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The Founders' Unwritten Constitution

dc.contributor.authorSherry, Suzanna
dc.date.accessioned2015-12-08T23:04:16Z
dc.date.available2015-12-08T23:04:16Z
dc.date.issued1987
dc.identifier.citation54 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1127 (1987)en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1803/7324
dc.descriptionarticle published in law reviewen_US
dc.description.abstractIn seeking to understand and interpret our written Constitution, judges and scholars have often focused on two related issues: how did the founding generation understand the Constitution they created, and to what extent should that understanding be relevant to modern constitutional interpretation? This article will address the first of these questions, but in a manner that profoundly affects the second question as well. I will suggest that the founding generation did not intend their new Constitution to be the sole source of paramount or higher law, but instead envisioned multiple sources of fundamental law. The framers thus intended courts to look outside the Constitution in determining the validity of certain governmental actions, specifically those affecting the fundamental rights of individuals. Like Jefferson Powell's recent scholarship suggesting that those who met in Philadelphia intended their own subjective intent to be irrelevant to later interpretation,' my conclusion makes clear that the framers intended something independent of their own intent to serve as a source of constitutional law.en_US
dc.format.extent1 PDF (53 pages)en_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of Chicago Law Reviewen_US
dc.subjectConstitutional interpretationen_US
dc.subjectFramers of the Constitutionen_US
dc.subjectFounding fathersen_US
dc.subjectConstitutional intenten_US
dc.subject.lcshConstitutional law -- United Statesen_US
dc.subject.lcshUnited States. Constitution.en_US
dc.subject.lcshConstitutional history -- United Statesen_US
dc.titleThe Founders' Unwritten Constitutionen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US


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