Challenge to the Court

The Warren Revolution: Reflections on the Consensus Society, by L. Brent Bozell. Arlington House, $7.00 What Bozell means by the “Warren Revolution” must be understood in terms of the subtitle of this challenging book—‘“Reflections on the Consensus Society.’ By ‘‘consensus society’ Bozell means to characterize the political order designed by the Founding Fathers. As we shall see, the value of this book depends upon whether Bozell is right in this “consensual” understanding of our political order. ‘The Framers, Bozell claims, intended a diverse consensus society that would develop slowly by an “organic process.” For example, key constitutional provisions like the ‘taxing power, the commerce clause, the due process clause’ were not to become effective until “the give and take among the society’s diverse forces and factions . . . hammered out a working consensus about the concrete particulars of application.” The importance of the book’s subtitle is therefore this: According to Bozell, the Warren Court is not merely a mistaken Court, a presumptuous Court, or even a Court that has handed down many revolutionary decisions. Rather, the Warren revolution is a revolution in the fullest sense; by its fundamental posture and claim, the Warren Court is breaking down the “organic process” and destroying the “consensus society,” and therewith is subverting the traditional American political order.

The Warren Court has worked its “quietest of revolutions” simply by expanding traditional judicial review into revolutionary judicial supremacy. Traditionally, the Supreme ‘Court exercised judicial review to “help discover and develop working consensuses in the making of our fluid constitution.” In so doing the Court rightly regarded itself as but one part of the consensual organic process. The Warren Court now claims to be “the expounder,” “the _ Constitution’s final arbiter,’ and, in the name of judicial supremacy, imposes its ideologically inspired doctrines upon the country. Formerly, the right to determine the broad meaning of the Constitution was reserved to a “hard national consensus’; now, by usurpation, this has become the prerogative of a mere “nine-man tribunal.” We are thus “in the grip of a judicial despotism,” the most “formidable threat to authentic popular government’ this country has ever faced.

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Martin Diamond

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The Warren Revolution: Reflections on the Consensus Society, by L. Brent Bozell. Arlington House, $7.00 What Bozell means by the “Warren Revolution” must be understood in terms of the subtitle of this challenging book—‘“Reflections on the Consensus Society.’ By ‘‘consensus society’ Bozell means to characterize the political order designed by the Founding Fathers. As we shall see, the value of this book depends upon whether Bozell is right in this “consensual” understanding of our political order. ‘The Framers, Bozell claims, intended a diverse consensus society that would develop slowly by an “organic process.” For example, key constitutional provisions like the ‘taxing power, the commerce clause, the due process clause’ were not to become effective until “the give and take among the society’s diverse forces and factions . . . hammered out a working consensus about the concrete particulars of application.” The importance of the book’s subtitle is therefore this: According to Bozell, the Warren Court is not merely a mistaken Court, a presumptuous Court, or even a Court that has handed down many revolutionary decisions. Rather, the Warren revolution is a revolution in the fullest sense; by its fundamental posture and claim, the Warren Court is breaking down the “organic process” and destroying the “consensus society,” and therewith is subverting the traditional American political order.

The Warren Court has worked its “quietest of revolutions” simply by expanding traditional judicial review into revolutionary judicial supremacy. Traditionally, the Supreme ‘Court exercised judicial review to “help discover and develop working consensuses in the making of our fluid constitution.” In so doing the Court rightly regarded itself as but one part of the consensual organic process. The Warren Court now claims to be “the expounder,” “the _ Constitution’s final arbiter,’ and, in the name of judicial supremacy, imposes its ideologically inspired doctrines upon the country. Formerly, the right to determine the broad meaning of the Constitution was reserved to a “hard national consensus’; now, by usurpation, this has become the prerogative of a mere “nine-man tribunal.” We are thus “in the grip of a judicial despotism,” the most “formidable threat to authentic popular government’ this country has ever faced.