The New Criterion
It operates as a refuge for a civilizing element in short supply in contemporary America: honest criticism
- The Wall Street Journal
FeaturesJanuary 1999 Liberalism & the law by Hadley Arkes The fifth in a series titled The betrayal of liberalism Before there was a law under the American Constitution, there was an argument about the law. It was an argument, that is, about the ends of the law, and the framework of a lawful government. This was, of course, the argument over the Constitution, and it seems remarkably to have escaped recognition these days that an argument of this kind is itself a dramatic illustration of “natural law.” After all, the very appeal to first principles as the ground of a constitution is itself a move into natural law. If a constitution is to make sense, it must presuppose that there are certain principles of lawfulness that existed, as truths commanding our respect, even before a constitution was framed and enacted. As John Locke pointed out, the legislature would be the source of the “positive law,” the law that was enacted or posited. But what, he asked, would be the source of the legislature? From wha ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 17 January 1999, on page 4 Copyright © 2012 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/liberalismandlaw-arkes-2934
rate this article for your user profile
E-mail to friend
|
Jefferson on race & revolution by Hadley Arkes On The Long Affair: Thomas Jefferson & the French Revolution, 1785–1800 by Conor Cruise O’Brien Christopher, for better & for worse On the critic, polemicist & raconteur Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011).
Webcasts
Anthony Daniels on the Euro Crisis
Andrew C. McCarthy: The Muslim Threat
Roger Kimball: The Grim Future of Statism Weblog 
|
add a comment
you must have an account to post a comment. {register now}