Rule of Law in a Constitutional Democracy
Under a written Constitution, we are governed by the rule of law, not of men—but this is easier said than done. Americans rely on the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of laws passed by Congress and by state legislatures; most Americans would agree with Chief Justice John Marshall’s famous statement, two centuries ago, that it “is emphatically the province and duty” of the Court “to say what the law is.” Yet there is danger in giving judges too much power over our democratic republic, and thus most Americans would also agree with Abraham Lincoln’s observation, in his first inaugural address, that if national policy on “vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court,” then “the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.” The goal of this course is to study how American statesmen, judges, and scholars have attempted to define “the rule of law” in American democracy.
This reader was developed by Adam White.
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Rule of Law in a Constitutional Democracy