H. Jefferson Powell on The Emergence of the American Constitutional Law Tradition

H. Jefferson Powell of Duke University School of Law authored an article for the Spring 2019 issue of Judicature entitled “The Emergence of the American Constitutional Law Tradition.”

The following is an excerpt from the article,

Intellectual traditions differ in the way they cohere over time. As the great philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre said years ago, a tradition of rational inquiry does not maintain its continuity through the simple repetition of what has been thought and said in the past. What gives life to such a tradition is not so much agreement about answers as it is agreement about questions. In MacIntyre’s words, an intellectual “tradition is an argument extended through time in which [even its] fundamental agreements are defined and redefined . . . [through] conflict.” An intellectual tradition, unless it goes dead, is a continuity of conflict, and debate and disagreement are its lifeblood. The emergence of the American constitutional law tradition, then, is the story of an ongoing debate, an endless argument over, among other things, what constitutional law is about.

Professor Powell is Director of Duke’s First Amendment Clinic. He has served as deputy assistant attorney general and principal deputy solicitor general in the U.S. Department of Justice and as special counsel to the attorney general of North Carolina.

Read the full piece here.