The Yale Law Journal

David A. Strauss

Essay

The Neo-Hamiltonian Temptation

David A. Strauss

The central force behind the development of constitutional law, according to Bruce Ackerman’s magisterial We the People: The Civil Rights Revolution, is not the courts but the People, acting through the elected officials who were responsible for th…

Essay

Common Law, Common Ground, and Jefferson's Principle

David A. Strauss

112 Yale L.J. 1717 (2003)

Why do we care about the Framers of the Constitution? After all, they lived long ago, in a world that was different in countless ways from ours. Why does it matter what their views were, for any reasons other than purely historical ones? And if we don't care about the Framer…