Ten days hence I will be participating in a day-long conference at Georgetown Law Center, hosted by Professor Randy Barnett, and featuring Professor Hadley Arkes and yours truly on the first of two panels, followed by Professors Justin Dyer and Michael Stokes Paulsen on a second panel, with Professor Barnett speaking at lunch before a final free-for-all colloquy. I think it promises to be great fun, and of course it is open to the public. Details may be found here.
I suppose our conversation began with my Winter 2015 article in American Political Thought, “What Happened to the Due Process Clause in the Dred Scott Case? The Continuing Confusion over ‘Substance’ versus ‘Process.’” This prompted my friend Hadley Arkes to comment on my thesis at the Law and Liberty blog. I responded at Public Discourse. Hadley replied to me at the same site. Then I took to this page at NRO to say more. Hadley did too, and I replied to him again. As far as the two of us are concerned, I think that is where the matter has lain until now. So if you want to see and hear us take up our friendly cudgels once more in this long-running argument, come out to Georgetown on Thursday, October 6!
Update: I was remiss in not saying above that the organization of this conference is the doing of Hadley Arkes’s James Wilson Institute. Many thanks to them for putting it together, and to Georgetown for its hospitality.