A View of the Constitution of the United States of America
Second Edition
by William Rawle, H. Jefferson Powell
2009
Tags: Legal History, Legal History Series
400 pp $62.00
ISBN 978-1-59460-550-5
William Rawle, who died in 1836, was a leading member of the first generation of American lawyers after independence, and his A View of the Constitution was one of the most influential books on constitutional law published before the Civil War. The book's interest is not, however, merely historical: Rawle's approach provides a powerful challenge to contemporary assumptions about the original meaning and ongoing significance of the Constitution. His understanding of the constitutional authority of the president — he saw it as broad yet legally bounded — is especially interesting given our current debates.
This book is part of the Legal History Series, edited by H. Jefferson Powell, Duke University School of Law.