Report posted January 18, 2011 by David F Forte
Commerce, Commerce, Everywhere: The Uses and Abuses of the Commerce Clause
Over the course of the last decades, the commerce clause has been used as a primary source for the regulatory expansion of the national government. This reading of the clause, granting virtually unlimited regulatory power over the economy to the federal government, came out of a series of Supreme Court decisions at the time of the New Deal. In its original meaning, the…
WebMemo posted September 16, 2009 by David F Forte
The Originalist Perspective
An excerpt from The Heritage
Guide to the Constitution
Written constitutionalism implies that those who make,
interpret, and enforce the law ought to be guided by the meaning of
the United States Constitution--the supreme law of the land--as it
was originally written. This view came to be seriously eroded over
the course of the last century with the rise of the…
Lecture posted February 19, 2009 by David F Forte
Appealing to the Judge's Better Angels
In January of 1788, the Anti-Federalist with the nom de
plume of Brutus was mightily troubled with the proposed
Constitution that had come out of Philadelphia. His particular
vexation was over the federal judiciary. To the New York State
Ratifying Convention, he wrote these words:
Those who are to be vested with the judicial power are to be
placed in a…
WebMemo posted December 3, 2008 by David F Forte
Constitutional Ineligibility: What Does the Emoluments Clause Mean?
No Senator or Representative shall,
during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil
Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have
been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have have been
encreased during such time. . . .
--U.S. Constitution, Article I,
Section 6, Clause 2
Determined to avoid corruption and…
Lecture posted October 12, 2001 by David F Forte
Understanding Islam and the Radicals
The United States is in a war, but it is not a war
between Islam and the West. Radical Islamic terrorists hijacked
four airplanes and killed thousands of innocent Americans on
September 11. But their enmity was not just directed against the
United States and the civilization it represents. These terrorists
also mean, as President Bush made clear in his speech to the…
Lecture posted May 1, 1996 by David F Forte
Eve Without Adam: What Genesis Has to Tell America About Natural Law
In the spring of 1992, I was ensconced here on the fifth floor
of the Heritage Foundation. There I was, ferreting out the
historical basis of the Supreme Court's right to strike down
legislation, when, from a few blocks away, the Justices graced my
work with the following statement:
At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's
own concept of existence, of…
Lecture posted April 10, 1993 by David F Forte
Conservatism and the Rehnquist Court
Over the past two years, I have been on the trail of William
Marbury, protagonist in Chief Justice John Marshall's most renowned
case of Marbury v. Madison. My quest has taken me through
collections of eighteenth century papers found in research
libraries from Williamsburg to Boston. In Washington, I am often at
the National Archives, or I travel the short distance…