Books, Arts & Manners: The Pillars of Hercules

Taking the Constitution Seriously, by Walter Berns (Simon & Schuster, 287 pp., $19.95)

In his long and distinguished career as a commentator on the United States Constitution, Walter Berns has criticized the follies of the modern Supreme Court and its defenders more lucidly, and more relentlessly, than perhaps any other living writer. The motto of his career might be his oft-repeated dictum that today’s political-science and law professors teach “constitutional law without the Constitution,” i.e., without asking what is the purpose of a written Constitution in the first place. So instead of beginning their studies by pondering the Declaration of Independence, the debates of the Federal Convention, The Federalist, and other classic accounts of American political principle, today’s students learn about constitutional law almost exclusively by reading Supreme Court cases—a method practically guaranteed to prove that the Constitution is what the judges say it is.

About the Author

Charles R. Kesler

Charles R. Kesler, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, is the editor of the Claremont Review of Books.

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Taking the Constitution Seriously, by Walter Berns (Simon & Schuster, 287 pp., $19.95)

In his long and distinguished career as a commentator on the United States Constitution, Walter Berns has criticized the follies of the modern Supreme Court and its defenders more lucidly, and more relentlessly, than perhaps any other living writer. The motto of his career might be his oft-repeated dictum that today’s political-science and law professors teach “constitutional law without the Constitution,” i.e., without asking what is the purpose of a written Constitution in the first place. So instead of beginning their studies by pondering the Declaration of Independence, the debates of the Federal Convention, The Federalist, and other classic accounts of American political principle, today’s students learn about constitutional law almost exclusively by reading Supreme Court cases—a method practically guaranteed to prove that the Constitution is what the judges say it is.