Well, as I tell my Con Law I students on the first day of class, the only possible conclusion is that the Constitution is illegal, the Articles of Confederation are still in force, and I don't really need to teach the rest of the course:).
Ilya Somin On Fri, 8 Aug 2003, Sanford Levinson wrote: > >Michael Froomkin wries: > > >When I taught con law I, I always started with the Articles. Being a new > >teacher, I had some trouble persuading the students in the first days of > >their second semester of first year that this was a valuable use of their > >time, even though it seems evident to me that many features of the > >federalists' Constitution are best understood as a reaction against what > >they saw as the flaws of the Articles. > > I begin with a discussion of the propriety of the Framers' blithe > willingness to ignore Article XIII of the Articles and its requirement of > unanimous consent for amendment (the Rhode Island veto). What do we/they > think of this demonstrated infidelity to "constitutional command"? Do > we/they applaud the framers for doing what was necessary? Does that > establish a precedent for later exigencies, including, say, the Louisiana > Purchase, Lincoln's acts during the War, and current policies of the > Administration re the "war on terrorism"? What do we mean by > "constitutionalism" and how important is it, anyway. All of this comes > from even a brief look at the Articles and the response to them in 1787. > > sandy >
