The Constitution in Conflict

Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard, 1992. First Edition. First Printing. very good, good. 462, footnotes, notes, works cited, index, small tear and chip in front DJ. In a remarkably innovative reconstruction of Constitutional history, Burt traces the controversy over judicial supremacy back to the founding fathers, with Madison and Hamilton as the principal antagonists. The conflicting views these founders espoused--equal interpretive powers among the federal branches on one hand and judicial supremacy on the other--remain plausible readings of "original intent" and so continue to present us with a choice. Drawing extensively on Lincoln's conception of political equality, Burt argues convincingly that judicial supremacy and majority rule are both inconsistent with the egalitarian democratic ideal. The proper task of the judiciary, he contends--as epitomized in Brown v. Board of Education--is to actively protect minorities against "enslaving" legislative defeats while, at the same time, to refrain from awarding conclusive "victory" to these minorities against their adversaries. From this premise, Burt goes on to examine key decisions such as Roe v. Wade, U.S. v. Nixon, and the death penalty cases, all of which demonstrate how the Court has fallen away from egalitarian jurisprudence and returned to anessentially authoritarian conception of its role.