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Five Legal Revolutions Since the 17th Century pp 73–110Cite as

Modern Constitutionalism: A Chain of Revolutions Always in Progress

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Part of the book series: Studies in the History of Law and Justice ((SHLJ,volume 1))

Abstract

The writing up of constitutions during the American and the French revolutions is a complex phenomenon when one considers their legal impact. At first glance, constitutions have quickly been considered as legal (and fundamental) norms in America, whereas they remain only political mechanisms in France. This chapter considers the early development of American constitutionalism and judicial review compared with the difficult (but non un-existent) process for implementing constitutional law in Europe (from France, then from Austria according the model of a Constitutional Court). The “constitutional” revolution can also be associated with the emergence of specialized jurists and, more recently, of a “human rights” forum. The constitutional revolution has thus two characters that are distinct from the previous revolutions: it has known different stages from the eighteenth century and various successes according the concerned countries.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Greene, Jack P. 2008. Law and the Origins of the American Revolution. In The Cambridge History of Law in America eds. Michael Grossberg, Christopher Tomlins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 447.

  2. 2.

    Peck, George A. (ed.). 1954. The Political Writing of John Adams. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 36–46 about the arguments exchanged between Novanglus (John Adams) and Massachusettensis (the loyalist Daniel Leonard).

  3. 3.

    Jameson, John, Alexander. 1867. A Treatise on Constitutional Conventions: their History, Powers and Modes of Proceeding. New York: Charles Scribner and sons, 118–142.

  4. 4.

    Rakove, Jack N. 2008. Confederation and Constitution. In Grossberg and Tomlins (as n. 1), 499.

  5. 5.

    Story, Joseph. 1858. Commentaries on the Constitution. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 227.

  6. 6.

    Ackerman, Bruce. 1998. We the People 2. Transformations. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 52.

  7. 7.

    Amar, Akhil Reed. 2005. America’s Constitution. A Biography. New York: Random House, 14–15.

  8. 8.

    Corwin, Edward. 1914. The doctrine of judicial review: its legal and historical basis and other essays. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

  9. 9.

    Wood, Gordon S. 1969. The Creation of the American Republic 1776–1787. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 456–460.

  10. 10.

    Cornell, Saul and Leonard, Gerard. 2008. The Consolidation of the Early Federal System, 1791–1812. In Grossberg and Tomlins, as n. 1, 541–542.

  11. 11.

    Edward S. Corwin, as n. 8, 75.

  12. 12.

    Treanor, William Michael. 2005. Judicial Review before Marbury. Stanford Law Review 58/2: 455–562.

  13. 13.

    Feldman, Jean-Philippe. 2004. La bataille américaine du fédéralisme. John C. Calhoun et l’annulation. Paris: PUF, 200.

  14. 14.

    Ellis, Richard E. 1971. The Jeffersonian Crisis. New York: Oxford University Press, 43–45.

  15. 15.

    Troper, Michel. 2003. Marshall, Kelsen, Barak et le sophisme constitutionnaliste. In Marbury v. Madison 1803–2003. A French-American Dialogue, ed. Elisabeth Zoller. Paris: Dalloz, 215–228.

  16. 16.

    Ackerman, Bruce. 2005. The Failure of the Founding Fathers. Cambridge-London: Harvard University Press, 173–180.

  17. 17.

    Whittington, Keith E. 2009. Judicial Review of Congress before the Civil War. The Georgetown Law Journal 97: 1257–1331.

  18. 18.

    Corwin, as n. 8, 77.

  19. 19.

    Story, as n. 5, 645.

  20. 20.

    Ibid. 254, 257 and 276.

  21. 21.

    Volume 1, Chapter 6.

  22. 22.

    Laboulaye, Edouard. 1855. Histoire politique des États-Unis depuis les premiers essais de colonies jusqu’à l’adoption de la constitution fédérale. Paris : A. Durand, vol. III, 477–480.

  23. 23.

