it's in the 'hood but we've never gone. Is it worth a trip?
Jack Rakove
@jrakove.bsky.social
9070 Followers
250 Following
Native Cook County Democrat, Cubs fan, and long-time historian of the American Revolution and Constitution
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I will stay away from both those alternatives, s.v.p. But at least I have read Frances Yates Rosicrucian Enlightenment, which my mentor (B. Bailyn) was a big fan of.
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I'm thinking about the academics rather than the judges (e.g., Larry Solum), who seem to think that a pure linguistic meaning exists independently of its practice in ordinary conversation or (let's say) political deliberation. To the working historian, this seems like nonsense, but what do I know?
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The "highest stages" of semantic or public meaning originalism seem to embidy a neo-Platonic approach to constitutional interpretation. Whether this is occult or not is something I've not yet reckoned with. It is wholly indifferent to questions of the political origins of most clauses.
Right-wing constitutional interpretation is more akin to occult text analysis than actual law or history.
"We've found a hidden meaning to the Constitution that is the 'real' meaning an no other important group (including the writers) ever before saw in the text!"
It's gibberish.
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I could have added that (a) I ignored the New Yorker's advice to "block that metaphor"; (b) I once saw a modernist version of Gotterdammerung at the Kennedy Center with RBG in attendance; and (c) I have lots of ties to Albany, my wife's hometown.
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Speaking metaphorically or symbolically or whatever, we could also say that the UET has reached its apocalyptic apotheosis, with a constitutional gottdammerung still pending. Given the fascistic forces at play in GOP politics, striking a Wagnerian note seems apt.
one sign that the “unitary executive” is less the restoration of an older constitutional order and more the imposition of a radical new one is that allowing the president to act untethered from most legal or congressional limits has largely just served to plunge the country into disorder
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Congressional Republicans for their craven, supine behavior. Congressional Democrats, or at least their leaders, for an ineffective counter-strategy. The Supreme Court majority for choosing a narrow proceduralism to confronting the dimensions of this attack on the Constitution.
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In any case, the title of the essay makes no sense as a causal statement. Disagreements about the implications of the Vesting Clause have been there from the outset. The real problem is to explain is the feckless behavior of other institutions facing this challenge.
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That would imply the executive could "suspend" the laws, which is something that the English Declaration of Rights of 1688 and our own Declaration of Independence both rejected, atop their list of grievances against James II and George III.
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If the president dislikes a pending bill, he has the power to veto it. Once it has been enacted over his (or his predecessor's) veto, he is obliged to execute it. There is no opt out, cross-your-fingers-and-do-your-own-thing alternative.
