Books

Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– The Louisiana State University Press, 1957; reprinted, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1969.

This book examines the First Amendment and issues of liberty and the American Founding. Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments I           Censorship: A Classic Issue… More

Book Review: Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– Rene de Visme Williamson, Louisiana Law Review 18:2 (February 1958).

Excerpt: In an age when conflicting ideologies are competing for the support of mankind and when constitutional issues regarding civil liberties are dividing the American people in opposing… More

School Prayers and “Religious Warfare”

– National Review, April 23, 1963, 315–17.

The Sources of Law

– National Review, August 11, 1964, 690.

Book review of The Morality of Law by Lon L. Fuller.

The Constitution and the Migration of Slaves

– The Yale Law Journal 78:2 (December 1968), 198–228; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).

Excerpt: Shortly after the adoption of the Constitution, the South came to see the power granted to Congress to regulate commerce as a major threat to its domestic tranquility, for this… More

What Was Wrong with the Warren Court

– National Review, April 21, 1970, 414.

Book review of The Supreme Court and the Idea of Progress, by Alexander M. Bickel.

The Limits to Judicial Power

– National Review, September 1, 1972, 958.

Book review of The Modern Supreme Court by Robert G. McCloskey and Martin Shapiro.

Free Speech and Free Government

– The Political Science Reviewer 2:1 (Fall 1972).

Excerpt: It is unfortunate, and a measure of our contemporary difficulties, that too many Americans today would hesitate to agree with Gladstone that the American Constitution was… More

Thinking About the City

– Commentary, October 1973; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).

Excerpt: Cities express an ambivalence in the American soul: we like cities and wish to live in them—or at least to visit them—but we also dislike cities and wish to avoid them, and… More

The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– Basic Books, 1976; reprinted, Regnery Gateway, 1985.

A sharp, in-depth analysis of the First Amendment offering a unique interpretation of our basic freedoms and liberties.

Religion and the Founding Principle

– The Moral Foundations of the American Republic, Robert H. Horwitz, ed. (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1977, 1986).

Book Review: The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– Jeremy A. Rabkin, American Spectator (March 1977).

Excerpt: In the late 1930s, the Supreme Court largely abandoned its traditional defense of property rights and also gave up its long struggle to maintain a balance in the federal system by… More

The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– William J. Bennett, Commentary (May 1977).

Abstract: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

Walter Berns: Philosopher of the First Amendment

– William A. Stanmeyer, Modern Age (December 1977), 367–76.

The Least Dangerous Branch, But Only If…

– The Judiciary in a Democratic Society, Leonard J. Theberge, ed. (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1979).

Based on papers presented at the national conference on the role of the judiciary in a democratic society held at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., on September 30… More

The Corporation’s Song

– American Spectator 13:9 (September 1980).

“The Corporation’s Song” Walter Berns and lyrics by Hobbes, Locke, and Madison. Music by Mobil Oil?

The Judiciary and Representative Government

– Public Policy Papers (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1981).  

The Confusion of Political Choices and Constitutional Requirements: The Perspective of a Legal Historian

– Private Schools and the Public Good, Edward McGlynn Gaffrey, Jr., ed. (South Bend, IN: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1981).

The Forms of Article V

– Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 6 (1982), 73.

Judicial Review and the Rights and Laws of Nature

– The Supreme Court Review 1982, (1982), 49–83; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).

Excerpt: The current controversy over the proper role of the judiciary can be said to have begun twenty years ago with Herbert Wechsler’s appeal for Supreme Court decisions resting on… More

A Reply to Harry Jaffa

– National Review, January 22, 1982.

Abstract: The article presents the author’s response to professor Harry Jaffa’s criticism of his views about the Declaration of Independence in the U.S. The author says that… More

The American Presidency: Statesmanship and Constitutionalism in Balance

– Imprimis, Hillsdale College, January 1983. Reprinted in Educating for Liberty: The Best of Imprimis, 1972–2002, Douglas A. Jeffrey, ed. (Hillsdale, MI: Hillsdale College Press, 2002).

Excerpt: America today is in need of leadership of the sort provided in the past by our greatest presidents, presidents whom we mean to honor and praise when we denominate them… More

The Legislative Protection of Rights

– The U.S. Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, William R. McKercher (Ontario, Canada: Ontario Economic Council, 1983).

After the People Vote: Steps in Choosing the President

– American Enterprise Institute Press, 1983; second edition, 1992.

Explains how electors are appointed, how ballots are cast and votes are counted, and what happens if no one has a majority; and discusses three disputed elections.

The Writing of the Constitution of the United States

– American Enterprise Institute, 1984; reprinted by the President's Commission on White House Fellowships; reprinted in Constitution Makers on Constitution Making: The Exercises of Eight Nations, Robert A. Goldwin, ed. (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1988).

A paper presented to the White House fellows at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, October 19, 1983.

In Defense of Political Philosophy: Two Letters to Walter Berns

– In Harry Jaffa, American Conservatism and the American Founding (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1984)

Excerpt: IN HIS ‘REPLY TO Harry Jaffa” (National Review, January 22, 1982), Walter Berns writes: There is no substance to Harry Jaffa’s criticism of me. In 1972, he wrote that the… More

Affirmative Action vs. the Declaration of Independence

– New Perspectives 16:1 (Summer 1984).

Abstract: Reverse discrimination is an effect of affirmative action that cannot be overlooked: it is discriminatory and it has victims. If laws may be used to discriminate against Whites,… More

Citizenship, Rights and Responsibilities

– Rights, Citizenship, and Responsibilities, Bradford P. Wilson, ed. (Valley Forge, PA: Freedom Foundation, 1984).

The proceedings of Freedom Foundation’s symposium on citizen responsibilities, December 13-14, 1984, Washington, D.C.

Do We Have a Living Constitution?

– National Forum LXIV:4 (Fall 1984).

Excerpt: Now, almost 200 years later, one can read Hamilton’s words in Federalist No. 1 and conclude that, under some conditions, some “societies of men” are capable of… More

In Defense of Liberal Democracy

– Regnery Gateway, 1984.

In this new book of essays, Walter Berns give shape to the arena of American government and politics. He contends that “free government is an endangered species in our world,”… More

Teaching the Founding of the United States

– Politics in Perspective 13:1 (Fall 1985).

Abstract: If students are to understand the American Constitution, they must, like the Founders, take political philosophy seriously. Books and essays that college teachers can use to teach… More

How Has the United States Met Its Major Challenges Since 1945?

– Commentary, November 1985.

Excerpt: Things were different in America and always had been. Our aristocrats, our Tories, were dispatched in 1776, at the beginning, at the time we became Americans. They went back to… More

Equally Endowed With Rights

– Justice and Equality Here and Now, Frank Lucash, ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), 151–71.

Re-evaluating the Open Society

– Order, Freedom, and the Polity: Critical Essays on the Open Society, George W. Carey, ed. (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute and University Press of America, 1986).

Abstract: A series of essays which critically examine the concept of the open society as ‘the crowning achievement of Western civilization.’ Analyzes the open society theory… More

The Constitution and the Pursuit of American Happiness

– We the People, Constitutional Ideals and the American Experience: A Bicentennial Perspective, symposium hosted by Angelo State University, 1987.

Excerpt: There are, as I count them, 164 countries in the world, and of these all but six (Great Britain, New Zealand, and Israel; Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Libya) have written constitutions.… More

The ‘New’ Science of Politics and Constitutional Government

– Constitutionalism and Rights, Gary C. Bryner and Noel B. Reynolds, eds. (Albany NY: SUNY Press, 1987).

Abstract: Constitutionalism and Rights explores the ambivalent relationship between the American tradition of constitutionalism and the notions of rights that have emerged over the last… More

Comment on Rowan

– Maryland Law Review 47:1 (1987).

Excerpt: I begin by setting the stage for a question. I then ask it. Put yourself in the position of a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. You are an… More

Celebrating the Bicentennial

– Washington Times, March 5, 1987.

Government by Lawyers & Judges

– Commentary, June 1987.

Excerpt: We call it judicial review, and while the point has frequently been disputed, sometimes fiercely, there is really no question but that the Framers intended federal judges to… More

Taking the Constitution Seriously

– Crisis, June 1, 1987.

Excerpt: Unlike the first federal judges, whose formal legal education was likely to have been very limited indeed — John Marshall was largely self-educated in the law and John Jay, the… More

In Times of Crisis, How Much Power Does the President Have?

– Washington Times, June 3, 1987; reprinted in The World and I (August 1987).

Excerpt: Lt. Col. Oliver North may or may not have broken the law, but that he was a hero Patrick J. Buchanan had no doubt. Unlike the other members of the Reagan White House – he was… More

Judicial Review and the Supreme Court

– The World and I (September 1987).

Excerpt: In a recent speech, Harvard law professor Archibald Cox acknowledged that the Supreme Court had succeeded in making the Constitution into an “instrument of massive… More

The New Pursuit of Happiness

– Public Interest 86 (Winter 1987), 65–76.

Excerpt: Landing in New York in May 1831, Gustave de Beaumont was struck by the “busyness” of the place. “It’s a remarkable phenomenon,” he wrote his father, “a great people… More

Liberty and Equality

– Panel discussion hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, December 1, 1987.

This a session from the larger conference held by the American Enterprise Institute entitled “The Spirit of the Constitution.” The focus of this panel was liberty and equality. Part… More

Book Review: Taking the Constitution Seriously

– Terry Eastland, American Spectator (January 1988).

Judicial Roulette

– Twentieth Century Fund Task Force Report on Judicial Selection (New York: Priority Press, 1988).

Taking the Framers Seriously

– William Michael Treanor, The University of Chicago Law Review 55:3 (Summer, 1988), pp. 1016–40.

Abstract: This review focuses on three of the key historical points that Walter Berns makes: his arguments that the Declaration of Independence is a Lockean document; that the Constitution… More

Taking Berns Seriously

– Grant B. Mindle, South Dakota Law Review 34:432 (1989).

The American Founding

– Principles of the Constitutional Order: The Ratification Debates, Robert L. Utley, ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1989).

Justice as the Securing of Rights

– The Constitution, the Courts, and the Quest for Justice, Robert A. Goldwin and William A. Schambra, eds. (American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1989).

Taking the Constitution Seriously

– Simon and Schuster, 1987; reprinted, Madison Books, 1992.

Walter Berns’s book is must reading for every judge, law student, or member of the general public who wants to know more about our Federal Constitution. Berns concisely and clearly… More

On Hamilton and Popular Government

– Public Interest 109 (Fall 1992), 109–13.

Excerpt: Alexander Hamilton has never been a popular hero among his fellow citizens. When visiting the capital city, they mount the tour buses that take them to the Capitol, the White… More

On Madison and Majoritarianism: A Response to Professor Amar

– Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 15:113 (Winter 1992).

Excerpt: Some fourteen years ago, in Washington, before an audience consisting largely of law school professors and federal judges, I said there probably was not a law school in the country… More

Liberal Democracy and Justice in the Constitution of Walter Berns

– Richard G. Stevens, The Political Science Reviewer 22 (1993).

Excerpt: Walter Berns admits in the preface to his book by that very title that he had all along been writing in defense of liberal democracy. This is not simply a post litem motam… More

We, the People, Debate the Constitution

– Washington Times, July 4, 1993.

Excerpt: With the publication of the two volumes of “The Debate on the Constitution,” the 62nd and 63rd in the Library of America series, the general public will now have access… More

Solving the Problem of Democracy

– South Africa's Crisis of Constitutional Democracy: Can the U.S. Constitution Help?, Robert A. Licht and Bertus de Villiers, eds. (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1994), 180–200; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Some years ago, before an audience of federal judges and law professors, I said that there probably was not a law school in the United States that did not offer a course in… More

The Prattling Presidency

– Wall Street Journal, October 13, 1994; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Our presidents have become big talkers. President Clinton, for example, is going across the country this week to sing the praises of his administration and of the Democratic… More

On Patriotism

– Bradley Lecture, American Enterprise Institute, September 16, 1996.

