The Great Walter Berns

Quin Hillyer, National Review Online, January 12, 2015.

Excerpt:

“Gov’t can rule only by laws, not by decrees.” “The Last paragraph Fed 10: (first object of gov’t: protect the unequal faculties of acquiring property.) [arrow to next sentence:] “To secure equal rights is to secure rights of unequally endowed human beings. To allow pursuit of happiness as the individual defines it.” “Berns says Congress may indeed remove S. Court’s jurisdiction from cases.” “‘One thing is clear: the Founders did not anticipate that the Supreme Court would have anything like the role it plays today’ – Berns.” “Berns says only substantive clause of 14th is privileges and immunities (also see Article 4).”

These are a few of my scribbled notes from the fall of 1986, from a class at Georgetown on the essentials of American constitutionalism, taught by the great scholar Walter Berns, who died this past weekend at age 95.

Online:
National Review