Legal Memorandum posted January 25, 2013 by John C. Eastman
The Constitutionality of Traditional Marriage
On December 7, 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States announced that it would hear two cases challenging laws that define the institution of marriage as it has traditionally been understood: as a union between one man and one woman.
In United States v. Windsor,[1] the Court will review the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit holding that…
Report posted January 13, 2011 by John C. Eastman
Enough Is Enough: Why General Welfare Limits Spending
Perhaps no other clause in the Constitution generated as much debate among the Founders as the “Spending Clause”—the first of the 18 powers granted to Congress under Article I, Section 8. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, the principal authors of The Federalist, famously disagreed about the meaning of “general Welfare” and the limits to Congress’s spending power. For…
Legal Memorandum posted March 30, 2006 by John C. Eastman
From Feudalism to Consent : Rethinking Birthright Citizenship
It is today routinely
believed that under the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment, mere birth on U.S. soil is sufficient to obtain U.S.
citizenship. However strong this commonly believed
interpretation might appear, it is incompatible not only with
the text of the Citizenship Clause (particularly as informed by the
debate surrounding its adoption), but…