Excerpt: Patriotism means love of country (patria, in the Latin) and implies a readiness to sacrifice for it, to fight for it, perhaps even to give one’s life for it. In the traditional,… More

Taking Virtue Seriously

– Public Interest 128 (Summer 1997), 122–26.

Excerpt: In 1790-91, Supreme Court Justice James Wilson delivered a series of lectures on the law at what was to become the University of Pennsylvania and before an audience that included… More

The Supreme Court as Republican Schoolmaster: Constitutional Interpretation and the ‘Genius of the People’

– The Supreme Court and American Constitutionalism, Bradford P. Wilson and Ken Masugi, eds. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 3–16.

In this important book, fourteen of America’s leading constitutional scholars assess the Supreme Court’s performance expounding the animating principles of American… More

Constitutionalism and Multiculturalism

– Multiculturalism and American Democracy, Arthur M. Melzer, Jerry Weinberger, and M. Richard Zinman, eds. (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 91–111; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Alexis de Tocqueville, writing in the 1830s, very much feared that liberty and equality would be at war with each other; today there is a tendency among some intellectuals to think… More

Historians Spring an “October Surprise”

– Wall Street Journal, November 3, 1998.

Excerpt: In the runup to every election, politicians wait in hopeful or nervous expectation of the “October surprise” — a last-minute news bombshell that can turn the… More

Walter Berns: The Constitution and American Liberal Democracy

– Gary D. Glenn, in Leo Strauss: The Straussians and the Study of the American Regime, eds. Kenneth L. Deutsch and John Albert Murley (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), 193–204.

Martin Diamond’s Contribution to American Political Thought: Symposium

– The Political Science Reviewer 28:1 (Fall 1999).

Excerpt: Forgotten or neglected by politicians, the Constitution and its Framers did not fare much better in the academic world that Martin Diamond entered in the early 1950s. Political… More

Alexis de Tocqueville

– The American Enterprise (November/December 1999).

Alexis de Tocqueville was born in France in 1805, the son of aristocrats. During the French Revolution, his parents had been imprisoned, and his mother’s father and grandfather had… More

Revisiting States’ Rights Controversy at the Wrong Time, with Altered History

– Washington Times, October 15, 2000; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Forrest McDonald is a reputable scholar. Early-American historians especially are indebted to him, not only f or his important study of the formation of the republic, and his… More

Making Patriots

– University of Chicago Press, 2001; paperback edition, 2002.

Although Samuel Johnson once remarked that “patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels,” over the course of the history of the United States we have seen our share of heroes:… More

America—Idea or Nation?

– Wilfred M. McClay, Public Interest (Fall 2001).

Excerpt: At first glance, American patriotism seems a simple matter. But it is simple only until one actually starts to think about it, inquire after its sources, and investigate its… More

Imperishable Insights by Bill Buckley

– William F. Buckley, New Criterion (September 2001).

Excerpt: This (too) short book grew out of an essay written by the distinguished political philosopher Walter Berns for The Public Interest. What it does is to probe into American… More

James Madison on Religion and Politics

– James Madison and the Future of Limited Government, John Curtis Samples, ed. (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2002), 135–46.

Americans are once again rediscovering the wisdom of the founders who wrote and ratified the U.S. Constitution, which has stood the test of two centuries. James Madison’s efforts in… More

Ancients and Moderns: The Emergence of Modern Constitutionalism

– Institute for the Study of the Americas, March 2002; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Walter Berns, John M. Olin University Professor emeritus at Georgetown University, investigates the history of modern constitutionalism or limited government. Particularly interested in the… More

The Insignificant Office

– National Review Online, July 9, 2004; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Why should John Edwards or anyone else want to be vice president? One of the men who held the post spoke of it as “the most insignificant office” ever contrived by the… More

Under God

– In Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: On March 24, 2004, the Supreme Court heard arguments in still another of what civil libertarians insist on calling establishment-of-religion cases, Elk Grove Unified School… More

Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought

– AEI Press, 2006.

Excerpt: One of the distinctive things about America is that its Founders were political theorists as well as practitioners. Consider, as the most telling example, the Declaration of… More

Democracy and the Constitution: Essays by Walter Berns

– Audio, book forum, American Enterprise Institute, September 29, 2006.

AEI scholar and historian Walter Berns has spent his academic career defending the United States Constitution. In his latest collection of essays, Democracy and the Constitution (AEI Press,… More

Patriotism and Multiculturalism

– The Many Faces of Patriotism, Philip Abbott, ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 3–14.

In the decades following the end of the Cold War, scholars turned their attention to reevaluating patriotism. Many saw both its ability to serve as a cohesive force and its desirability as… More

Lincoln at Two Hundred: Why We Still Read the Sixteenth President

– American Enterprise Institute, 2009.

Excerpt: More has been written about Abraham Lincoln than of any other president or, for that matter, any other American; the amount is prodigious: no fewer than 16,000 books and goodness… More

Abraham Lincoln at Two Hundred

– Audio lecture, American Enterprise Institute, February 9, 2009.

Abraham Lincoln was the greatest of our presidents. He saved the Union, which made it possible for him to free the slaves. But he did more than this; without him we probably would have had… More

Free Markets and the Constitution

– Audio lecture, American Enterprise Institute, August 11, 2009.

Why is the number of Americans who value free enterprise, and who understand its virtues and benefits declining–especially among students and younger citizens? Asked in an… More

Walter Berns’ Constitution by Christopher DeMuth

– Remarks by Christopher DeMuth at a Constitution Day seminar in honor of Walter Berns, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, September 20, 2011.

Excerpt: In America today, the Constitution has come to mean constitutional law. Most Americans venerate their Constitution and realize that it is an important source of their liberties and… More

Walter Berns and the Constitution: A Celebration of the Constitution, with Opening Remarks by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

– Panel discussion of Walter Berns' scholarship, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, September 20, 2011.

In mid-September 2011, as part of AEI’s Program on American Citizenship, we celebrated Constitution Day (September 17), the day thirty-nine members of the Constitutional Convention signed… More

Walter Berns and Leon Kass on Stephen Spielberg’s “Lincoln”

– Discussion with Walter Berns and Leon Kass, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, December 20, 2012.

At a discussion hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, What So Proudly We Hail editor Leon R. Kass and Walter Berns (professor emeritus, Georgetown University) discussed Steven… More

Patriots

– Audio, "Dialogue," Woodrow Wilson Center.

In ancient Sparta patriotism meant a commitment to warfare and a view of the state as divine. For modern Americans patriotism is set on a much different and abstract basis. Walter Berns… More

The Jaffa-Berns Feud Revisited

– Steven F. Hayward, Powerline, September 11, 2015. Remarks from Claremont Institute APSA panel, September 2015.

Excerpt: Berns inclined toward a Hobbesian reading of Locke while Jaffa worked out an Aristotelian reading of Locke. Jaffa thought America the best regime, in the classical sense. Though he… More

Essays

Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– The Louisiana State University Press, 1957; reprinted, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1969.

This book examines the First Amendment and issues of liberty and the American Founding. Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments I           Censorship: A Classic Issue… More

Book Review: Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– Rene de Visme Williamson, Louisiana Law Review 18:2 (February 1958).

Excerpt: In an age when conflicting ideologies are competing for the support of mankind and when constitutional issues regarding civil liberties are dividing the American people in opposing… More

School Prayers and “Religious Warfare”

– National Review, April 23, 1963, 315–17.

The Sources of Law

– National Review, August 11, 1964, 690.

Book review of The Morality of Law by Lon L. Fuller.

The Constitution and the Migration of Slaves

– The Yale Law Journal 78:2 (December 1968), 198–228; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).

Excerpt: Shortly after the adoption of the Constitution, the South came to see the power granted to Congress to regulate commerce as a major threat to its domestic tranquility, for this… More

What Was Wrong with the Warren Court

– National Review, April 21, 1970, 414.

Book review of The Supreme Court and the Idea of Progress, by Alexander M. Bickel.

The Limits to Judicial Power

– National Review, September 1, 1972, 958.

Book review of The Modern Supreme Court by Robert G. McCloskey and Martin Shapiro.

Free Speech and Free Government

– The Political Science Reviewer 2:1 (Fall 1972).

Excerpt: It is unfortunate, and a measure of our contemporary difficulties, that too many Americans today would hesitate to agree with Gladstone that the American Constitution was… More

Thinking About the City

– Commentary, October 1973; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).

Excerpt: Cities express an ambivalence in the American soul: we like cities and wish to live in them—or at least to visit them—but we also dislike cities and wish to avoid them, and… More

The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– Basic Books, 1976; reprinted, Regnery Gateway, 1985.

A sharp, in-depth analysis of the First Amendment offering a unique interpretation of our basic freedoms and liberties.

Religion and the Founding Principle

– The Moral Foundations of the American Republic, Robert H. Horwitz, ed. (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1977, 1986).

Book Review: The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– Jeremy A. Rabkin, American Spectator (March 1977).

Excerpt: In the late 1930s, the Supreme Court largely abandoned its traditional defense of property rights and also gave up its long struggle to maintain a balance in the federal system by… More

The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– William J. Bennett, Commentary (May 1977).

Abstract: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

Walter Berns: Philosopher of the First Amendment

– William A. Stanmeyer, Modern Age (December 1977), 367–76.

The Least Dangerous Branch, But Only If…

– The Judiciary in a Democratic Society, Leonard J. Theberge, ed. (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1979).

Based on papers presented at the national conference on the role of the judiciary in a democratic society held at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., on September 30… More

The Corporation’s Song

– American Spectator 13:9 (September 1980).

“The Corporation’s Song” Walter Berns and lyrics by Hobbes, Locke, and Madison. Music by Mobil Oil?

The Judiciary and Representative Government

– Public Policy Papers (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1981).  

The Confusion of Political Choices and Constitutional Requirements: The Perspective of a Legal Historian

– Private Schools and the Public Good, Edward McGlynn Gaffrey, Jr., ed. (South Bend, IN: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1981).

The Forms of Article V

– Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 6 (1982), 73.

Judicial Review and the Rights and Laws of Nature

– The Supreme Court Review 1982, (1982), 49–83; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).

Excerpt: The current controversy over the proper role of the judiciary can be said to have begun twenty years ago with Herbert Wechsler’s appeal for Supreme Court decisions resting on… More

A Reply to Harry Jaffa

– National Review, January 22, 1982.

Abstract: The article presents the author’s response to professor Harry Jaffa’s criticism of his views about the Declaration of Independence in the U.S. The author says that… More

The American Presidency: Statesmanship and Constitutionalism in Balance

– Imprimis, Hillsdale College, January 1983. Reprinted in Educating for Liberty: The Best of Imprimis, 1972–2002, Douglas A. Jeffrey, ed. (Hillsdale, MI: Hillsdale College Press, 2002).

Excerpt: America today is in need of leadership of the sort provided in the past by our greatest presidents, presidents whom we mean to honor and praise when we denominate them… More

The Legislative Protection of Rights

– The U.S. Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, William R. McKercher (Ontario, Canada: Ontario Economic Council, 1983).

After the People Vote: Steps in Choosing the President

– American Enterprise Institute Press, 1983; second edition, 1992.

Explains how electors are appointed, how ballots are cast and votes are counted, and what happens if no one has a majority; and discusses three disputed elections.

The Writing of the Constitution of the United States

– American Enterprise Institute, 1984; reprinted by the President's Commission on White House Fellowships; reprinted in Constitution Makers on Constitution Making: The Exercises of Eight Nations, Robert A. Goldwin, ed. (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1988).

A paper presented to the White House fellows at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, October 19, 1983.

