Author and philosopher Ayn Rand has gathered a cult like following thanks to her bestselling novels We the Living, Anthem, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Through Rand's fictional writings she illustrates the principles of her philosophy objectivism. Objectivism employs five principles; objective reality, reason, self -interest, capitalism and individualism as the truths that govern the philosophy. Objectivists believe that their self-reliant philosophy holds the key to all life's answers. This thesis examines the following question: what would the founder of objectivism Ayn Rand think about the U.S. Constitution? Sadly Ayn Rand passed away in 1982 and never expressed her full opinion on how she felt about the U.S. Constitution. However, using the five principles of the objectivist ideology, public interviews done with Ayn Rand during her life time, and the opinions expressed by Rand in her four fictional novels this thesis will deconstruct the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights and then reconstruct them so that they concur with the objectivist philosophy. The purpose of this thesis is to inform readers of the objectivist philosophy and to highlight the differences and similarities between Ayn Rand's beliefs and the Founding Fathers through the Constitution.

<p>In this project, I examine why the judicial authority of the United States Supreme Court has increased. I propose a theoretical explanation of endogenous institutional change at the Court whereby the actions of the Court---specifically its decisions and the opinions in which it announces those decisions---have, over the long-run, altered the structures of the American separation-of-powers system. The Court has built up public support for the institution of judicial review to such a degree that its rulings are respected even when opposed by strong political actors---including the public. I evaluate this theory by analyzing three important transitional periods of Supreme Court history. The first case study explores the Court under Chief Justice John Marshall, and examines how the Court established judicial review as the most important means of constitutional interpretation. The second case study explores the Court's first cases interpreting the three Reconstruction Amendments, and shows that through these decisions the Court established itself as the arbiter of the meaning of these new amendments. The third case study looks at the Court's decision to hear reapportionment cases and its articulation of the political question doctrine that provided a legalistic method of expanding the political power of the Court. I conclude from these case studies that my theory provides a useful explanation for the expansion of judicial authority.</p> / Dissertation

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This study examines the effect that divided or unified government, in the United States of America, has on the delegation of trade authority to the President. Using a qualitative analysis approach, I examine competing views and formulate an independent opinion based on the peoples’ preferences and evaluation of the principles of America’s Constitutionalism. I conclude that overemphasis on the impact of divided government is misleading because trade issues provide the primary mechanism which determines the implementation of America’s trade policies, and the principles of Constitutionalism are valuable guidelines. Blended with the discussion is the awareness of an American ethos which challenges formulation of trade agreements in an era of increased globalization.

This study examines the effect that divided or unified government, in the United States of America, has on the delegation of trade authority to the President. Using a qualitative analysis approach, I examine competing views and formulate an independent opinion based on the peoples’ preferences and evaluation of the principles of America’s Constitutionalism. I conclude that overemphasis on the impact of divided government is misleading because trade issues provide the primary mechanism which determines the implementation of America’s trade policies, and the principles of Constitutionalism are valuable guidelines. Blended with the discussion is the awareness of an American ethos which challenges formulation of trade agreements in an era of increased globalization.

A literal reading of the United States Constitution finds no mention of education.  Because no fundamental federal mandate exists to provide public education for citizens, the Tenth Amendment gives states the authority for public education policy.  Because states have different constitutional standards for education, civics requirements have little national consistency.  This thesis explores the connections between state constitutional provisions for public education and graduation requirements for civics in each state. The research examined how state constitutions address education policy and whether states with language specifically connecting education to the maintenance of democracy required more stringent civics requirements for students to graduate from secondary school.  Further investigation explored whether and how state constitutions in Minnesota and Wisconsin appeared to influence the development of graduation requirements.  Indeed, Minnesota, whose constitution connects education to the maintenance of democracy, had a curriculum policy process far more rooted in its constitutional traditions than did Wisconsin, which had no such constitutional language or curriculum process. / Master of Arts

This thesis examines the views of freedoms of press and speech held by the twelve earliest justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, as the Sedition Act of 1798 raised their earliest First Amendment questions including the breadth of those freedoms and of seditious libel. The thesis discusses three aspects of the early justices' views, which add to existing studies. First, the context of those justices' views was growing challenges to the restrictive Blackstone and Mansfield definition of freedom of press as only freedom from prior restraint (licensing) and as not also freedom from subsequent restraint such as seditious libel prosecution. Those challenges were reflected in broad language protecting freedoms of press and speech, and in the absence of language stating that the English common law of rights or of seditious libel was left unaltered. That crucial context of growing challenges has not been detailed in existing literature. (Chapter 3.) Second, the views of each early justice on press and speech are chronicled for the period 1789-1798. That discloses express commitments to those freedoms, which are absent from existing literature, and no adoption of the Blackstone definition before the 1798 crisis. (Chapters 4-5.) Third, the cases and reasoning of the six sitting justices upholding the Sedition Act of 1798 are chronicled and assessed, along with the views of the six remaining justices. That reveals that most remaining justices and also a significant minority within the Federalist party rejected the Sedition Act. Yet positions on the Sedition Act have been only cursorily discussed for four sitting justices and have been overlooked for the other eight justices, as well as for the Federalist party's minority, for the critical period 1798-1800. (Chapters 6-7.) The thesis proposes reasons for that divergence between the pre-1798 commitment of all justices to freedoms of press and speech, and the support given by most sitting justices to the Sedition Act, in contrast to apparent opposition by most remaining justices. The primary reasons are their opposing positions on several connected issues: the extent of rights to dissent, the challenges to the Blackstone definition and to seditious libel, the effect of new state and federal constitutions on seditious libel and on common law rights, strength of attachment to freedoms of press and speech and to seditious libel, and most sitting justices' changes of position to embrace the Blackstone definition. The thesis calls into question conventional views in existing literature on each of those three aspects. First, Levy and others express the dominant view that freedom of press in state declarations of rights and the First Amendment 'was used in its prevailing common law or Blackstonian sense to mean a guarantee against previous restraints and a subjection to subsequent restraints for licentious or seditious abuse,' so that contrary evidence 'does not exist,' and that 'no other definition of freedom of the press by anyone anywhere in America before 1798' existed. Instead, opposition to the essence of seditious libel had been mounting over the decades. Second, the early justices are usually portrayed as having nothing to say about freedoms of press and speech before 1798. Instead, nearly all exhibited commitment to those freedoms before that crucial year, though half the early justices upheld the Sedition Act during 1798-1800. Third, the Federalist party, the early justices, and the states except Virginia and Kentucky are all usually described as unanimously supporting the Sedition Act. Instead, the Federalists divided over the Act, and the early justices did as well, with an unrecognized but significant minority of the party, and nearly half of the early justices, opposing the Sedition Act, as did several additional states.

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This diploma thesis aims to analyze the issue of one of the most significant congressional powers found in Article I., Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. Congressional power to regulate interstate commerce has been instrumental to the federal government's legislative efforts in many areas of law. This constitutional provision enabled the Congress to react to the changing conditions and new problems the country has been facing, especially in the area of working conditions, civil rights, criminal justice or even environmental law and many others. The expansion of power of the federal government, however, was not always greeted with enthusiasm, especially in the first three decades of the 20th century, before the Supreme Court began to read the commerce power much more broadly, to the point that it ceased to be a factual limitation of its powers. This trend was meant to be stopped by the New Federalism movement and the five new conservative justices who issued rulings that limited the scope of the Commerce Clause. However, this group of justices proved to be very inconsistent in its own approach toward this constitutional provision and eventually fell apart, which rendered Rehnquist's attempted constitutional revolution with respect to state's rights partly a failure. As the new Court membership under...