    Cooley, Thomas. 1868. A Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2–3, 38–45.

  24. 24.

    Bruce Ackerman (as in n. 6) 211.

  25. 25.

    Whittington, Keith E. 1999. Constitutional Construction. Divided Powers and Constitutional Meaning. Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 157.

  26. 26.

    Coxe, Brinton. 1893. An Essay on Judicial Power and Unconstitutional Laws. Philadelphia: Kay and Brother, 10–22.

  27. 27.

    Whittington, as in n. 17, 1267.

  28. 28.

    Lambert, Édouard. 1921. Le Gouvernement des Juges. Paris: Giard, 61.

  29. 29.

    Lambert (as n. 28) 217.

  30. 30.

    Horwitz, Morton J. 1992. The Transformation of American Law 1870–1960. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 33.

  31. 31.

    Ackerman (as n. 6) 288–348.

  32. 32.

    Coxe (as n. 26), 83.

  33. 33.

    Again recently, at least for the period before 1795, Troper, Michel. 2006. Terminer la Révolution. La constitution de 1795. Paris: Fayard, 63 and 84. Michel Troper makes the distinction between the conception of the constitution as a machine, guaranteeing the separation of powers, and as norm. However, he nuances his analysis by considering that even in the United States, the conception of the constitution as a norm was the fact of a minority at the end of the eighteenth century (with the example of Hamilton).

  34. 34.

    Halpérin, Jean-Louis. 1993. La Constitution de 1791 appliquée par les tribunaux. In 1791. La première constitution française, eds, J. Bart, J.-J. Clère, C. Courvoisier, M. Verpeaux. Paris: Economica, 369–381.

  35. 35.

    Archives Parlementaires (Mavidal and Laurent eds.), vol. 29, 273–274 and 293–297.

  36. 36.

    Mestre, Jean-Louis. 1993. Les juridictions judiciaires et l’inconstitutionnalité des ordonnances royales. Revue française de droit constitutionnel 15: 451–461.

  37. 37.

    Mestre, Jean-Louis. 1995. La Cour de cassation et le contrôle de la constitutionnalité. Données historiques. In La Cour de cassation et la Constitution de la République. Aix: Presses Universitaires d’Aix-Marseille, 35–67.

  38. 38.

    Miller, Jonathan. 1997. The Authority of a Foreign Talisman: A study of US. Constitutional Practice as Authority in nineteenth-Century Argentina and the Argentine’s Elite Leap of Faith. American University Law Review: 1544–1561; Mirow, Matthew. 2007. Marbury in Mexico: Judicial Review’s Precocious Southern Migration. Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly 35/1: 41–117.

  39. 39.

    Wheeler, Fiona and Williams, Jones. 2007. Restrained Activism in the High Court of Australia. In Judicial Activism in Common Law Supreme Courts, ed., Brice Dickson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 21.

  40. 40.

    Haller, Herbert. 1979. Die Prüfung von Gesetzen. Wien, New-York: Springer, 70.

  41. 41.

    Kelsen, Hans. 1942. Judicial Review of Legislation: A Comparative Study of the Austrian and the American Constitution. Journal of Politics 4: 183–200: in this paper Kelsen was very critical towards the American model and defended the superiority of the Austrian model.

  42. 42.

    Eisenmann, Charles. 1928. La justice constitutionnelle et la Haute Cour constitutionnelle d’Autriche. Paris: Giard, 189 has doubted of the good functioning of the system if provincial and federal governments were ruled by the same political majority.

  43. 43.

    Kelsen, Hans. 1928. La garantie juridictionelle de la constitution. Revue du droit public 45: 197–257.

  44. 44.

    Osterkamp, Jana. 2009. Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit in der Tschechoslowakei (1920–1939). Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann.

  45. 45.

    Charles Eisenmann (as n. 42) 244–248.

  46. 46.

    Ferreres Comella, Victor. 2009. Constitutional Courts and Democratic Values. New Haven-London: Yale University Press, 7.