In Defense of Political Philosophy: Two Letters to Walter Berns

– In Harry Jaffa, American Conservatism and the American Founding (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1984)

Excerpt: IN HIS ‘REPLY TO Harry Jaffa” (National Review, January 22, 1982), Walter Berns writes: There is no substance to Harry Jaffa’s criticism of me. In 1972, he wrote that the… More

Affirmative Action vs. the Declaration of Independence

– New Perspectives 16:1 (Summer 1984).

Abstract: Reverse discrimination is an effect of affirmative action that cannot be overlooked: it is discriminatory and it has victims. If laws may be used to discriminate against Whites,… More

Citizenship, Rights and Responsibilities

– Rights, Citizenship, and Responsibilities, Bradford P. Wilson, ed. (Valley Forge, PA: Freedom Foundation, 1984).

The proceedings of Freedom Foundation’s symposium on citizen responsibilities, December 13-14, 1984, Washington, D.C.

Do We Have a Living Constitution?

– National Forum LXIV:4 (Fall 1984).

Excerpt: Now, almost 200 years later, one can read Hamilton’s words in Federalist No. 1 and conclude that, under some conditions, some “societies of men” are capable of… More

In Defense of Liberal Democracy

– Regnery Gateway, 1984.

In this new book of essays, Walter Berns give shape to the arena of American government and politics. He contends that “free government is an endangered species in our world,”… More

Teaching the Founding of the United States

– Politics in Perspective 13:1 (Fall 1985).

Abstract: If students are to understand the American Constitution, they must, like the Founders, take political philosophy seriously. Books and essays that college teachers can use to teach… More

How Has the United States Met Its Major Challenges Since 1945?

– Commentary, November 1985.

Excerpt: Things were different in America and always had been. Our aristocrats, our Tories, were dispatched in 1776, at the beginning, at the time we became Americans. They went back to… More

Equally Endowed With Rights

– Justice and Equality Here and Now, Frank Lucash, ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), 151–71.

Re-evaluating the Open Society

– Order, Freedom, and the Polity: Critical Essays on the Open Society, George W. Carey, ed. (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute and University Press of America, 1986).

Abstract: A series of essays which critically examine the concept of the open society as ‘the crowning achievement of Western civilization.’ Analyzes the open society theory… More

The Constitution and the Pursuit of American Happiness

– We the People, Constitutional Ideals and the American Experience: A Bicentennial Perspective, symposium hosted by Angelo State University, 1987.

Excerpt: There are, as I count them, 164 countries in the world, and of these all but six (Great Britain, New Zealand, and Israel; Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Libya) have written constitutions.… More

The ‘New’ Science of Politics and Constitutional Government

– Constitutionalism and Rights, Gary C. Bryner and Noel B. Reynolds, eds. (Albany NY: SUNY Press, 1987).

Abstract: Constitutionalism and Rights explores the ambivalent relationship between the American tradition of constitutionalism and the notions of rights that have emerged over the last… More

Comment on Rowan

– Maryland Law Review 47:1 (1987).

Excerpt: I begin by setting the stage for a question. I then ask it. Put yourself in the position of a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. You are an… More

Celebrating the Bicentennial

– Washington Times, March 5, 1987.

Government by Lawyers & Judges

– Commentary, June 1987.

Excerpt: We call it judicial review, and while the point has frequently been disputed, sometimes fiercely, there is really no question but that the Framers intended federal judges to… More

Taking the Constitution Seriously

– Crisis, June 1, 1987.

Excerpt: Unlike the first federal judges, whose formal legal education was likely to have been very limited indeed — John Marshall was largely self-educated in the law and John Jay, the… More

In Times of Crisis, How Much Power Does the President Have?

– Washington Times, June 3, 1987; reprinted in The World and I (August 1987).

Excerpt: Lt. Col. Oliver North may or may not have broken the law, but that he was a hero Patrick J. Buchanan had no doubt. Unlike the other members of the Reagan White House – he was… More

Judicial Review and the Supreme Court

– The World and I (September 1987).

Excerpt: In a recent speech, Harvard law professor Archibald Cox acknowledged that the Supreme Court had succeeded in making the Constitution into an “instrument of massive… More

The New Pursuit of Happiness

– Public Interest 86 (Winter 1987), 65–76.

Excerpt: Landing in New York in May 1831, Gustave de Beaumont was struck by the “busyness” of the place. “It’s a remarkable phenomenon,” he wrote his father, “a great people… More

Liberty and Equality

– Panel discussion hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, December 1, 1987.

This a session from the larger conference held by the American Enterprise Institute entitled “The Spirit of the Constitution.” The focus of this panel was liberty and equality. Part… More

Book Review: Taking the Constitution Seriously

– Terry Eastland, American Spectator (January 1988).

Judicial Roulette

– Twentieth Century Fund Task Force Report on Judicial Selection (New York: Priority Press, 1988).

Taking the Framers Seriously

– William Michael Treanor, The University of Chicago Law Review 55:3 (Summer, 1988), pp. 1016–40.

Abstract: This review focuses on three of the key historical points that Walter Berns makes: his arguments that the Declaration of Independence is a Lockean document; that the Constitution… More

Taking Berns Seriously

– Grant B. Mindle, South Dakota Law Review 34:432 (1989).

The American Founding

– Principles of the Constitutional Order: The Ratification Debates, Robert L. Utley, ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1989).

Justice as the Securing of Rights

– The Constitution, the Courts, and the Quest for Justice, Robert A. Goldwin and William A. Schambra, eds. (American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1989).

Taking the Constitution Seriously

– Simon and Schuster, 1987; reprinted, Madison Books, 1992.

Walter Berns’s book is must reading for every judge, law student, or member of the general public who wants to know more about our Federal Constitution. Berns concisely and clearly… More

On Hamilton and Popular Government

– Public Interest 109 (Fall 1992), 109–13.

Excerpt: Alexander Hamilton has never been a popular hero among his fellow citizens. When visiting the capital city, they mount the tour buses that take them to the Capitol, the White… More

On Madison and Majoritarianism: A Response to Professor Amar

– Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 15:113 (Winter 1992).

Excerpt: Some fourteen years ago, in Washington, before an audience consisting largely of law school professors and federal judges, I said there probably was not a law school in the country… More

Liberal Democracy and Justice in the Constitution of Walter Berns

– Richard G. Stevens, The Political Science Reviewer 22 (1993).

Excerpt: Walter Berns admits in the preface to his book by that very title that he had all along been writing in defense of liberal democracy. This is not simply a post litem motam… More

We, the People, Debate the Constitution

– Washington Times, July 4, 1993.

Excerpt: With the publication of the two volumes of “The Debate on the Constitution,” the 62nd and 63rd in the Library of America series, the general public will now have access… More

Solving the Problem of Democracy

– South Africa's Crisis of Constitutional Democracy: Can the U.S. Constitution Help?, Robert A. Licht and Bertus de Villiers, eds. (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1994), 180–200; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Some years ago, before an audience of federal judges and law professors, I said that there probably was not a law school in the United States that did not offer a course in… More

The Prattling Presidency

– Wall Street Journal, October 13, 1994; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Our presidents have become big talkers. President Clinton, for example, is going across the country this week to sing the praises of his administration and of the Democratic… More

On Patriotism

– Bradley Lecture, American Enterprise Institute, September 16, 1996.

Excerpt: Patriotism means love of country (patria, in the Latin) and implies a readiness to sacrifice for it, to fight for it, perhaps even to give one’s life for it. In the traditional,… More

Taking Virtue Seriously

– Public Interest 128 (Summer 1997), 122–26.

Excerpt: In 1790-91, Supreme Court Justice James Wilson delivered a series of lectures on the law at what was to become the University of Pennsylvania and before an audience that included… More

The Supreme Court as Republican Schoolmaster: Constitutional Interpretation and the ‘Genius of the People’

– The Supreme Court and American Constitutionalism, Bradford P. Wilson and Ken Masugi, eds. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 3–16.

In this important book, fourteen of America’s leading constitutional scholars assess the Supreme Court’s performance expounding the animating principles of American… More

Constitutionalism and Multiculturalism

– Multiculturalism and American Democracy, Arthur M. Melzer, Jerry Weinberger, and M. Richard Zinman, eds. (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 91–111; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Alexis de Tocqueville, writing in the 1830s, very much feared that liberty and equality would be at war with each other; today there is a tendency among some intellectuals to think… More

Historians Spring an “October Surprise”

– Wall Street Journal, November 3, 1998.

Excerpt: In the runup to every election, politicians wait in hopeful or nervous expectation of the “October surprise” — a last-minute news bombshell that can turn the… More

Walter Berns: The Constitution and American Liberal Democracy

– Gary D. Glenn, in Leo Strauss: The Straussians and the Study of the American Regime, eds. Kenneth L. Deutsch and John Albert Murley (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), 193–204.

Martin Diamond’s Contribution to American Political Thought: Symposium

– The Political Science Reviewer 28:1 (Fall 1999).

Excerpt: Forgotten or neglected by politicians, the Constitution and its Framers did not fare much better in the academic world that Martin Diamond entered in the early 1950s. Political… More

Alexis de Tocqueville

– The American Enterprise (November/December 1999).

Alexis de Tocqueville was born in France in 1805, the son of aristocrats. During the French Revolution, his parents had been imprisoned, and his mother’s father and grandfather had… More

Revisiting States’ Rights Controversy at the Wrong Time, with Altered History

– Washington Times, October 15, 2000; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Forrest McDonald is a reputable scholar. Early-American historians especially are indebted to him, not only f or his important study of the formation of the republic, and his… More

Making Patriots

– University of Chicago Press, 2001; paperback edition, 2002.

Although Samuel Johnson once remarked that “patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels,” over the course of the history of the United States we have seen our share of heroes:… More

America—Idea or Nation?

– Wilfred M. McClay, Public Interest (Fall 2001).

Excerpt: At first glance, American patriotism seems a simple matter. But it is simple only until one actually starts to think about it, inquire after its sources, and investigate its… More

Imperishable Insights by Bill Buckley

– William F. Buckley, New Criterion (September 2001).

Excerpt: This (too) short book grew out of an essay written by the distinguished political philosopher Walter Berns for The Public Interest. What it does is to probe into American… More

James Madison on Religion and Politics

– James Madison and the Future of Limited Government, John Curtis Samples, ed. (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2002), 135–46.

Americans are once again rediscovering the wisdom of the founders who wrote and ratified the U.S. Constitution, which has stood the test of two centuries. James Madison’s efforts in… More

Ancients and Moderns: The Emergence of Modern Constitutionalism

– Institute for the Study of the Americas, March 2002; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Walter Berns, John M. Olin University Professor emeritus at Georgetown University, investigates the history of modern constitutionalism or limited government. Particularly interested in the… More

The Insignificant Office

– National Review Online, July 9, 2004; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Why should John Edwards or anyone else want to be vice president? One of the men who held the post spoke of it as “the most insignificant office” ever contrived by the… More

Under God

– In Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: On March 24, 2004, the Supreme Court heard arguments in still another of what civil libertarians insist on calling establishment-of-religion cases, Elk Grove Unified School… More

Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought

– AEI Press, 2006.

Excerpt: One of the distinctive things about America is that its Founders were political theorists as well as practitioners. Consider, as the most telling example, the Declaration of… More

Democracy and the Constitution: Essays by Walter Berns

– Audio, book forum, American Enterprise Institute, September 29, 2006.

AEI scholar and historian Walter Berns has spent his academic career defending the United States Constitution. In his latest collection of essays, Democracy and the Constitution (AEI Press,… More

Patriotism and Multiculturalism

– The Many Faces of Patriotism, Philip Abbott, ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 3–14.

