AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW VOLUME I SOURCES OF POWER AND RESTRAINT pptx

[...]... American constitutional law refers to the principles of the U.S Constitution as they relate to the organization, powers, and limits of government and to the relationship between government and the American people American constitutional law has two basic components: the institutional dimension and the civil rights/civil liberties dimension The former area embraces issues of presidential, congressional,... gives the “executive Power to the president but does not define the precise limits thereof Article III likewise invests the Supreme Court with “judicial Power without elaborating on the limits of that power Such open-ended provisions endow the Constitution with a built-in flexibility that has enabled it to withstand the test of time Judicial Interpretation of the Constitution The Constitution’s remarkable... actions are generally beyond the scope of constitutional law Individuals are not constrained by the Constitution unless they are government officials or persons acting under the authority of government Yet the actions of private individuals are subject to the constraints of the civil and criminal law In addition to imposing constitutional limitations on government, the rule of law requires that citizens...This page intentionally left blank INTRODUCTION Chapter Outline What Is Constitutional Law? The Adoption and Ratification of the Constitution “The Constitution shall be the supreme Law of the Land .” The Underlying Principles of the Constitution —ARTICLE VI, U.S CONSTITUTION The Enduring Constitution Key Terms National Archives For Further Reading 1 2 INTRODUCTION WHAT IS CONSTITUTIONAL LAW? American. .. important to be reserved exclusively to judges, lawyers, and scholars Every citizen, and certainly every student of American government, ought to have at least a rudimentary understanding of constitutional law THE ADOPTION AND RATIFICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION The study of constitutional law begins logically with the adoption and ratification of the Constitution itself The Constitution was adopted in... form of cases The court case is the basic building block of American law Cases, including those presenting constitutional questions, begin in one of two ways: as civil suits or criminal prosecutions A civil suit begins when one party, the plaintiff, files suit against another party, the defendant Sometimes, a plaintiff files a class action on behalf of all “similarly situated” persons In some civil cases,... Crucibles of Constitutional Law “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department, to say what the law is.” Crossing the Threshold: Access to Judicial Review The Supreme Court’s Decision Making Process — CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN MARSHALL, WRITING FOR THE COURT IN MARBURY V MADISON (1803) The Development of Judicial Review The Art of Constitutional Interpretation Judicial Activism and Restraint. .. Declaration of Independence sought to justify a revolution, the Framers of the Constitution were concerned with the inherently more conservative task of nation building But in 1787, the political philosophy underlying the Constitution was fairly revolutionary It fused classical republican ideas of the rule of law and limited government with eighteenth century liberal principles of individual liberty and. .. esoteric to the average citizen In reality, however, the Constitution touches the lives of ordinary Americans in countless ways, many of which are revealed in this book In constitutional law one sees all of the theoretical and philosophical questions underlying our political system, as well as the great public issues of the day, acted out in a series of real-life dramas Questions of constitutional law. .. develops We examine the exercise of judicial review and, just as important, the constraints on the exercise of this power Finally, we examine the behavior of the Court from the standpoint of modern political science THE COURTS: CRUCIBLES OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW Constitutional law evolves through a process of judicial interpretation in the context of particular cases These cases may arise in either federal . the Constitution. Volumes I and II of American Constitutional Law contain thirteen chapters covering the entire range of topics in constitutional law. Each of. of Judicial Review 35 The Art of Constitutional Interpretation 47 Judicial Activism and Restraint 49 External Constraints on Judicial Power 55 Explaining