THE CONSTITUTION OF 1787: WHAT'S ESSENTIAL?
In: Syracuse Law Review, Jg. 67 (2017), S. 605
academicJournal
Zugriff:
In this increasingly strange presidential election year, the Constitution should be on our minds. Inexplicably, there are still a few people hoping to be the lucky (or unlucky) individual to whom the Chief Justice will administer the oath next January 20. One of them will be in town tomorrow. You remember the oath: it is set out in Article II, Section 1. By it, the new President swears or affirms he or she "will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of [his or her] Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." 1 What I would like to do this evening is raise with you the question of what this oath actually means. Specifically, could a President-Elect conscientiously take such an oath if he or she had misgivings about the Constitution? Here, let me draw a distinction at the threshold. What the Constitution means can be answered on two levels. Of course we all know that there is an enormous judicial gloss on the Constitution, a gloss that has changed and developed over time. Indeed, decisions that interpret the Constitution may themselves be overturned by later decisions, and this happens from time to time. And what is more, the received learning is that the Supreme Court is less rigidly bound by constitutional rulings than by statutory interpretations, since Congress can always fix a statute if it disagrees with the Court's reading. So let us set aside the notion ...
Titel: |
THE CONSTITUTION OF 1787: WHAT'S ESSENTIAL?
|
---|---|
Autor/in / Beteiligte Person: | Fidell, Eugene R. |
Zeitschrift: | Syracuse Law Review, Jg. 67 (2017), S. 605 |
Veröffentlichung: | 2017 |
Medientyp: | academicJournal |
Schlagwort: |
|
Sonstiges: |
|