The constitution of judicial power1993

"The United States Supreme Court," writes Sotirios A. Barber, "is being strangled by the combined forces of skillful enemies and incompetent friends, forces united in their inability either to grasp or to tolerate constitutional law as an independent moral voice in American politics." In The Constitution of Judicial Power Barber takes on these enemies and friends of the Court, attacking New Right ideas about constitutional interpretation as well as the ideas of liberals.

Who have abandoned the classical constitutionalism that alone justifies Warren-era activism. Barber begins by reviewing the basic arguments of the New Right, with special attention to those of Robert Bork and Walter Berns. He then demonstrates that judicial activism, long scorned by the Court's bitterest critics, is part...