Book Release: Restoring the Lost Constitution

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Restoring the Lost Constitution

By Randy E. Barnett



A libertarian, natural-rights defense of the U.S.
Constitution.

Price: $32.50
Publication Date: February 2004
ISBN: 0-691-11585-0
Number of Pages: 360
Hardcover
Categories: Constitutional Studies, New
Releases




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About the Book

The U.S. Constitution found in school textbooks and under glass in
Washington is not the one enforced today by the Supreme Court. In
Restoring the Lost Constitution, Randy Barnett argues that since
the nation's founding, but especially since the 1930s, the courts have
been cutting holes in the original Constitution and its amendments to
eliminate the parts that protect liberty from the power of government.
From the Commerce Clause, to the Necessary and Proper Clause, to
the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, to the Privilege or Immunities
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court has
rendered each of these provisions toothless. In the process, the
written Constitution has been lost.

Barnett establishes the original meaning of these lost clauses and
offers a practical way to restore them to their central role in
constraining government: adopting a "presumption of liberty" to give
the benefit of the doubt to citizens when laws restrict their rightful
exercises of liberty. He also provides a new, realistic and
philosophically rigorous theory of constitutional legitimacy that justifies
both interpreting the Constitution according to its original meaning
and, where that meaning is vague or open-ended, construing it so as
to better protect the rights retained by the people.

As clearly argued as it is insightful and provocative, Restoring the
Lost Constitution forcefully disputes the conventional wisdom,
posing a powerful challenge to which others must now respond.

Press Release: Restoring the Lost Constitution

About the Author

Randy E. Barnett is the Austin B. Fletcher Professor at Boston
University School of Law and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He
is the author of The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of
Law.

What Others Have Said

"Step by step, Randy Barnett constructs an intriguing case for a
moderately libertarian natural-rights Constitution that allows
government action only when, and because, doing so protects the
generously defined liberties of each person. Along the way he sheds
new light on old controversies. This book should provoke the kind of
controversy that advances our understanding of the Constitution."
--Mark Tushnet, author of The New Constitutional Order

"Randy Barnett makes two important arguments, one involving the
interpretation of the Constitution by reference to original
understandings, the other endorsing a libertarian tilt in resolving
disputes about governmental powers. Constitutional scholars and
students will find much to admire in Barnett's carefully nuanced
arguments, whether or not they ultimately agree with his conclusions.
But the book should attract general readers as well. It is remarkably
well written, totally devoid of jargon, and presented in a
conversational and courteous tone. A truly excellent book!"
--Sanford Levinson, author of Constitutional Faith

"Randy Barnett's Restoring the Lost Constitution is a surprising
book. It is surprising that a scholar as learned and competent as
Barnett should undertake the defense of libertarianism--a perspective
on the state and on law unfashionable among the intelligentsia for a
century. It is surprising that he should defend it so well and
reasonably. It is even more surprising that such a strong and
comprehensive case can be made that this libertarian perspective not
only was that of those who wrote and (more importantly) ratified the
Constitution, but also that it is the lawful and proper way to interpret
the Constitution today. This is an important and challenging book for
anyone interested in American law and government."
--Charles Fried, Beneficial Professor of Law, Harvard Law School,
author of Saying What the Law Is: The Constitution in the
Supreme Court

"Provocative in the best sense, this is a very readable book whose
argument is clear and accessible even to those unversed in the details
of constitutional law or theory. It is particularly suggestive and
effective in connecting two disparate strands of conservative political
and constitutional theory: traditional conservative respect for original
constitutional meaning and libertarian commitment to individual rights."

--Keith Whittington, Princeton University, author of Constitutional
Interpretation: Textual Meaning, Original Intent, and Judicial
Review

"This is an important book, one that everybody in the field will (or
should) take account of. Randy Barnett puts forward a
comprehensive, thoughtful, clear, concise, challenging, and historically
plausible version of American Constitutionalism. He pulls together a
tremendous amount of material, including some of the best recent
revisionist scholarship on constitutional history, and sets this in a
framework of great integrity and unity of vision."
--Michael Zuckert, University of Notre Dame, author of Launching
Liberalism: On Lockean Political Philosophy








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