'To Save the People from Themselves'

Abstract

In this expansive history, Robert J. Steinfeld offers a thorough re-interpretation of the origins of American judicial review and the central role it quickly came to play in the American constitutional system. Beginning with Privy Council review of American colonial legislation, the book goes on to provide detailed descriptions of the character of the first American constitutions, showing that they drew heavily on traditional Anglo/American constitutional assumptions, which treated legislatures as the primary interpreters of constitutions. Steinfeld then expertly analyses the central role lawyers and judges played in transforming these assumptions, creating the practice and doctrine of American judicial review in a half dozen state cases during the 1780s. The book concludes by showing that the ideas formulated during those years shaped critical decisions taken by the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which turned the novel practice into a permanent, if still deeply controversial, feature of the American constitutional system.

El rol de abogados y jueces en el surgimiento del control judicial de constitucionalidad en los Estados Unidos

“…La lógica del argumento es contundente y difícil de cuestionar. Tal como sostiene Steinfeld (2021), tal vez por primera vez en los Estados Unidos, Tucker armó y presentó un poderoso argumento a favor del control judicial de constitucionalidad "a partir de proposiciones relativamente indiscutibles acera de las constituciones y la función de los jueces […]. Ese argumento, una vez desarrollado, parecía obvio, casi auto evidente, y rápidamente transformó el paisaje constitucional" (p. 183).…”

“…Aunque de forma más rudimentaria, al igual que St. George Tucker en Virginia, Sheburne expuso en este caso la amalgama de ideas viejas y nuevas a las que ya hice referencia. Tal como explica Steinfeld (2021), el deber constitucional del poder judicial era interpretar y aplicar la ley a casos individuales. En este punto, no implicó un gran salto decir que ese deber se extendía a interpretar y aplicar la Constitución a esos casos.…”