Declaration of Independence

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Cassie Brand - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

Alexander Tsesis - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • The Declaration of Independence as Introduction to the Constitution
    2016
    Co-Authors: Alexander Tsesis
    Abstract:

    Throughout the course of United States history, the Declaration of Independence has played an outsized role in constitutional development. For each generation of Americans, the document has reflected the historical reason for Independence and the idyllic statement of representative government. On the one hand, it is not part of the formal Constitution, on the other, it informs constitutional interpretation. For a time, until ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, it was the nation’s only formal acknowledgment of human equality.The Supreme Court has paid scant attention to the Declaration’s overarching statement on national governance and its mandates to protect individual rights while securing the people’s “Safety and Happiness.” The early record of lawmaking in the United States, on the other hand, demonstrates the influence of the Declaration’s normative statement from the country’s inception. From the nation’s founding, Americans’ constitutional understandings have been shaped by the Declaration of Independence’s statements on human rights and mandates for just government. The judiciary has not adequately followed the will of the people to rely on the Declaration in developing constitutional interpretation.

  • The Declaration of Independence and Constitutional Interpretation
    2015
    Co-Authors: Alexander Tsesis
    Abstract:

    This article argues that the Reconstruction Amendments incorporated the human dignity values of the Declaration of Independence. The original Constitution contained clauses, which protected the institution of slavery, that were irreconcilable with the normative commitments the nation had undertaken at Independence. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments set the country aright by formally incorporating the Declaration of Independence’s principles for representative governance into the Constitution.The Declaration of Independence provides valuable insights into matters of human dignity, privacy, and self-government. Its statements about human rights, equality, and popular sovereignty establish a foundational rule of interpretation. While the Supreme Court has rarely parsed the significance of the Declaration of Independence, several judicial predicates exist to provide guidance to courts and scholars for developing constitutional doctrines arising from the founding values of Independence. The principles espoused by the document should inform substantive constitutional interpretation in matters of pressing legal concern, such as voting and marriage equality.

  • For Liberty and Equality: The Life and Times of the Declaration of Independence
    2012
    Co-Authors: Alexander Tsesis
    Abstract:

    Chapter I: Preface Chapter II: Becoming Independent Chapter III: The Nation's Infancy Chapter IV: Youthful Republic Chapter V. Compromising for the Sake of Expansion Chapter VI. Jacksonian Era Democracy Chapter VII. Subordination Chapter VIII: The Unraveling Bonds of Union Chapter IX: Sectional Cataclysm Chapter X: Reconstruction Chapter XI: Gilded Populism Chapter XII: Inconsistent Progress Chapter XIII: The Declaration in a New Deal State Chapter XIV: Independence Principles in the Civil Rights Era Chapter XV: Epilogue Appendix: The Declaration of Independence

  • Self-Government and the Declaration of Independence
    Cornell Law Review, 2011
    Co-Authors: Alexander Tsesis
    Abstract:

    Legal scholars typically treat the Declaration of Independence as a purely historical document, but as this article explains, the Declaration is relevant to legislative and judicial decisionmaking. After describing why this founding document contains legal significance, I examine two contemporary legal issues through the lens of the Declaration’s prescriptions.Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment grants Congress the power to make laws that enforce the civil rights clauses in the amendment’s first four sections. In City of Boerne v. Flores and its progeny, however, the Supreme Court decided that it alone can identify fundamental rights and relegated Congress’s power under Section 5 to the enforcement of judicial rulings. The Boerne line of precedents forecloses ordinary citizens from petitioning legislators to pass innovative laws that prohibit states from violating civil rights. This article is the first to argue that although the Declaration of Independence lacks any enforcement mechanism; its clauses about popular sovereignty establish the people’s authority to engage in representative politics to identify core human rights.The Article also demonstrates the Declaration’s relevance to the issue of campaign finance reform. I use the document’s statement about the inalienable rights that are retained by the people, one of which is the freedom of political expression, to analyze the Court’s equating of corporations and natural people for First Amendment purposes in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. I also distinguish the speech of commercial corporations from that of nonprofit associations that are organized specifically for engaging in self-government.