In the decades following the end of the Cold War, scholars turned their attention to reevaluating patriotism. Many saw both its ability to serve as a cohesive force and its desirability as… More

Lincoln at Two Hundred: Why We Still Read the Sixteenth President

– American Enterprise Institute, 2009.

Excerpt: More has been written about Abraham Lincoln than of any other president or, for that matter, any other American; the amount is prodigious: no fewer than 16,000 books and goodness… More

Abraham Lincoln at Two Hundred

– Audio lecture, American Enterprise Institute, February 9, 2009.

Abraham Lincoln was the greatest of our presidents. He saved the Union, which made it possible for him to free the slaves. But he did more than this; without him we probably would have had… More

Free Markets and the Constitution

– Audio lecture, American Enterprise Institute, August 11, 2009.

Why is the number of Americans who value free enterprise, and who understand its virtues and benefits declining–especially among students and younger citizens? Asked in an… More

Walter Berns’ Constitution by Christopher DeMuth

– Remarks by Christopher DeMuth at a Constitution Day seminar in honor of Walter Berns, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, September 20, 2011.

Excerpt: In America today, the Constitution has come to mean constitutional law. Most Americans venerate their Constitution and realize that it is an important source of their liberties and… More

Walter Berns and the Constitution: A Celebration of the Constitution, with Opening Remarks by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

– Panel discussion of Walter Berns' scholarship, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, September 20, 2011.

In mid-September 2011, as part of AEI’s Program on American Citizenship, we celebrated Constitution Day (September 17), the day thirty-nine members of the Constitutional Convention signed… More

Walter Berns and Leon Kass on Stephen Spielberg’s “Lincoln”

– Discussion with Walter Berns and Leon Kass, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, December 20, 2012.

At a discussion hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, What So Proudly We Hail editor Leon R. Kass and Walter Berns (professor emeritus, Georgetown University) discussed Steven… More

Patriots

– Audio, "Dialogue," Woodrow Wilson Center.

In ancient Sparta patriotism meant a commitment to warfare and a view of the state as divine. For modern Americans patriotism is set on a much different and abstract basis. Walter Berns… More

The Jaffa-Berns Feud Revisited

– Steven F. Hayward, Powerline, September 11, 2015. Remarks from Claremont Institute APSA panel, September 2015.

Excerpt: Berns inclined toward a Hobbesian reading of Locke while Jaffa worked out an Aristotelian reading of Locke. Jaffa thought America the best regime, in the classical sense. Though he… More

Commentary

Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– The Louisiana State University Press, 1957; reprinted, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1969.

This book examines the First Amendment and issues of liberty and the American Founding. Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments I           Censorship: A Classic Issue… More

Book Review: Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– Rene de Visme Williamson, Louisiana Law Review 18:2 (February 1958).

Excerpt: In an age when conflicting ideologies are competing for the support of mankind and when constitutional issues regarding civil liberties are dividing the American people in opposing… More

School Prayers and “Religious Warfare”

– National Review, April 23, 1963, 315–17.

The Sources of Law

– National Review, August 11, 1964, 690.

Book review of The Morality of Law by Lon L. Fuller.

The Constitution and the Migration of Slaves

– The Yale Law Journal 78:2 (December 1968), 198–228; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).

Excerpt: Shortly after the adoption of the Constitution, the South came to see the power granted to Congress to regulate commerce as a major threat to its domestic tranquility, for this… More

What Was Wrong with the Warren Court

– National Review, April 21, 1970, 414.

Book review of The Supreme Court and the Idea of Progress, by Alexander M. Bickel.

The Limits to Judicial Power

– National Review, September 1, 1972, 958.

Book review of The Modern Supreme Court by Robert G. McCloskey and Martin Shapiro.

Free Speech and Free Government

– The Political Science Reviewer 2:1 (Fall 1972).

Excerpt: It is unfortunate, and a measure of our contemporary difficulties, that too many Americans today would hesitate to agree with Gladstone that the American Constitution was… More

Thinking About the City

– Commentary, October 1973; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).

Excerpt: Cities express an ambivalence in the American soul: we like cities and wish to live in them—or at least to visit them—but we also dislike cities and wish to avoid them, and… More

The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– Basic Books, 1976; reprinted, Regnery Gateway, 1985.

A sharp, in-depth analysis of the First Amendment offering a unique interpretation of our basic freedoms and liberties.

Religion and the Founding Principle

– The Moral Foundations of the American Republic, Robert H. Horwitz, ed. (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1977, 1986).

Book Review: The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– Jeremy A. Rabkin, American Spectator (March 1977).

Excerpt: In the late 1930s, the Supreme Court largely abandoned its traditional defense of property rights and also gave up its long struggle to maintain a balance in the federal system by… More

The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– William J. Bennett, Commentary (May 1977).

Abstract: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

Walter Berns: Philosopher of the First Amendment

– William A. Stanmeyer, Modern Age (December 1977), 367–76.

The Least Dangerous Branch, But Only If…

– The Judiciary in a Democratic Society, Leonard J. Theberge, ed. (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1979).

Based on papers presented at the national conference on the role of the judiciary in a democratic society held at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., on September 30… More

The Corporation’s Song

– American Spectator 13:9 (September 1980).

“The Corporation’s Song” Walter Berns and lyrics by Hobbes, Locke, and Madison. Music by Mobil Oil?

The Judiciary and Representative Government

– Public Policy Papers (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1981).  

The Confusion of Political Choices and Constitutional Requirements: The Perspective of a Legal Historian

– Private Schools and the Public Good, Edward McGlynn Gaffrey, Jr., ed. (South Bend, IN: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1981).

The Forms of Article V

– Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 6 (1982), 73.

Judicial Review and the Rights and Laws of Nature

– The Supreme Court Review 1982, (1982), 49–83; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).

Excerpt: The current controversy over the proper role of the judiciary can be said to have begun twenty years ago with Herbert Wechsler’s appeal for Supreme Court decisions resting on… More

A Reply to Harry Jaffa

– National Review, January 22, 1982.

Abstract: The article presents the author’s response to professor Harry Jaffa’s criticism of his views about the Declaration of Independence in the U.S. The author says that… More

The American Presidency: Statesmanship and Constitutionalism in Balance

– Imprimis, Hillsdale College, January 1983. Reprinted in Educating for Liberty: The Best of Imprimis, 1972–2002, Douglas A. Jeffrey, ed. (Hillsdale, MI: Hillsdale College Press, 2002).

Excerpt: America today is in need of leadership of the sort provided in the past by our greatest presidents, presidents whom we mean to honor and praise when we denominate them… More

The Legislative Protection of Rights

– The U.S. Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, William R. McKercher (Ontario, Canada: Ontario Economic Council, 1983).

After the People Vote: Steps in Choosing the President

– American Enterprise Institute Press, 1983; second edition, 1992.

Explains how electors are appointed, how ballots are cast and votes are counted, and what happens if no one has a majority; and discusses three disputed elections.

The Writing of the Constitution of the United States

– American Enterprise Institute, 1984; reprinted by the President's Commission on White House Fellowships; reprinted in Constitution Makers on Constitution Making: The Exercises of Eight Nations, Robert A. Goldwin, ed. (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1988).

A paper presented to the White House fellows at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, October 19, 1983.

In Defense of Political Philosophy: Two Letters to Walter Berns

– In Harry Jaffa, American Conservatism and the American Founding (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1984)

Excerpt: IN HIS ‘REPLY TO Harry Jaffa” (National Review, January 22, 1982), Walter Berns writes: There is no substance to Harry Jaffa’s criticism of me. In 1972, he wrote that the… More

Affirmative Action vs. the Declaration of Independence

– New Perspectives 16:1 (Summer 1984).

Abstract: Reverse discrimination is an effect of affirmative action that cannot be overlooked: it is discriminatory and it has victims. If laws may be used to discriminate against Whites,… More

Citizenship, Rights and Responsibilities

– Rights, Citizenship, and Responsibilities, Bradford P. Wilson, ed. (Valley Forge, PA: Freedom Foundation, 1984).

The proceedings of Freedom Foundation’s symposium on citizen responsibilities, December 13-14, 1984, Washington, D.C.

Do We Have a Living Constitution?

– National Forum LXIV:4 (Fall 1984).

Excerpt: Now, almost 200 years later, one can read Hamilton’s words in Federalist No. 1 and conclude that, under some conditions, some “societies of men” are capable of… More

In Defense of Liberal Democracy

– Regnery Gateway, 1984.

In this new book of essays, Walter Berns give shape to the arena of American government and politics. He contends that “free government is an endangered species in our world,”… More

Teaching the Founding of the United States

– Politics in Perspective 13:1 (Fall 1985).

Abstract: If students are to understand the American Constitution, they must, like the Founders, take political philosophy seriously. Books and essays that college teachers can use to teach… More

How Has the United States Met Its Major Challenges Since 1945?

– Commentary, November 1985.

Excerpt: Things were different in America and always had been. Our aristocrats, our Tories, were dispatched in 1776, at the beginning, at the time we became Americans. They went back to… More

Equally Endowed With Rights

– Justice and Equality Here and Now, Frank Lucash, ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), 151–71.

Re-evaluating the Open Society

– Order, Freedom, and the Polity: Critical Essays on the Open Society, George W. Carey, ed. (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute and University Press of America, 1986).

Abstract: A series of essays which critically examine the concept of the open society as ‘the crowning achievement of Western civilization.’ Analyzes the open society theory… More

The Constitution and the Pursuit of American Happiness

– We the People, Constitutional Ideals and the American Experience: A Bicentennial Perspective, symposium hosted by Angelo State University, 1987.

Excerpt: There are, as I count them, 164 countries in the world, and of these all but six (Great Britain, New Zealand, and Israel; Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Libya) have written constitutions.… More

The ‘New’ Science of Politics and Constitutional Government

– Constitutionalism and Rights, Gary C. Bryner and Noel B. Reynolds, eds. (Albany NY: SUNY Press, 1987).

Abstract: Constitutionalism and Rights explores the ambivalent relationship between the American tradition of constitutionalism and the notions of rights that have emerged over the last… More

Comment on Rowan

– Maryland Law Review 47:1 (1987).

Excerpt: I begin by setting the stage for a question. I then ask it. Put yourself in the position of a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. You are an… More

Celebrating the Bicentennial

– Washington Times, March 5, 1987.

Government by Lawyers & Judges

– Commentary, June 1987.

Excerpt: We call it judicial review, and while the point has frequently been disputed, sometimes fiercely, there is really no question but that the Framers intended federal judges to… More

Taking the Constitution Seriously

– Crisis, June 1, 1987.

Excerpt: Unlike the first federal judges, whose formal legal education was likely to have been very limited indeed — John Marshall was largely self-educated in the law and John Jay, the… More

In Times of Crisis, How Much Power Does the President Have?

– Washington Times, June 3, 1987; reprinted in The World and I (August 1987).

Excerpt: Lt. Col. Oliver North may or may not have broken the law, but that he was a hero Patrick J. Buchanan had no doubt. Unlike the other members of the Reagan White House – he was… More

Judicial Review and the Supreme Court

– The World and I (September 1987).

Excerpt: In a recent speech, Harvard law professor Archibald Cox acknowledged that the Supreme Court had succeeded in making the Constitution into an “instrument of massive… More

The New Pursuit of Happiness

– Public Interest 86 (Winter 1987), 65–76.

Excerpt: Landing in New York in May 1831, Gustave de Beaumont was struck by the “busyness” of the place. “It’s a remarkable phenomenon,” he wrote his father, “a great people… More

Liberty and Equality

– Panel discussion hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, December 1, 1987.

This a session from the larger conference held by the American Enterprise Institute entitled “The Spirit of the Constitution.” The focus of this panel was liberty and equality. Part… More

Book Review: Taking the Constitution Seriously

– Terry Eastland, American Spectator (January 1988).

