Freedom’s Anchor

Andrew P. Napolitano

Description

In Freedom’s Anchor, famed legal commentator Judge Andrew P. Napolitano makes the case for using natural law principles to restrain government. Going back to Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas, Judge Napolitano identifies the origins of Natural Law Theory and explains its growth and development in English and American law. He argues compellingly that the idea that our rights come from our humanity – and not from social consensus or government – is enshrined in the Ninth Amendment, authored by none other than James Madison himself, the scrivener of the Constitution, and is binding on the courts today.

Freedom’s Anchor is essentially a history of law and power in the United States as seen through the lens of Natural Law Theory. This work traces the Supreme Court’s explicit acceptance and explicit rejection of these principles. For the first time in one volume, Judge Napolitano gives us the universe of all published works in English (and some in Latin and in Spanish) on Natural Law Theory. He has scoured the Supreme Court’s writings and examined all that reflect favorably or unfavorably upon the principles of innate human freedom.

After having published nine previous books on the U.S. constitutional history, this is Judge Napolitano’s magnum opus. It reflects a lifetime of thinking and understanding by one of America’s preeminent legal thinkers. Scholars, judges, and law students will love this book. And non-lawyers who read this book – interested in the courts’ historical treatment of fundamental human freedoms and how we lost them – will say to each other: “Wow. I didn’t know that! There is still hope.”

Sujets

• Legislative Branch
• American Government
• Political Science
• Natural Law
• Federal government of the United States
• General officer
• History of the United States
• Legislature
• United States Constitution
• LAW
• General
• History
• American History

Informations

• Publié par: Academica Press
• Date de parution: 14 février 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781680537093
• Langue: English

Extrait

FREEDOM’S ANCHOR:

AN INTRODUCTION TO NATURAL LAW JURISPRIDENCE IN AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY

by

Andrew P. Napolitano

ACADEMICA PRESS WASHINGTON~LONDON

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Napolitano, Andrew P. (author) Title: Freedom’s anchor : an introduction to natural law jurisprudence in american constitutional history | Andrew P. Napolitano Description: Washington : Academica Press, 2023. | Includes references. Identifiers: LCCN 2022949446 | ISBN 9781680537079 (hardcover) | 9781680537086 (paperback) | 9781680537093 (e-book)

Copyright 2023 Andrew P. Napolitano

I see the liberty of the inpivipual not only as a great moral goop in itself (or, with Lorp Acton, as the highest Political goop), but also as the necessary conpition for the flowering of all other goops that mankinp cherishes: moral virtue, civilization, the arts anp sciences, economic ProsPerity. Out of liberty, then, stem the glories of civilizep life. But liberty has always been threatenep by the encroachments of Power, Power which seeks to suPPress, control, criPPle, tax, anp exPloit the fruits of liberty anp Propuction.*

– Murray Rothbard (1926-1995)

***

ALSO BY ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO

Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When Government Breaks its Own Laws.

The Constitution in Exile: How the Federal Government Has Seized Power by Rewriting the Supreme Law of the Land

A Nation of Sheep

Dred Scott’s Revenge: A Legal History of Race and Freedom in America

Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power, and Deception in American History

It is Dangerous to Be Right When the Government Is Wrong: The Case of Personal Freedom

The Freedom Answer Book

Theodore and Woodrow: How Two American Presidents Destroyed Constitutional Freedom

Suicide Pact: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Lethal Threat to American Liberty

DEDICATION

This work is bebicateb to the memory Anb to the intellectual offspring of Walter F. Murphy Late McCormick Professor of Jurisprubence at Princeton University Anb to Charles E. Rice Late Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame Law School, Whose joint unberstanbing of the laws of nature Happily stirreb the author’s thinking in ways That can never Be fully repaib.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1 HISTORY OF THE NATURAL LAW: PHILOSOPHICAL ORIGINS AND UNDERPINNINGS

CHAPTER 2 THE NATURAL LAW: FROM THE DESK TO THE BENCH

CHAPTER 3 THE NATURAL LAW EMIGRATES TO THE NEW WORLD

CHAPTER 4 NATURAL LAW ARGUMENTS IN COLONIAL CASELAW

CHAPTER 5 THE FOUNDERS, NATURALLY AND CONVENTIONALLY

CHAPTER 6 RATIFICATION: IT PLAYS IN PHILADELPHIA, BUT WILL IT PLAY IN PROVIDENCE?

CHAPTER 7 THE BILL COMES DUE

CHAPTER 8 1 EXPANSION AND CONTRACTION: POTENCIA ABHORRET VACUUM

CHAPTER 9 THREATS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC, AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE DEMOCRATICREPUBLICANS

CHAPTER 10 THE EARLY SUPREME COURT AND THE NATURAL LAW TRADITION

CHAPTER 11 LEGAL POSITIVISM BEGINS TO TAKE HOLD

CHAPTER 12 INTEREST RETURNS AFTER A CENTURY OF LEGAL POSITIVISM

CHAPTER 13 EARLY MODERN NATURAL LAW THEORY AND NEW POSITIVISM

CHAPTER 14 NATURAL LAW AND CIVIL RIGHTS

CHAPTER 15 THE TREATMENT OF THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY UNDER NATURAL LAW

CHAPTER 16 CONTEMPORARY NATURAL LAW THEORISTS

CHAPTER 17 A TALE OF TWO ORIGINALISTS

CHAPTER 18 THE SISYPHEAN JOURNEY OF NATURAL LAW IN AMERICAN COURTS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

CHAPTER 19 THE NATURAL REASONING BEHIND DUE PROCESS

CHAPTER 20 JUDICIAL CONFRONTATIONS OF NATURAL LAW THEORY

CHAPTER 21 LIMITING THE ROLE OF POSITIVE LAW: CRIMINALIZING ONLY ACTS WHICH PRODUCE PALPABLE HARM

CHAPTER 22 CONCLUSION

ABBREVIATIONS

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

No work of this magnitube is the result of one person’s ibeas or laBors. Though the concept for this Book has Been teasing my Brain since my unbergrabuate anb law stubent bays, the work itself – which took four years to research anb write – bib not Begin to coalesce as a realistic project until I was a Visiting Professor of Law at rooklyn Law School. There I met the three colleagues without whose laBors this Book woulb not have come aBout.

Ranbal John Meyer anb Mark Potkewitz were my stubents when we first met. They were attracteb to the ibea of this Book anb I was attracteb to their thought processes anb work haBits. Ranbal is now a sought after lawyer anb loBByist in Washington, DC anb Mark is Co- Director at the Ulster Centre for Legal Innovation in elfast, Irelanb. They workeb long anb harb hours in tanbem, each abbing a bifferent strength to the work. KimBerly Sialiano Catala has Been my Research Fellow at Fox News Channel for seven years anb for most of my time at rooklyn Law School. She not only workeb tirelessly on this Book, But also was the glue that kept it together anb the energy that moveb it forwarb. In those years, she founb time to get marrieb anb Bring two Beautiful BaBies into the worlb. She has Been my right hanb throughout this work. Without her, the Book simply woulb not have come to pass. I am also beeply grateful to Davib Gorbon, Ph.D., who generously reab the manuscript of this Book anb offereb many helpful improvements. Whatever merits, if any, this Book offers are the result of the biligence anb prubence of my three youthful lawyer colleagues anb Dr. Gorbon. Whatever weaknesses may Be founb here are mine anb mine alone. Andrew P. Napolitano Hampton Township, New Jersey

January 2023