Yoram Shachar - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • cosmopolitanism at a crossroads hersch lauterpacht and the israeli Declaration of Independence
    British Yearbook of International Law, 2014
    Co-Authors: Eliav Lieblich, Yoram Shachar
    Abstract:

    Hersch Lauterpacht is widely celebrated as a pioneering figure in the cosmopolitan revival of international law during the mid-20th century. This article is a first in-depth analysis of an overlooked episode in his life’s work: his secret involvement in drafting Israel’s Declaration of Independence. The article analyzes Lauterpacht’s draft of this Declaration, from its original manuscript form, in light of its historic circumstances and his general jurisprudence.This article contributes to international legal theory by analyzing unexplored tensions in Lauterpacht’s work – tensions that have reached their boiling point in his draft Declaration. Their incidence, and his attempts to resolve them, are telling not only regarding Lauterpacht’s jurisprudence, but also revealing of the nature (and limitations) of international legal argument at large. Namely, they reflect the inherent tension in international legal discourse between cosmopolitanism and sovereignty, universalism and particularism.We argue that by participating in a national project, Lauterpacht’s cosmopolitanism was compromised. His attempt to reconcile, in the Draft, between cosmopolitanism and national sovereignty – an attempt so common in the argumentation of international lawyers – ultimately led not only to the Draft’s rejection by the nascent Israeli establishment, but also, perhaps, to its downplaying by those that have reconstructed Lauterpacht’s cosmopolitan legacy.

  • Jefferson Goes East: The American Origins of the Israeli Declaration of Independence
    Theoretical Inquiries in Law, 2009
    Co-Authors: Yoram Shachar
    Abstract:

    The American Declaration of Independence served as a starting point for the drafting of the Israeli Declaration of Independence of 1948. Most of the original content was lost in the long process of translation and adaptation, but, using David Armitage’s recent terminology, the Israeli text remained as "generically promiscuous" as its predecessor, combining a "manifesto" of justifications for the assumption of sovereignty, a formal proclamation and a proto-Bill of Rights. This Article depicts the work of Mordechai Beham, the Israeli Declaration’s first draftsman, as a remarkable exercise in choosing contemporary, locally-valid "answers" to the fundamental "questions" posed by Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries in 18th century America on human values, national identity, statehood, and God. The analysis is partially based in the current debate on "legal transplantation," arguing that the outstanding success of the Israeli Declaration stems from both the quality of the American original and the massive work of adaptation to Israeli soil.

Linda M Keller - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • the american rejection of economic rights as human rights and the Declaration of Independence does the pursuit of happiness require basic economic rights
    NYLS Journal of Human Rights, 2004
    Co-Authors: Linda M Keller
    Abstract:

    This article explores the economic dimension of the Pursuit of Happiness in the Declaration of Independence and how it undercuts the notion that economic and social rights under international human rights law are somehow un-American. The United States government seems to believe that economic rights are not truly human rights, but rather radical Cold War era entitlements advocated by communists. The minimum-needs conception of the pursuit of happiness suggests that economic rights are enshrined in a document considered part of the foundation of democracy. Part I evaluates the rejection of economic rights in the United States, focusing on international commitments. Part II turns to the Declaration of Independence, specifically, the Pursuit of Happiness. Drawing on eighteenth-century political thought, it asserts that the pursuit of happiness establishes an inalienable right that includes an economic dimension. Part III argues that the right to pursue happiness entails a concomitant governmental duty: the duty to facilitate the pursuit of happiness by providing minimum economic means. Although the Declaration of Independence has not been interpreted as legally enforceable, the principles of the Declaration form the basis for the government and must be followed by it. The article shows how this obligation to ensure basic economic rights is also contained in various international instruments. Far from being foreign to American political thought, this duty is provided for and must be fulfilled under the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

Dov Jacobs - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

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