Judicial Roulette

– Twentieth Century Fund Task Force Report on Judicial Selection (New York: Priority Press, 1988).

Taking the Framers Seriously

– William Michael Treanor, The University of Chicago Law Review 55:3 (Summer, 1988), pp. 1016–40.

Abstract: This review focuses on three of the key historical points that Walter Berns makes: his arguments that the Declaration of Independence is a Lockean document; that the Constitution… More

Taking Berns Seriously

– Grant B. Mindle, South Dakota Law Review 34:432 (1989).

The American Founding

– Principles of the Constitutional Order: The Ratification Debates, Robert L. Utley, ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1989).

Justice as the Securing of Rights

– The Constitution, the Courts, and the Quest for Justice, Robert A. Goldwin and William A. Schambra, eds. (American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1989).

Taking the Constitution Seriously

– Simon and Schuster, 1987; reprinted, Madison Books, 1992.

Walter Berns’s book is must reading for every judge, law student, or member of the general public who wants to know more about our Federal Constitution. Berns concisely and clearly… More

On Hamilton and Popular Government

– Public Interest 109 (Fall 1992), 109–13.

Excerpt: Alexander Hamilton has never been a popular hero among his fellow citizens. When visiting the capital city, they mount the tour buses that take them to the Capitol, the White… More

On Madison and Majoritarianism: A Response to Professor Amar

– Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 15:113 (Winter 1992).

Excerpt: Some fourteen years ago, in Washington, before an audience consisting largely of law school professors and federal judges, I said there probably was not a law school in the country… More

Liberal Democracy and Justice in the Constitution of Walter Berns

– Richard G. Stevens, The Political Science Reviewer 22 (1993).

Excerpt: Walter Berns admits in the preface to his book by that very title that he had all along been writing in defense of liberal democracy. This is not simply a post litem motam… More

We, the People, Debate the Constitution

– Washington Times, July 4, 1993.

Excerpt: With the publication of the two volumes of “The Debate on the Constitution,” the 62nd and 63rd in the Library of America series, the general public will now have access… More

Solving the Problem of Democracy

– South Africa's Crisis of Constitutional Democracy: Can the U.S. Constitution Help?, Robert A. Licht and Bertus de Villiers, eds. (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1994), 180–200; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Some years ago, before an audience of federal judges and law professors, I said that there probably was not a law school in the United States that did not offer a course in… More

The Prattling Presidency

– Wall Street Journal, October 13, 1994; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Our presidents have become big talkers. President Clinton, for example, is going across the country this week to sing the praises of his administration and of the Democratic… More

On Patriotism

– Bradley Lecture, American Enterprise Institute, September 16, 1996.

Excerpt: Patriotism means love of country (patria, in the Latin) and implies a readiness to sacrifice for it, to fight for it, perhaps even to give one’s life for it. In the traditional,… More

Taking Virtue Seriously

– Public Interest 128 (Summer 1997), 122–26.

Excerpt: In 1790-91, Supreme Court Justice James Wilson delivered a series of lectures on the law at what was to become the University of Pennsylvania and before an audience that included… More

The Supreme Court as Republican Schoolmaster: Constitutional Interpretation and the ‘Genius of the People’

– The Supreme Court and American Constitutionalism, Bradford P. Wilson and Ken Masugi, eds. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 3–16.

In this important book, fourteen of America’s leading constitutional scholars assess the Supreme Court’s performance expounding the animating principles of American… More

Constitutionalism and Multiculturalism

– Multiculturalism and American Democracy, Arthur M. Melzer, Jerry Weinberger, and M. Richard Zinman, eds. (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 91–111; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Alexis de Tocqueville, writing in the 1830s, very much feared that liberty and equality would be at war with each other; today there is a tendency among some intellectuals to think… More

Historians Spring an “October Surprise”

– Wall Street Journal, November 3, 1998.

Excerpt: In the runup to every election, politicians wait in hopeful or nervous expectation of the “October surprise” — a last-minute news bombshell that can turn the… More

Walter Berns: The Constitution and American Liberal Democracy

– Gary D. Glenn, in Leo Strauss: The Straussians and the Study of the American Regime, eds. Kenneth L. Deutsch and John Albert Murley (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), 193–204.

Martin Diamond’s Contribution to American Political Thought: Symposium

– The Political Science Reviewer 28:1 (Fall 1999).

Excerpt: Forgotten or neglected by politicians, the Constitution and its Framers did not fare much better in the academic world that Martin Diamond entered in the early 1950s. Political… More

Alexis de Tocqueville

– The American Enterprise (November/December 1999).

Alexis de Tocqueville was born in France in 1805, the son of aristocrats. During the French Revolution, his parents had been imprisoned, and his mother’s father and grandfather had… More

Revisiting States’ Rights Controversy at the Wrong Time, with Altered History

– Washington Times, October 15, 2000; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Forrest McDonald is a reputable scholar. Early-American historians especially are indebted to him, not only f or his important study of the formation of the republic, and his… More

Making Patriots

– University of Chicago Press, 2001; paperback edition, 2002.

Although Samuel Johnson once remarked that “patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels,” over the course of the history of the United States we have seen our share of heroes:… More

America—Idea or Nation?

– Wilfred M. McClay, Public Interest (Fall 2001).

Excerpt: At first glance, American patriotism seems a simple matter. But it is simple only until one actually starts to think about it, inquire after its sources, and investigate its… More

Imperishable Insights by Bill Buckley

– William F. Buckley, New Criterion (September 2001).

Excerpt: This (too) short book grew out of an essay written by the distinguished political philosopher Walter Berns for The Public Interest. What it does is to probe into American… More

James Madison on Religion and Politics

– James Madison and the Future of Limited Government, John Curtis Samples, ed. (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2002), 135–46.

Americans are once again rediscovering the wisdom of the founders who wrote and ratified the U.S. Constitution, which has stood the test of two centuries. James Madison’s efforts in… More

Ancients and Moderns: The Emergence of Modern Constitutionalism

– Institute for the Study of the Americas, March 2002; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Walter Berns, John M. Olin University Professor emeritus at Georgetown University, investigates the history of modern constitutionalism or limited government. Particularly interested in the… More

The Insignificant Office

– National Review Online, July 9, 2004; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Why should John Edwards or anyone else want to be vice president? One of the men who held the post spoke of it as “the most insignificant office” ever contrived by the… More

Under God

– In Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: On March 24, 2004, the Supreme Court heard arguments in still another of what civil libertarians insist on calling establishment-of-religion cases, Elk Grove Unified School… More

Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought

– AEI Press, 2006.

Excerpt: One of the distinctive things about America is that its Founders were political theorists as well as practitioners. Consider, as the most telling example, the Declaration of… More

Democracy and the Constitution: Essays by Walter Berns

– Audio, book forum, American Enterprise Institute, September 29, 2006.

AEI scholar and historian Walter Berns has spent his academic career defending the United States Constitution. In his latest collection of essays, Democracy and the Constitution (AEI Press,… More

Patriotism and Multiculturalism

– The Many Faces of Patriotism, Philip Abbott, ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 3–14.

In the decades following the end of the Cold War, scholars turned their attention to reevaluating patriotism. Many saw both its ability to serve as a cohesive force and its desirability as… More

Lincoln at Two Hundred: Why We Still Read the Sixteenth President

– American Enterprise Institute, 2009.

Excerpt: More has been written about Abraham Lincoln than of any other president or, for that matter, any other American; the amount is prodigious: no fewer than 16,000 books and goodness… More

Abraham Lincoln at Two Hundred

– Audio lecture, American Enterprise Institute, February 9, 2009.

Abraham Lincoln was the greatest of our presidents. He saved the Union, which made it possible for him to free the slaves. But he did more than this; without him we probably would have had… More

Free Markets and the Constitution

– Audio lecture, American Enterprise Institute, August 11, 2009.

Why is the number of Americans who value free enterprise, and who understand its virtues and benefits declining–especially among students and younger citizens? Asked in an… More

Walter Berns’ Constitution by Christopher DeMuth

– Remarks by Christopher DeMuth at a Constitution Day seminar in honor of Walter Berns, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, September 20, 2011.

Excerpt: In America today, the Constitution has come to mean constitutional law. Most Americans venerate their Constitution and realize that it is an important source of their liberties and… More

Walter Berns and the Constitution: A Celebration of the Constitution, with Opening Remarks by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

– Panel discussion of Walter Berns' scholarship, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, September 20, 2011.

In mid-September 2011, as part of AEI’s Program on American Citizenship, we celebrated Constitution Day (September 17), the day thirty-nine members of the Constitutional Convention signed… More

Walter Berns and Leon Kass on Stephen Spielberg’s “Lincoln”

– Discussion with Walter Berns and Leon Kass, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, December 20, 2012.

At a discussion hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, What So Proudly We Hail editor Leon R. Kass and Walter Berns (professor emeritus, Georgetown University) discussed Steven… More

Patriots

– Audio, "Dialogue," Woodrow Wilson Center.

In ancient Sparta patriotism meant a commitment to warfare and a view of the state as divine. For modern Americans patriotism is set on a much different and abstract basis. Walter Berns… More

The Jaffa-Berns Feud Revisited

– Steven F. Hayward, Powerline, September 11, 2015. Remarks from Claremont Institute APSA panel, September 2015.

Excerpt: Berns inclined toward a Hobbesian reading of Locke while Jaffa worked out an Aristotelian reading of Locke. Jaffa thought America the best regime, in the classical sense. Though he… More

Multimedia

Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– The Louisiana State University Press, 1957; reprinted, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1969.

This book examines the First Amendment and issues of liberty and the American Founding. Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments I           Censorship: A Classic Issue… More

Book Review: Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– Rene de Visme Williamson, Louisiana Law Review 18:2 (February 1958).

Excerpt: In an age when conflicting ideologies are competing for the support of mankind and when constitutional issues regarding civil liberties are dividing the American people in opposing… More

School Prayers and “Religious Warfare”

– National Review, April 23, 1963, 315–17.

The Sources of Law

– National Review, August 11, 1964, 690.

Book review of The Morality of Law by Lon L. Fuller.

The Constitution and the Migration of Slaves

– The Yale Law Journal 78:2 (December 1968), 198–228; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).

Excerpt: Shortly after the adoption of the Constitution, the South came to see the power granted to Congress to regulate commerce as a major threat to its domestic tranquility, for this… More

What Was Wrong with the Warren Court

– National Review, April 21, 1970, 414.

Book review of The Supreme Court and the Idea of Progress, by Alexander M. Bickel.

The Limits to Judicial Power

– National Review, September 1, 1972, 958.

Book review of The Modern Supreme Court by Robert G. McCloskey and Martin Shapiro.

Free Speech and Free Government

– The Political Science Reviewer 2:1 (Fall 1972).

Excerpt: It is unfortunate, and a measure of our contemporary difficulties, that too many Americans today would hesitate to agree with Gladstone that the American Constitution was… More

Thinking About the City

– Commentary, October 1973; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).

Excerpt: Cities express an ambivalence in the American soul: we like cities and wish to live in them—or at least to visit them—but we also dislike cities and wish to avoid them, and… More

The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– Basic Books, 1976; reprinted, Regnery Gateway, 1985.

A sharp, in-depth analysis of the First Amendment offering a unique interpretation of our basic freedoms and liberties.

Religion and the Founding Principle

– The Moral Foundations of the American Republic, Robert H. Horwitz, ed. (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1977, 1986).

Book Review: The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– Jeremy A. Rabkin, American Spectator (March 1977).

Excerpt: In the late 1930s, the Supreme Court largely abandoned its traditional defense of property rights and also gave up its long struggle to maintain a balance in the federal system by… More

The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– William J. Bennett, Commentary (May 1977).

Abstract: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

Walter Berns: Philosopher of the First Amendment

– William A. Stanmeyer, Modern Age (December 1977), 367–76.

