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Article: The New Federalist Papers: Essays in Defense of the Constitution.(Review)
- Article from:
- Polity
- Article date:
- September 22, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Palgrave Macmillan, a Division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 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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Alan Brinkley, Nelson W. Polsby and Kathleen M. Sullivan, The New Federalist Papers: Essays in Defense of the Constitution. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.
In 1937, after years of striking down New Deal legislation as unconstitutional, the Supreme Court, with the switch of a single vote in the now famous case of West Coast Hotel Company v. Parrish, began upholding it. This well-worn story of the "switch in time that saved nine" is too simplistic. But there is a deeper point that we may extract from this story and one that continues to preoccupy scholarly commentary. Beginning in 1937, did the Supreme Court furnish us with a proper understanding of our Constitution ...