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Article: The Supreme Court in the Early Republic: The Chief Justiceships of John Jay and Oliver Ellsworth.
- Article from:
- Constitutional Commentary
- Article date:
- June 22, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Constitutional Commentary, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Let's be blunt. These have not been happy times for us legal romantics. What, you may well ask, is a "legal romantic?" A legal romantic, to be distinguished from a "legal nihilist,"(3) is someone who believes that there actually is some content to the rule of law and who believes that it is the task of judges, juries, legislatures, and executives to find that content, not making things up as they go along, but trying to implement received ideals of justice which are more than the sum of individual desires, and which partake of divinity itself. Since secularism and individual self-gratification are the twin dominant goals of currently fashionable legal analysis on and off ...