Tag: Declaration of Independence

by Mark Pulliam   Claremont-trained political philosophers represent some of the strongest voices in conservative intellectual circles, but many of them share a flawed view of the Constitution, expressed vigorously – and sometimes splenetically – by the late Harry V. Jaffa. Edward Erler’s recent essay, “Don’t Read the Constitution the Way Robert Bork Did,” channels both Jaffa’s truculent spirit and the doctrinaire position of West Coast Straussians, complete with familiar – albeit irrelevant – references to Abraham Lincoln and the Declaration of Independence. Unfortunately, Erler’s essay illustrates why the Left’s conception of constitutional law is ascendant while conservatives continue to dither: Unlike progressives, discordant conservatives have been largely ineffective in articulating – let alone advancing – a coherent vision of constitutional law. As I explained at greater length elsewhere, conservatives are all over the map when it comes to constitutional interpretation, and spend as much time in internecine feuds as they do in battle with liberal activists. Jaffa notoriously picked fights with respected conservative legal figures such as Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia, and espoused fanciful theories that have never been embraced by mainstream originalists (and almost certainly will never be adopted by a majority of Supreme Court justices). Not surprisingly, therefore, the Left has…