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"Confirms Barber's standing as one of our more innovative and creative constitutional theorists. . . . His insistence that a constitution that leaves its people incapable of constitutional reform is a failure waiting to happen should become an agenda-setting call for the next generation of constitutional theorists."-American Political Thought "[Barber] contends the constitutional system is not coping with fiscal problems and global warming, and is not serving a permanent underclass. Constitutional malady goes deeper than fixing partisan gerrymandering and campaign finance. In particular, he addresses the Article V provision 'No State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.' This provision enables a small percentage of the population to veto vital policies."-Choice.

Intro -- Contents -- Introduction: America's Oldest Constitutional Debate -- 1. Why the States Can't Check National Power -- 2. John Marshall and a Constitution for National Security and Prosperity -- 3. The Implications of Marshallian Federalism -- 4. Why States' Rights Federalism Is Impossible to Defend -- 5. John C. Calhoun's False Theory of the Union -- 6. States' Rights as Rights Only to Participate in National Processes -- 7. Why Marshallians Should (But Probably Won't) Win the Federalism Debate -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index.

Barber shows how arguments for states' rights from John C. Calhoun to the present offend common sense, logic, and bedrock constitutional principles. The Constitution is a charter of positive benefits, not a contract among separate sovereigns whose function is to protect people from the central government, when there are greater dangers to confront.

Main description: Barber shows how arguments for states' rights from John C. Calhoun to the present offend common sense, logic, and bedrock constitutional principles. The Constitution is a charter of positive benefits, not a contract among separate sovereigns whose function is to protect people from the central government, when there are greater dangers to confront.

Welfare and the Constitution defends a largely forgotten understanding of the U.S. Constitution: the positive or "welfarist" view of Abraham Lincoln and the Federalist Papers. Sotirios Barber challenges conventional scholarship by arguing that the government has a constitutional duty to pursue the well-being of all the people. He shows that James Madison was right in saying that the "real welfare" of the people must be the "supreme object" of constitutional government. With conceptual rigor set in fluid prose, Barber opposes the shared view of America's Right and Left: that the federal consti

Welfare and the Constitution defends a largely forgotten understanding of the U.S. Constitution: the positive or "welfarist" view of Abraham Lincoln and the Federalist Papers. Sotirios Barber challenges conventional scholarship by arguing that the government has a constitutional duty to pursue the well-being of all the people. He shows that James Madison was right in saying that the "real welfare" of the people must be the "supreme object" of constitutional government. With conceptual rigor set in fluid prose, Barber opposes the shared view of America's Right and Left: that the federal constit

If the end of a legal system is the well-being of its people, as Madison claims in Federalist, No. 45, and if it is irrational to sacrifice means to ends, as Madison says in Federalist, No. 40, then Cicero was right to conclude that salus populi suprema lex, that the people's welfare is supreme law—that the people's welfare should prevail over conflicting legal arrangements.