The Least Dangerous Branch, But Only If…

– The Judiciary in a Democratic Society, Leonard J. Theberge, ed. (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1979).

Based on papers presented at the national conference on the role of the judiciary in a democratic society held at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., on September 30… More

The Corporation’s Song

– American Spectator 13:9 (September 1980).

“The Corporation’s Song” Walter Berns and lyrics by Hobbes, Locke, and Madison. Music by Mobil Oil?

The Judiciary and Representative Government

– Public Policy Papers (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1981).  

The Confusion of Political Choices and Constitutional Requirements: The Perspective of a Legal Historian

– Private Schools and the Public Good, Edward McGlynn Gaffrey, Jr., ed. (South Bend, IN: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1981).

The Forms of Article V

– Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 6 (1982), 73.

Judicial Review and the Rights and Laws of Nature

– The Supreme Court Review 1982, (1982), 49–83; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).

Excerpt: The current controversy over the proper role of the judiciary can be said to have begun twenty years ago with Herbert Wechsler’s appeal for Supreme Court decisions resting on… More

A Reply to Harry Jaffa

– National Review, January 22, 1982.

Abstract: The article presents the author’s response to professor Harry Jaffa’s criticism of his views about the Declaration of Independence in the U.S. The author says that… More

The American Presidency: Statesmanship and Constitutionalism in Balance

– Imprimis, Hillsdale College, January 1983. Reprinted in Educating for Liberty: The Best of Imprimis, 1972–2002, Douglas A. Jeffrey, ed. (Hillsdale, MI: Hillsdale College Press, 2002).

Excerpt: America today is in need of leadership of the sort provided in the past by our greatest presidents, presidents whom we mean to honor and praise when we denominate them… More

The Legislative Protection of Rights

– The U.S. Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, William R. McKercher (Ontario, Canada: Ontario Economic Council, 1983).

After the People Vote: Steps in Choosing the President

– American Enterprise Institute Press, 1983; second edition, 1992.

Explains how electors are appointed, how ballots are cast and votes are counted, and what happens if no one has a majority; and discusses three disputed elections.

The Writing of the Constitution of the United States

– American Enterprise Institute, 1984; reprinted by the President's Commission on White House Fellowships; reprinted in Constitution Makers on Constitution Making: The Exercises of Eight Nations, Robert A. Goldwin, ed. (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1988).

A paper presented to the White House fellows at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, October 19, 1983.

In Defense of Political Philosophy: Two Letters to Walter Berns

– In Harry Jaffa, American Conservatism and the American Founding (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1984)

Excerpt: IN HIS ‘REPLY TO Harry Jaffa” (National Review, January 22, 1982), Walter Berns writes: There is no substance to Harry Jaffa’s criticism of me. In 1972, he wrote that the… More

Affirmative Action vs. the Declaration of Independence

– New Perspectives 16:1 (Summer 1984).

Abstract: Reverse discrimination is an effect of affirmative action that cannot be overlooked: it is discriminatory and it has victims. If laws may be used to discriminate against Whites,… More

Citizenship, Rights and Responsibilities

– Rights, Citizenship, and Responsibilities, Bradford P. Wilson, ed. (Valley Forge, PA: Freedom Foundation, 1984).

The proceedings of Freedom Foundation’s symposium on citizen responsibilities, December 13-14, 1984, Washington, D.C.

Do We Have a Living Constitution?

– National Forum LXIV:4 (Fall 1984).

Excerpt: Now, almost 200 years later, one can read Hamilton’s words in Federalist No. 1 and conclude that, under some conditions, some “societies of men” are capable of… More

In Defense of Liberal Democracy

– Regnery Gateway, 1984.

In this new book of essays, Walter Berns give shape to the arena of American government and politics. He contends that “free government is an endangered species in our world,”… More

Teaching the Founding of the United States

– Politics in Perspective 13:1 (Fall 1985).

Abstract: If students are to understand the American Constitution, they must, like the Founders, take political philosophy seriously. Books and essays that college teachers can use to teach… More

How Has the United States Met Its Major Challenges Since 1945?

– Commentary, November 1985.

Excerpt: Things were different in America and always had been. Our aristocrats, our Tories, were dispatched in 1776, at the beginning, at the time we became Americans. They went back to… More

Equally Endowed With Rights

– Justice and Equality Here and Now, Frank Lucash, ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), 151–71.

Re-evaluating the Open Society

– Order, Freedom, and the Polity: Critical Essays on the Open Society, George W. Carey, ed. (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute and University Press of America, 1986).

Abstract: A series of essays which critically examine the concept of the open society as ‘the crowning achievement of Western civilization.’ Analyzes the open society theory… More

The Constitution and the Pursuit of American Happiness

– We the People, Constitutional Ideals and the American Experience: A Bicentennial Perspective, symposium hosted by Angelo State University, 1987.

Excerpt: There are, as I count them, 164 countries in the world, and of these all but six (Great Britain, New Zealand, and Israel; Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Libya) have written constitutions.… More

The ‘New’ Science of Politics and Constitutional Government

– Constitutionalism and Rights, Gary C. Bryner and Noel B. Reynolds, eds. (Albany NY: SUNY Press, 1987).

Abstract: Constitutionalism and Rights explores the ambivalent relationship between the American tradition of constitutionalism and the notions of rights that have emerged over the last… More

Comment on Rowan

– Maryland Law Review 47:1 (1987).

Excerpt: I begin by setting the stage for a question. I then ask it. Put yourself in the position of a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. You are an… More

Celebrating the Bicentennial

– Washington Times, March 5, 1987.

Government by Lawyers & Judges

– Commentary, June 1987.

Excerpt: We call it judicial review, and while the point has frequently been disputed, sometimes fiercely, there is really no question but that the Framers intended federal judges to… More

Taking the Constitution Seriously

– Crisis, June 1, 1987.

Excerpt: Unlike the first federal judges, whose formal legal education was likely to have been very limited indeed — John Marshall was largely self-educated in the law and John Jay, the… More

In Times of Crisis, How Much Power Does the President Have?

– Washington Times, June 3, 1987; reprinted in The World and I (August 1987).

Excerpt: Lt. Col. Oliver North may or may not have broken the law, but that he was a hero Patrick J. Buchanan had no doubt. Unlike the other members of the Reagan White House – he was… More

Judicial Review and the Supreme Court

– The World and I (September 1987).

Excerpt: In a recent speech, Harvard law professor Archibald Cox acknowledged that the Supreme Court had succeeded in making the Constitution into an “instrument of massive… More

The New Pursuit of Happiness

– Public Interest 86 (Winter 1987), 65–76.

Excerpt: Landing in New York in May 1831, Gustave de Beaumont was struck by the “busyness” of the place. “It’s a remarkable phenomenon,” he wrote his father, “a great people… More

Liberty and Equality

– Panel discussion hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, December 1, 1987.

This a session from the larger conference held by the American Enterprise Institute entitled “The Spirit of the Constitution.” The focus of this panel was liberty and equality. Part… More

Book Review: Taking the Constitution Seriously

– Terry Eastland, American Spectator (January 1988).

Judicial Roulette

– Twentieth Century Fund Task Force Report on Judicial Selection (New York: Priority Press, 1988).

Taking the Framers Seriously

– William Michael Treanor, The University of Chicago Law Review 55:3 (Summer, 1988), pp. 1016–40.

Abstract: This review focuses on three of the key historical points that Walter Berns makes: his arguments that the Declaration of Independence is a Lockean document; that the Constitution… More

Taking Berns Seriously

– Grant B. Mindle, South Dakota Law Review 34:432 (1989).

The American Founding

– Principles of the Constitutional Order: The Ratification Debates, Robert L. Utley, ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1989).

Justice as the Securing of Rights

– The Constitution, the Courts, and the Quest for Justice, Robert A. Goldwin and William A. Schambra, eds. (American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1989).

Taking the Constitution Seriously

– Simon and Schuster, 1987; reprinted, Madison Books, 1992.

Walter Berns’s book is must reading for every judge, law student, or member of the general public who wants to know more about our Federal Constitution. Berns concisely and clearly… More

On Hamilton and Popular Government

– Public Interest 109 (Fall 1992), 109–13.

Excerpt: Alexander Hamilton has never been a popular hero among his fellow citizens. When visiting the capital city, they mount the tour buses that take them to the Capitol, the White… More

On Madison and Majoritarianism: A Response to Professor Amar

– Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 15:113 (Winter 1992).

Excerpt: Some fourteen years ago, in Washington, before an audience consisting largely of law school professors and federal judges, I said there probably was not a law school in the country… More

Liberal Democracy and Justice in the Constitution of Walter Berns

– Richard G. Stevens, The Political Science Reviewer 22 (1993).

Excerpt: Walter Berns admits in the preface to his book by that very title that he had all along been writing in defense of liberal democracy. This is not simply a post litem motam… More

We, the People, Debate the Constitution

– Washington Times, July 4, 1993.

Excerpt: With the publication of the two volumes of “The Debate on the Constitution,” the 62nd and 63rd in the Library of America series, the general public will now have access… More

Solving the Problem of Democracy

– South Africa's Crisis of Constitutional Democracy: Can the U.S. Constitution Help?, Robert A. Licht and Bertus de Villiers, eds. (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1994), 180–200; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Some years ago, before an audience of federal judges and law professors, I said that there probably was not a law school in the United States that did not offer a course in… More

The Prattling Presidency

– Wall Street Journal, October 13, 1994; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Our presidents have become big talkers. President Clinton, for example, is going across the country this week to sing the praises of his administration and of the Democratic… More

On Patriotism

– Bradley Lecture, American Enterprise Institute, September 16, 1996.

Excerpt: Patriotism means love of country (patria, in the Latin) and implies a readiness to sacrifice for it, to fight for it, perhaps even to give one’s life for it. In the traditional,… More

Taking Virtue Seriously

– Public Interest 128 (Summer 1997), 122–26.

Excerpt: In 1790-91, Supreme Court Justice James Wilson delivered a series of lectures on the law at what was to become the University of Pennsylvania and before an audience that included… More

The Supreme Court as Republican Schoolmaster: Constitutional Interpretation and the ‘Genius of the People’

– The Supreme Court and American Constitutionalism, Bradford P. Wilson and Ken Masugi, eds. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 3–16.

In this important book, fourteen of America’s leading constitutional scholars assess the Supreme Court’s performance expounding the animating principles of American… More

Constitutionalism and Multiculturalism

– Multiculturalism and American Democracy, Arthur M. Melzer, Jerry Weinberger, and M. Richard Zinman, eds. (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 91–111; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Alexis de Tocqueville, writing in the 1830s, very much feared that liberty and equality would be at war with each other; today there is a tendency among some intellectuals to think… More

Historians Spring an “October Surprise”

– Wall Street Journal, November 3, 1998.

Excerpt: In the runup to every election, politicians wait in hopeful or nervous expectation of the “October surprise” — a last-minute news bombshell that can turn the… More

Walter Berns: The Constitution and American Liberal Democracy

– Gary D. Glenn, in Leo Strauss: The Straussians and the Study of the American Regime, eds. Kenneth L. Deutsch and John Albert Murley (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), 193–204.

Martin Diamond’s Contribution to American Political Thought: Symposium

– The Political Science Reviewer 28:1 (Fall 1999).

Excerpt: Forgotten or neglected by politicians, the Constitution and its Framers did not fare much better in the academic world that Martin Diamond entered in the early 1950s. Political… More

Alexis de Tocqueville

– The American Enterprise (November/December 1999).

Alexis de Tocqueville was born in France in 1805, the son of aristocrats. During the French Revolution, his parents had been imprisoned, and his mother’s father and grandfather had… More

Revisiting States’ Rights Controversy at the Wrong Time, with Altered History

– Washington Times, October 15, 2000; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Forrest McDonald is a reputable scholar. Early-American historians especially are indebted to him, not only f or his important study of the formation of the republic, and his… More

Making Patriots

– University of Chicago Press, 2001; paperback edition, 2002.

