Aaron Coleman

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Articles

Liberty, Freemen, and Slaves – Aaron N. Coleman

1 week ago | lawliberty.org | Quentin Skinner |Aaron Coleman |Gage Klipper |James Diddams

In Liberty as Independence: The Making and Unmaking of a Political Idea, renowned historian Quentin Skinner traces how a republican vision of liberty, one all but forgotten today, was eclipsed by its modern, liberal counterpart. This is not his first foray into the idea of liberty. In 1998, he published Liberty before Liberalism; in 2008, he followed with Hobbes and Republican Liberty. Both books confined their examination of liberty’s meaning to mid-seventeenth-century England.
A Defense of Constitutional Traditions – Aaron N. Coleman

4 weeks ago | lawliberty.org | Aaron Coleman |Richard Alan Ryerson |Daniel Mahoney |Titus Techera

Richard Alan Ryerson’s excellent opening essay starts this forum off on a firm footing by explaining the immediate causes of Lexington and Concord. This is not a shock as no scholar has studied the coming of the Revolution in Massachusetts and the role of its famous son, John Adams, more than Ryerson.
The Historical Challenge to Originalism – Law & Liberty Editors

Jan 16, 2025 | lawliberty.org | Aaron Coleman |John O. McGinnis |Mike Rappaport |David Schaefer

Stanford historian Jonathan Gienapp’s new book, Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique, is an important shot across the bow of a venerable legal tradition. Using the tools of a historian, Gienapp aims to draw the methods of public meaning originalism into question. In this symposium, Law & Liberty contributors offer responses from both legal and historical perspectives.
Originalism, Relativism, and the American Founding – Aaron N. Coleman

Jan 16, 2025 | lawliberty.org | Jonathan Gienapp |Aaron Coleman |David Schaefer |Emina Melonic

Jonathan Gienapp’s Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique does not come to praise originalism but to bury it. Far from a polemic or a screed, however, Gienapp has produced a profoundly considerate, sustained, and critical attack upon the methodology of public meaning originalism. The result is arguably the most important book written against originalist methodology. Originalists in the academy have little choice but to pay attention to it and respond to its charges.
Constitutional Imagination in the “Long Founding” – Aaron N. Coleman

Jul 15, 2024 | lawliberty.org | Alison L. LaCroix |Aaron Coleman |David Goldman |Isaac Willour

Alison LaCroix’s new book, The Interbellum Constitution, challenges how we understand American constitutional history between 1815 and 1860. Most historians interpret the period as a power struggle between federal and state power. LaCroix, on the other hand, discerns in the era a multifaceted system of “federalisms” in which federal, state, and local governments engaged in two persistent debates. The first revolved around defining and determining the meaning of the Constitution.
Judicial Supremacy Through Thick and Thin – Aaron N. Coleman

May 6, 2024 | lawliberty.org | Jack Balkin |Aaron Coleman |Adam White |Theodore Dalrymple

Jack M. Balkin’s Memory and Authority deserves praise for advocating that a natural relationship exists between history and constitutional interpretation. He is right to point out that both should rely upon one another more than they do; it is a shame that each group looks sideways at the other. Much of this suspicion emerged with the rise of professional history a century ago, with its disciplinary focus on context, causality, and change over time.
“Arresting the Progress of the Evil” – - Aaron N. Coleman

Jan 18, 2024 | lawliberty.org | Christian Fritz |Aaron Coleman |John O. McGinnis |James Patterson

Modern American constitutionalism, with its emphasis on executive power and judicial supremacy, obfuscates constitutional history. Because we have lost so much of that constitutional past, any explanation of a tradition that departs from contemporary norms now requires an act of historical recovery, of venturing into a different world with mentalities and beliefs far removed from today. Christian G.
The Original Meaning of The Federalist – - Aaron N. Coleman

Jul 19, 2023 | lawliberty.org | Aaron Coleman |Douglas Murray |Helen Dale |Titus Techera

Whether or not The Federalist remains relevant in modern America largely depends on how one defines relevancy. Do we mean the work remains relevant because of its theoretical expositions on how the Constitution would operate? Or is it relevant as a historical text? If we mean the former, The Federalist has never been genuinely relevant, but as a historical text, speaking to a specific historical context, The Federalist remains essential.