Government by Judiciary [Paperback]

Raoul Berger (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0865971447 | ISBN-13: 978-0865971448 | Publication Date: June 1, 1997 | Edition: 2

The Justices, who are virtually unaccountable, irremovable, and irreversible, have taken over from the people control of their own destiny.

— Raoul Berger

It is the thesis of this monumentally argued book that the United States Supreme Court—largely through abuses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution—has embarked on "a continuing revision of the Constitution, under the guise of interpretation." Consequently, the Court has subverted America's democratic institutions and wreaked havoc upon Americans' social and political lives.

One of the first constitutional scholars to question the rise of judicial activism in modern times, Raoul Berger points out that "the Supreme Court is not empowered to rewrite the Constitution, that in its transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment it has demonstrably done so. Thereby the Justices, who are virtually unaccountable, irremovable, and irreversible, have taken over from the people control of their own destiny, an awesome exercise of power."

The Court has accomplished this transformation by ignoring or actually distorting the original intent of both the framers and the supporters of the Fourteenth Amendment. In school desegregation and legislative reapportionment cases, for example, the Court manipulated the history, meaning, and purpose of the amendment's Equal Protection Clause in order to achieve a desired political result. In cases involving First Amendment freedoms and the rights of the accused, the judges converted the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause into a vehicle for the nationalization of the Bill of Rights. Yet these actions were nothing less than "usurpations" that robbed "from the States a power that unmistakably was left to them."

This new second edition includes the original text of 1977 and extensive supplementary discourses in which the author assesses and rebuts the responses of his critics.

Raoul Berger retired in 1976 as Charles Warren Senior Fellow in American Legal History, Harvard University.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Raoul Berger

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 578 pages
• Publisher: Liberty Fund; 2 edition (June 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865971447
• ISBN-13: 978-0865971448
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #163,988 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #32 in Books > Law > Administrative Law > Federal Jurisdiction

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pure Honesty, June 6, 2005

By 

Death Bredon (Anglosphere) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Government by Judiciary (Hardcover)

Regardless of liberal, revisionist history, the Fourteenth Amendment was never intended to be, nor was it used by, its ratifiers to enforce thorough-going racial equality in the United States. To the contrary, the Amendment was designed to give newly emancipated slaves equality under protective laws, not equal application of all laws. In laymans terms, the Amendment guranteed minimal civil rights (the rights to enter into and enfoce contracts and police protection, but not full social or political rights. Thus, even progressive Northerners did not see state-mandated segregation as violative of the Amendment in any way. And, contemporaneous Jim-Crow legislation, both northern and southern alike, demonstrated this original, limited understanding of the scope of the Amendment.

Evil the Amendment may have been in its lack of breath, but its shortcomings were caused by the rampant racism endemic to the United States at that time, both in the North and South alike, not by Berger. To the contray, Berger merely has had the courage to stand up against contemporary, PC, soft tolitarianism and state the undeniable historical facts regarding the original meaning and application of the Fourteenth Amendment and contrast this to the more recent, revistionist reinterpretation and applications.

Looking to the bigger picture, what Berger does is challenge us to ponder whether going to all the fuss and bother of amending the Constitution to go beyond the very limited, original goals of the Fourthment Amendment might not have been a better course than giving the Supreme Court a quick-and-easy constitutional blue pen.

BTW, the "Pure Evil" review is pure crap.

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Written in '97 and very True Today, July 17, 2006

By 

William A. Hensler (Holt, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Government by Judiciary (Paperback)

This book is very true. There is an old Irish proverb, "The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions".

This book proves it.

Let's take "Brown". Now, is this poster saying that all children are not entitled to a fair education. Of course not! And it's terrible that the courts had to get involved to solve the education issue of allowing children-of-color to attend a white school. If the various governments had acted right then there would have been no reason for the courts to strike down unjust laws regarding race.

However, what is scary about "Brown" is it allows the courts to get involved in the smallest detail of public life. So, the courts were correct in helping minority children attend a school. But, the courts actions do not just stop there. Like a bite of an apples, this books shows instance after instance where the courts continously invent rights for items that were once a state matter, such as land use, or in international matters, such as when the courts were finding rights for terrorists of the IRA.

If anything this book under states the cases of too much judiciary in the goverment. The results are that various groups that make up the plantiffs of the USA have a disproportionate amount of power. Example, the ACLU has defacto established the Christmas policies of the USA with its lawsuits. No vote was ever held that removed the Christmas displays from government. It was all lawsuits.

How will this end? This poster does not know. Perhaps one day the courts will over step their authority, such as in the granting criminal rights to Terrorists at GITMO, and they will be introduced to real power.

Since the writing of this book in 1997 the role of the judiciary has expanded.

This book is four stars, dated, but is still good.

9 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Brown" Was Wrong: Response to Lewiston, October 1, 2005

By 

The Fire Eater! "Fire Eater!" (Indian Territory) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Government by Judiciary (Paperback)

Yes, "Brown" was indeed wrong, if wrongness is judged by adherence to the Constitution, at any rate. More important, the Bill of Rights was never intended to apply to the States, but as a check against the power of the federal government. Berger is entirely consistent with the Constitutional understanding of those checks embodied in the Bill of Rights. Second, there are no such things as "civil rights." Wake up. All rights mentioned in the Constitution, if you assume that the Constitution is what it says it is, are given by a Creator (thus the "Liberty" mentioned in the Constitution is one of that Creator's "Blessings"). "Civil rights" are man-given, and man-taken-away; as such, they are worthless. "Civil rights" is chiefly a shibboleth emanating from the illegal 14th Amendment. In short, the Bill of Rights is not worth the paper it was written on if it were to apply to the States.