Although Samuel Johnson once remarked that “patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels,” over the course of the history of the United States we have seen our share of heroes:… More

America—Idea or Nation?

– Wilfred M. McClay, Public Interest (Fall 2001).

Excerpt: At first glance, American patriotism seems a simple matter. But it is simple only until one actually starts to think about it, inquire after its sources, and investigate its… More

Imperishable Insights by Bill Buckley

– William F. Buckley, New Criterion (September 2001).

Excerpt: This (too) short book grew out of an essay written by the distinguished political philosopher Walter Berns for The Public Interest. What it does is to probe into American… More

James Madison on Religion and Politics

– James Madison and the Future of Limited Government, John Curtis Samples, ed. (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2002), 135–46.

Americans are once again rediscovering the wisdom of the founders who wrote and ratified the U.S. Constitution, which has stood the test of two centuries. James Madison’s efforts in… More

Ancients and Moderns: The Emergence of Modern Constitutionalism

– Institute for the Study of the Americas, March 2002; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Walter Berns, John M. Olin University Professor emeritus at Georgetown University, investigates the history of modern constitutionalism or limited government. Particularly interested in the… More

The Insignificant Office

– National Review Online, July 9, 2004; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Why should John Edwards or anyone else want to be vice president? One of the men who held the post spoke of it as “the most insignificant office” ever contrived by the… More

Under God

– In Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: On March 24, 2004, the Supreme Court heard arguments in still another of what civil libertarians insist on calling establishment-of-religion cases, Elk Grove Unified School… More

Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought

– AEI Press, 2006.

Excerpt: One of the distinctive things about America is that its Founders were political theorists as well as practitioners. Consider, as the most telling example, the Declaration of… More

Democracy and the Constitution: Essays by Walter Berns

– Audio, book forum, American Enterprise Institute, September 29, 2006.

AEI scholar and historian Walter Berns has spent his academic career defending the United States Constitution. In his latest collection of essays, Democracy and the Constitution (AEI Press,… More

Patriotism and Multiculturalism

– The Many Faces of Patriotism, Philip Abbott, ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 3–14.

In the decades following the end of the Cold War, scholars turned their attention to reevaluating patriotism. Many saw both its ability to serve as a cohesive force and its desirability as… More

Lincoln at Two Hundred: Why We Still Read the Sixteenth President

– American Enterprise Institute, 2009.

Excerpt: More has been written about Abraham Lincoln than of any other president or, for that matter, any other American; the amount is prodigious: no fewer than 16,000 books and goodness… More

Abraham Lincoln at Two Hundred

– Audio lecture, American Enterprise Institute, February 9, 2009.

Abraham Lincoln was the greatest of our presidents. He saved the Union, which made it possible for him to free the slaves. But he did more than this; without him we probably would have had… More

Free Markets and the Constitution

– Audio lecture, American Enterprise Institute, August 11, 2009.

Why is the number of Americans who value free enterprise, and who understand its virtues and benefits declining–especially among students and younger citizens? Asked in an… More

Walter Berns’ Constitution by Christopher DeMuth

– Remarks by Christopher DeMuth at a Constitution Day seminar in honor of Walter Berns, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, September 20, 2011.

Excerpt: In America today, the Constitution has come to mean constitutional law. Most Americans venerate their Constitution and realize that it is an important source of their liberties and… More

Walter Berns and the Constitution: A Celebration of the Constitution, with Opening Remarks by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

– Panel discussion of Walter Berns' scholarship, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, September 20, 2011.

In mid-September 2011, as part of AEI’s Program on American Citizenship, we celebrated Constitution Day (September 17), the day thirty-nine members of the Constitutional Convention signed… More

Walter Berns and Leon Kass on Stephen Spielberg’s “Lincoln”

– Discussion with Walter Berns and Leon Kass, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, December 20, 2012.

At a discussion hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, What So Proudly We Hail editor Leon R. Kass and Walter Berns (professor emeritus, Georgetown University) discussed Steven… More

Patriots

– Audio, "Dialogue," Woodrow Wilson Center.

In ancient Sparta patriotism meant a commitment to warfare and a view of the state as divine. For modern Americans patriotism is set on a much different and abstract basis. Walter Berns… More

The Jaffa-Berns Feud Revisited

– Steven F. Hayward, Powerline, September 11, 2015. Remarks from Claremont Institute APSA panel, September 2015.

Excerpt: Berns inclined toward a Hobbesian reading of Locke while Jaffa worked out an Aristotelian reading of Locke. Jaffa thought America the best regime, in the classical sense. Though he… More

Teaching

Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– The Louisiana State University Press, 1957; reprinted, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1969.

This book examines the First Amendment and issues of liberty and the American Founding. Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments I           Censorship: A Classic Issue… More

Book Review: Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– Rene de Visme Williamson, Louisiana Law Review 18:2 (February 1958).

Excerpt: In an age when conflicting ideologies are competing for the support of mankind and when constitutional issues regarding civil liberties are dividing the American people in opposing… More

School Prayers and “Religious Warfare”

– National Review, April 23, 1963, 315–17.

The Sources of Law

– National Review, August 11, 1964, 690.

Book review of The Morality of Law by Lon L. Fuller.

The Constitution and the Migration of Slaves

– The Yale Law Journal 78:2 (December 1968), 198–228; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).

Excerpt: Shortly after the adoption of the Constitution, the South came to see the power granted to Congress to regulate commerce as a major threat to its domestic tranquility, for this… More

What Was Wrong with the Warren Court

– National Review, April 21, 1970, 414.

Book review of The Supreme Court and the Idea of Progress, by Alexander M. Bickel.

The Limits to Judicial Power

– National Review, September 1, 1972, 958.

Book review of The Modern Supreme Court by Robert G. McCloskey and Martin Shapiro.

Free Speech and Free Government

– The Political Science Reviewer 2:1 (Fall 1972).

Excerpt: It is unfortunate, and a measure of our contemporary difficulties, that too many Americans today would hesitate to agree with Gladstone that the American Constitution was… More

Thinking About the City

– Commentary, October 1973; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).

Excerpt: Cities express an ambivalence in the American soul: we like cities and wish to live in them—or at least to visit them—but we also dislike cities and wish to avoid them, and… More

The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– Basic Books, 1976; reprinted, Regnery Gateway, 1985.

A sharp, in-depth analysis of the First Amendment offering a unique interpretation of our basic freedoms and liberties.

Religion and the Founding Principle

– The Moral Foundations of the American Republic, Robert H. Horwitz, ed. (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1977, 1986).

Book Review: The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– Jeremy A. Rabkin, American Spectator (March 1977).

Excerpt: In the late 1930s, the Supreme Court largely abandoned its traditional defense of property rights and also gave up its long struggle to maintain a balance in the federal system by… More

The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– William J. Bennett, Commentary (May 1977).

Abstract: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

Walter Berns: Philosopher of the First Amendment

– William A. Stanmeyer, Modern Age (December 1977), 367–76.

The Least Dangerous Branch, But Only If…

– The Judiciary in a Democratic Society, Leonard J. Theberge, ed. (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1979).

Based on papers presented at the national conference on the role of the judiciary in a democratic society held at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., on September 30… More

The Corporation’s Song

– American Spectator 13:9 (September 1980).

“The Corporation’s Song” Walter Berns and lyrics by Hobbes, Locke, and Madison. Music by Mobil Oil?

The Judiciary and Representative Government

– Public Policy Papers (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1981).  

The Confusion of Political Choices and Constitutional Requirements: The Perspective of a Legal Historian

– Private Schools and the Public Good, Edward McGlynn Gaffrey, Jr., ed. (South Bend, IN: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1981).

The Forms of Article V

– Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 6 (1982), 73.

Judicial Review and the Rights and Laws of Nature

– The Supreme Court Review 1982, (1982), 49–83; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).

Excerpt: The current controversy over the proper role of the judiciary can be said to have begun twenty years ago with Herbert Wechsler’s appeal for Supreme Court decisions resting on… More

A Reply to Harry Jaffa

– National Review, January 22, 1982.

Abstract: The article presents the author’s response to professor Harry Jaffa’s criticism of his views about the Declaration of Independence in the U.S. The author says that… More

The American Presidency: Statesmanship and Constitutionalism in Balance

– Imprimis, Hillsdale College, January 1983. Reprinted in Educating for Liberty: The Best of Imprimis, 1972–2002, Douglas A. Jeffrey, ed. (Hillsdale, MI: Hillsdale College Press, 2002).

Excerpt: America today is in need of leadership of the sort provided in the past by our greatest presidents, presidents whom we mean to honor and praise when we denominate them… More

The Legislative Protection of Rights

– The U.S. Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, William R. McKercher (Ontario, Canada: Ontario Economic Council, 1983).

After the People Vote: Steps in Choosing the President

– American Enterprise Institute Press, 1983; second edition, 1992.

Explains how electors are appointed, how ballots are cast and votes are counted, and what happens if no one has a majority; and discusses three disputed elections.

The Writing of the Constitution of the United States

– American Enterprise Institute, 1984; reprinted by the President's Commission on White House Fellowships; reprinted in Constitution Makers on Constitution Making: The Exercises of Eight Nations, Robert A. Goldwin, ed. (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1988).

A paper presented to the White House fellows at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, October 19, 1983.

In Defense of Political Philosophy: Two Letters to Walter Berns

– In Harry Jaffa, American Conservatism and the American Founding (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1984)

Excerpt: IN HIS ‘REPLY TO Harry Jaffa” (National Review, January 22, 1982), Walter Berns writes: There is no substance to Harry Jaffa’s criticism of me. In 1972, he wrote that the… More

Affirmative Action vs. the Declaration of Independence

– New Perspectives 16:1 (Summer 1984).

Abstract: Reverse discrimination is an effect of affirmative action that cannot be overlooked: it is discriminatory and it has victims. If laws may be used to discriminate against Whites,… More

Citizenship, Rights and Responsibilities

– Rights, Citizenship, and Responsibilities, Bradford P. Wilson, ed. (Valley Forge, PA: Freedom Foundation, 1984).

The proceedings of Freedom Foundation’s symposium on citizen responsibilities, December 13-14, 1984, Washington, D.C.

Do We Have a Living Constitution?

– National Forum LXIV:4 (Fall 1984).

Excerpt: Now, almost 200 years later, one can read Hamilton’s words in Federalist No. 1 and conclude that, under some conditions, some “societies of men” are capable of… More

In Defense of Liberal Democracy

– Regnery Gateway, 1984.

In this new book of essays, Walter Berns give shape to the arena of American government and politics. He contends that “free government is an endangered species in our world,”… More

Teaching the Founding of the United States

– Politics in Perspective 13:1 (Fall 1985).

Abstract: If students are to understand the American Constitution, they must, like the Founders, take political philosophy seriously. Books and essays that college teachers can use to teach… More

How Has the United States Met Its Major Challenges Since 1945?

– Commentary, November 1985.

Excerpt: Things were different in America and always had been. Our aristocrats, our Tories, were dispatched in 1776, at the beginning, at the time we became Americans. They went back to… More

Equally Endowed With Rights

– Justice and Equality Here and Now, Frank Lucash, ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), 151–71.

Re-evaluating the Open Society

– Order, Freedom, and the Polity: Critical Essays on the Open Society, George W. Carey, ed. (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute and University Press of America, 1986).

Abstract: A series of essays which critically examine the concept of the open society as ‘the crowning achievement of Western civilization.’ Analyzes the open society theory… More

The Constitution and the Pursuit of American Happiness

– We the People, Constitutional Ideals and the American Experience: A Bicentennial Perspective, symposium hosted by Angelo State University, 1987.

