At 01:58 PM 8/8/2003, you wrote:
Well, as I tell my Con Law I students on the first day of class, the only possible conclusion is that [1] the Constitution is illegal, [2] the Articles of Confederation are still in force, and [3] I don't really need to teach the rest of the course:).
Of course, 2 and 3 really don't follow from 1, anymore than the initial illegality of a given use of property necessarily stands for the proposition that it can never become legalized through adverse possession. So the con law students should reflect on how it is that the illegality of the Constitution was "cured," perhaps, as Madison suggested in Federalist 40, by "popular approbation."
sandy
