The Nature of American Constitutionalism
This chapter examines the third reason for Justice Antonin Scalia’s enduring historical significance for an understanding of American constitutionalism. The chapter argues that he was a man of his times, who adapted “conservative” politics and values to meet what he saw as the abuses of the Warren Court and twentieth-century liberalism. To counter broad assertions of federal legislative and judicial power, he developed doctrines to limit both of those branches, and to counter liberal attempts to limit presidential power after Watergate, he developed doctrines to expand the power of the executive. The chapter criticizes his embrace of positivism and his ideas about both law and the rule of law. It also argues that the nature of “conservatism” has evolved and changed over the decades and that Scalia’s jurisprudence broke with the conservative jurisprudence of the pre-Reagan era. The chapter concludes that Scalia’s jurisprudence and career demonstrate—contrary to his central jurisprudential claims—the third fundamental characteristic of American constitutionalism, its truly “living” nature.