Excerpt: There are, as I count them, 164 countries in the world, and of these all but six (Great Britain, New Zealand, and Israel; Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Libya) have written constitutions.… More

The ‘New’ Science of Politics and Constitutional Government

– Constitutionalism and Rights, Gary C. Bryner and Noel B. Reynolds, eds. (Albany NY: SUNY Press, 1987).

Abstract: Constitutionalism and Rights explores the ambivalent relationship between the American tradition of constitutionalism and the notions of rights that have emerged over the last… More

Comment on Rowan

– Maryland Law Review 47:1 (1987).

Excerpt: I begin by setting the stage for a question. I then ask it. Put yourself in the position of a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. You are an… More

Celebrating the Bicentennial

– Washington Times, March 5, 1987.

Government by Lawyers & Judges

– Commentary, June 1987.

Excerpt: We call it judicial review, and while the point has frequently been disputed, sometimes fiercely, there is really no question but that the Framers intended federal judges to… More

Taking the Constitution Seriously

– Crisis, June 1, 1987.

Excerpt: Unlike the first federal judges, whose formal legal education was likely to have been very limited indeed — John Marshall was largely self-educated in the law and John Jay, the… More

In Times of Crisis, How Much Power Does the President Have?

– Washington Times, June 3, 1987; reprinted in The World and I (August 1987).

Excerpt: Lt. Col. Oliver North may or may not have broken the law, but that he was a hero Patrick J. Buchanan had no doubt. Unlike the other members of the Reagan White House – he was… More

Judicial Review and the Supreme Court

– The World and I (September 1987).

Excerpt: In a recent speech, Harvard law professor Archibald Cox acknowledged that the Supreme Court had succeeded in making the Constitution into an “instrument of massive… More

The New Pursuit of Happiness

– Public Interest 86 (Winter 1987), 65–76.

Excerpt: Landing in New York in May 1831, Gustave de Beaumont was struck by the “busyness” of the place. “It’s a remarkable phenomenon,” he wrote his father, “a great people… More

Liberty and Equality

– Panel discussion hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, December 1, 1987.

This a session from the larger conference held by the American Enterprise Institute entitled “The Spirit of the Constitution.” The focus of this panel was liberty and equality. Part… More

Book Review: Taking the Constitution Seriously

– Terry Eastland, American Spectator (January 1988).

Judicial Roulette

– Twentieth Century Fund Task Force Report on Judicial Selection (New York: Priority Press, 1988).

Taking the Framers Seriously

– William Michael Treanor, The University of Chicago Law Review 55:3 (Summer, 1988), pp. 1016–40.

Abstract: This review focuses on three of the key historical points that Walter Berns makes: his arguments that the Declaration of Independence is a Lockean document; that the Constitution… More

Taking Berns Seriously

– Grant B. Mindle, South Dakota Law Review 34:432 (1989).

The American Founding

– Principles of the Constitutional Order: The Ratification Debates, Robert L. Utley, ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1989).

Justice as the Securing of Rights

– The Constitution, the Courts, and the Quest for Justice, Robert A. Goldwin and William A. Schambra, eds. (American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1989).

Taking the Constitution Seriously

– Simon and Schuster, 1987; reprinted, Madison Books, 1992.

Walter Berns’s book is must reading for every judge, law student, or member of the general public who wants to know more about our Federal Constitution. Berns concisely and clearly… More

On Hamilton and Popular Government

– Public Interest 109 (Fall 1992), 109–13.

Excerpt: Alexander Hamilton has never been a popular hero among his fellow citizens. When visiting the capital city, they mount the tour buses that take them to the Capitol, the White… More

On Madison and Majoritarianism: A Response to Professor Amar

– Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 15:113 (Winter 1992).

Excerpt: Some fourteen years ago, in Washington, before an audience consisting largely of law school professors and federal judges, I said there probably was not a law school in the country… More

Liberal Democracy and Justice in the Constitution of Walter Berns

– Richard G. Stevens, The Political Science Reviewer 22 (1993).

Excerpt: Walter Berns admits in the preface to his book by that very title that he had all along been writing in defense of liberal democracy. This is not simply a post litem motam… More

We, the People, Debate the Constitution

– Washington Times, July 4, 1993.

Excerpt: With the publication of the two volumes of “The Debate on the Constitution,” the 62nd and 63rd in the Library of America series, the general public will now have access… More

Solving the Problem of Democracy

– South Africa's Crisis of Constitutional Democracy: Can the U.S. Constitution Help?, Robert A. Licht and Bertus de Villiers, eds. (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1994), 180–200; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Some years ago, before an audience of federal judges and law professors, I said that there probably was not a law school in the United States that did not offer a course in… More

The Prattling Presidency

– Wall Street Journal, October 13, 1994; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Our presidents have become big talkers. President Clinton, for example, is going across the country this week to sing the praises of his administration and of the Democratic… More

On Patriotism

– Bradley Lecture, American Enterprise Institute, September 16, 1996.

Excerpt: Patriotism means love of country (patria, in the Latin) and implies a readiness to sacrifice for it, to fight for it, perhaps even to give one’s life for it. In the traditional,… More

Taking Virtue Seriously

– Public Interest 128 (Summer 1997), 122–26.

Excerpt: In 1790-91, Supreme Court Justice James Wilson delivered a series of lectures on the law at what was to become the University of Pennsylvania and before an audience that included… More

The Supreme Court as Republican Schoolmaster: Constitutional Interpretation and the ‘Genius of the People’

– The Supreme Court and American Constitutionalism, Bradford P. Wilson and Ken Masugi, eds. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 3–16.

In this important book, fourteen of America’s leading constitutional scholars assess the Supreme Court’s performance expounding the animating principles of American… More

Constitutionalism and Multiculturalism

– Multiculturalism and American Democracy, Arthur M. Melzer, Jerry Weinberger, and M. Richard Zinman, eds. (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 91–111; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Alexis de Tocqueville, writing in the 1830s, very much feared that liberty and equality would be at war with each other; today there is a tendency among some intellectuals to think… More

Historians Spring an “October Surprise”

– Wall Street Journal, November 3, 1998.

Excerpt: In the runup to every election, politicians wait in hopeful or nervous expectation of the “October surprise” — a last-minute news bombshell that can turn the… More

Walter Berns: The Constitution and American Liberal Democracy

– Gary D. Glenn, in Leo Strauss: The Straussians and the Study of the American Regime, eds. Kenneth L. Deutsch and John Albert Murley (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), 193–204.

Martin Diamond’s Contribution to American Political Thought: Symposium

– The Political Science Reviewer 28:1 (Fall 1999).

Excerpt: Forgotten or neglected by politicians, the Constitution and its Framers did not fare much better in the academic world that Martin Diamond entered in the early 1950s. Political… More

Alexis de Tocqueville

– The American Enterprise (November/December 1999).

Alexis de Tocqueville was born in France in 1805, the son of aristocrats. During the French Revolution, his parents had been imprisoned, and his mother’s father and grandfather had… More

Revisiting States’ Rights Controversy at the Wrong Time, with Altered History

– Washington Times, October 15, 2000; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Forrest McDonald is a reputable scholar. Early-American historians especially are indebted to him, not only f or his important study of the formation of the republic, and his… More

Making Patriots

– University of Chicago Press, 2001; paperback edition, 2002.

Although Samuel Johnson once remarked that “patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels,” over the course of the history of the United States we have seen our share of heroes:… More

America—Idea or Nation?

– Wilfred M. McClay, Public Interest (Fall 2001).

Excerpt: At first glance, American patriotism seems a simple matter. But it is simple only until one actually starts to think about it, inquire after its sources, and investigate its… More

Imperishable Insights by Bill Buckley

– William F. Buckley, New Criterion (September 2001).

Excerpt: This (too) short book grew out of an essay written by the distinguished political philosopher Walter Berns for The Public Interest. What it does is to probe into American… More

James Madison on Religion and Politics

– James Madison and the Future of Limited Government, John Curtis Samples, ed. (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2002), 135–46.

Americans are once again rediscovering the wisdom of the founders who wrote and ratified the U.S. Constitution, which has stood the test of two centuries. James Madison’s efforts in… More

Ancients and Moderns: The Emergence of Modern Constitutionalism

– Institute for the Study of the Americas, March 2002; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Walter Berns, John M. Olin University Professor emeritus at Georgetown University, investigates the history of modern constitutionalism or limited government. Particularly interested in the… More

The Insignificant Office

– National Review Online, July 9, 2004; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: Why should John Edwards or anyone else want to be vice president? One of the men who held the post spoke of it as “the most insignificant office” ever contrived by the… More

Under God

– In Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 2006).

Excerpt: On March 24, 2004, the Supreme Court heard arguments in still another of what civil libertarians insist on calling establishment-of-religion cases, Elk Grove Unified School… More

Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought

– AEI Press, 2006.

Excerpt: One of the distinctive things about America is that its Founders were political theorists as well as practitioners. Consider, as the most telling example, the Declaration of… More

Democracy and the Constitution: Essays by Walter Berns

– Audio, book forum, American Enterprise Institute, September 29, 2006.

AEI scholar and historian Walter Berns has spent his academic career defending the United States Constitution. In his latest collection of essays, Democracy and the Constitution (AEI Press,… More

Patriotism and Multiculturalism

– The Many Faces of Patriotism, Philip Abbott, ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 3–14.

In the decades following the end of the Cold War, scholars turned their attention to reevaluating patriotism. Many saw both its ability to serve as a cohesive force and its desirability as… More

Lincoln at Two Hundred: Why We Still Read the Sixteenth President

– American Enterprise Institute, 2009.

Excerpt: More has been written about Abraham Lincoln than of any other president or, for that matter, any other American; the amount is prodigious: no fewer than 16,000 books and goodness… More

Abraham Lincoln at Two Hundred

– Audio lecture, American Enterprise Institute, February 9, 2009.

Abraham Lincoln was the greatest of our presidents. He saved the Union, which made it possible for him to free the slaves. But he did more than this; without him we probably would have had… More

Free Markets and the Constitution

– Audio lecture, American Enterprise Institute, August 11, 2009.

Why is the number of Americans who value free enterprise, and who understand its virtues and benefits declining–especially among students and younger citizens? Asked in an… More

Walter Berns’ Constitution by Christopher DeMuth

– Remarks by Christopher DeMuth at a Constitution Day seminar in honor of Walter Berns, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, September 20, 2011.

Excerpt: In America today, the Constitution has come to mean constitutional law. Most Americans venerate their Constitution and realize that it is an important source of their liberties and… More

Walter Berns and the Constitution: A Celebration of the Constitution, with Opening Remarks by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

– Panel discussion of Walter Berns' scholarship, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, September 20, 2011.

In mid-September 2011, as part of AEI’s Program on American Citizenship, we celebrated Constitution Day (September 17), the day thirty-nine members of the Constitutional Convention signed… More

Walter Berns and Leon Kass on Stephen Spielberg’s “Lincoln”

– Discussion with Walter Berns and Leon Kass, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, December 20, 2012.

At a discussion hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, What So Proudly We Hail editor Leon R. Kass and Walter Berns (professor emeritus, Georgetown University) discussed Steven… More

Patriots

– Audio, "Dialogue," Woodrow Wilson Center.

In ancient Sparta patriotism meant a commitment to warfare and a view of the state as divine. For modern Americans patriotism is set on a much different and abstract basis. Walter Berns… More

The Jaffa-Berns Feud Revisited

– Steven F. Hayward, Powerline, September 11, 2015. Remarks from Claremont Institute APSA panel, September 2015.

Excerpt: Berns inclined toward a Hobbesian reading of Locke while Jaffa worked out an Aristotelian reading of Locke. Jaffa thought America the best regime, in the classical sense. Though he… More