  47. 47.

    Salzberger, Eli. 2007. Judicial Activism in Israel. In Dickson (as n. 39) 238.

  48. 48.

    Tushnet, Mark. 2003. Judicial Review of Legislation. In The Oxford Handbook of Legal Studies, eds, Peter Cane, Mark Tushnet. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 164.

  49. 49.

    Minister of Justice, Responding to Human Rights Judgments. Report to the Joint Committee on Human Rights on the Government’s response to human rights judgments 2010–11 (UK, 2011) 5; Duffy, Aurélie. 2007. La protection des droits et libertés au Royaume-Uni. Paris: Varenne, 529.

  50. 50.

    Law, David S. 2011. Why has Judicial Review failed in Japan? Washington University Law Review 88: 1425.

  51. 51.

    Hoog, Peter W. 2006. Canada: from Privy Council to Supreme Court. In Interpreting Constitutions: A Comparative Study, ed, Jeffrey Goldsworthy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 72.

  52. 52.

    Wheeler, Fiona and Williams, John (as n. 39), 19, 33 and 55.

  53. 53.

    Judgment Days. The Economist, 26th of March 2009.

  54. 54.

    Lemaire, Elina. 2012. Dans les coulisses du Conseil constitutionnel. Jus Politicum 7: 40–41.

  55. 55.

    Stone Sweet, Alec. 1992. The Birth of Judicial Politics in France: The Constitutional Council in Comparative Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 239.

  56. 56.

    As Victor Ferreres Comella (as n. 46) 78 has noticed, “some laws are much more important than others” and judicial activism has to be considered in relation with the opposition of a constitutional court towards governmental majority in key issues.

  57. 57.

    Dhavan, Rajeev. 1977. The Supreme Court of India. A Socio-Legal Critique of its Juristic Techniques. Bombay: N. M. Tripathi, 9.

  58. 58.

    Cardozo, Benjamin N. 1921. The Nature of the Judicial Process. New Haven: Yale University Press, 69 quoting Holmes’ opinion in Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen (1917).

  59. 59.

    Ferreres Comella (as n. 46), 62–63.

  60. 60.

    Sathe, S. P. 2002. Judicial Activism in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 88–89.

  61. 61.

    Ferreres Comella (as n. 46), 40–41 about Germany, Spain and Italy; Krynen, Jacques. 2012. L’État de justice. France, XIII e -XX e siècle. L’emprise contemporaine des juges. Paris: Gallimard, 330 about the 11 law professors (among 69 members since 1959) who have been members of the French Constitutional Council.

  62. 62.

    Rabban, David. 2013. Law’s History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 34 and 59.

  63. 63.

    Shapiro, Martin and Stone Sweet, Alec. 2002. On Law, Politics and Judicialization. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 187.

  64. 64.

    Epp, Charles R. 1998. The Rights Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  65. 65.

    Epp (as n. 64), 71 considers that finally “little happened” (after the 1970s) in the promotion of human rights in India, but constitutional litigation (often linked with “public interest litigation” that has enlarged considerably interest standing for individual or collective litigants) has continued to increase about other questions (like equality in education or environment protection).

  66. 66.

    Gardner, James A. 1992. The Failed Discourse of State Constitutionalism. Michigan Law Review 90: 761–836 considers that controversies about State constitutions are unlikely, today, to favour the development of a constitutional discourse in the different American States, because of the incoherence of constitutional texts and decisions. But the more recent development about constitutional referendums (about the right to bear arms, the same-sex marriage) can be analyzed as forms of revival of constitutional debates inside American states and, more generally, in the American legal field.

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  1. Department of Social Sciences, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France

    Jean-Louis Halpérin

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Halpérin, JL. (2014). Modern Constitutionalism: A Chain of Revolutions Always in Progress. In: Five Legal Revolutions Since the 17th Century. Studies in the History of Law and Justice, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05888-7_3

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