Statesmanship and the Judiciary
In: The review of politics, Band 51, Heft 4, S. 510-532
Abstract
This essay questions whether it is as appropriate as it is common to speak of the federal judiciary as legitimately engaged in "statesmanship"— however that rather slippery concept may be denned or elucidated. Scholars of both the "interpretivist" and "noninterpretivist" schools in constitutional law appear to subscribe to the expectation that judges should be statesmen. Some point to Tocqueville for support of this notion. The argument here is that Tbcqueville is unreliable on this point, for he parts company not only with his contemporary, Joseph Story, but with the framers of the Constitution. TheFederalistis examined for its thoughts on the meaning and location of statesmanship in the constitutional order, and it is argued that the essays on the judiciary reveal a conspicuous absence of any expectation that that branch should contain statesmen. Indeed, Publius advances an argument that Congress should act to restrain (through the threat of impeachment) judicial temptations to engage in any adventures that can be called statesmanship.
Problem melden