags and hesitations, the Supreme Court’s constitutional jurisprudence has increasingly adapted to the changing social and political attitudes of the American people. Noting the book’s close affinity with the work of recent scholars who argue that popular attitudes should and do have substantial influence in shaping constitutional law, the essay explores the lessons Friedman draws from his constitutional history and, in particular, the significance of four “critical periods”: the Federalist Era with its opposition to what seemed an overtly partisan Court, the first half of the nineteenth century with its widespread defiance of the federal judicial power, the long period from the Civil War to the New Deal when Americans sought to limit and control the judicial power, and the modern period that brought general acceptance of federal judicial power once it had learned to accommodate itself more closely to popular demands. The essay highlights the qualifications Friedman makes to his thesis, and it examines three particular historical issues--the origins of the Judiciary Act of 1875, the Court’s alleged “formalism” in the late nineteenth century, and the relationship between the Court’s jurisprudence addressing racial and economic issues at the beginning of the twentieth century--to extend and deepen Friedman’s analysis. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of history in enabling Americans to understand their constitutional system more realistically and thus, one hopes, to honor and maintain it more effectively.
Recommended Citation
2010 Mich. St. L. Rev.