Progressive Challenges to the American Constitution: A New Republic

Cambridge University Press, 6/1/2017
EAN 9781107094376, ISBN10: 1107094372

Hardcover, 304 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English

In this volume, Bradley C. S. Watson brings together the leading scholars who have sparked one of the most important intellectual and political movements of our times: the criticism of the progressive intellectual synthesis that has dominated American thought and politics over much of the last century, and has provided the framework in which the administrative state has expanded and flourished. The contributors address the most important questions raised by this movement: what is the meaning of progressivism? What is the nature of the Founders' Constitution and the progressive challenges to it? What is the significance of recent scholarship and public opinion that have arisen in opposition to the progressive vision? What are the implications of American progressivism for twenty-first century politics and policy? Progressive Challenges to the American Constitution addresses the growing doubt about the scope and sustainability of expanded government power.

Introduction. A living thing
the progressive challenge to the American constitutional order Bradley C. S. Watson
Part I. Contested Constitutionalism and the Election of 1912
1. The problem of democracy
recovering the Constitution from the progressives William Schambra
2. Theodore Roosevelt, the Progressive Party, and the ascendance of the living Constitution Sidney M. Milkis
Part II. The Political Philosophy of Progressivism
3. Progressivism and the Doctrine of Natural Rights James W. Ceaser
4. John Dewey and the dilemma of progressive democracy Wilfred M. McClay
Part III. The Political Theory of the Progressive State
5. Progressivism, the social sciences, and the rational state John Marini
6. Making the state into a god
American progressivism and the social Gospel Ronald J. Pestritto
7. Progressivism, social science, and Catholic social teaching in the building of the American welfare state James R. Stoner, Jr
Part IV. The Progressive Presidency
8. The promise of the new nationalism and its challenge to the framers Jean M. Yarbrough
9. William Howard Taft and the constitutionalist presidency in the progressive era Johnathan O'Neill
10. Woodrow Wilson and the statesmanship of progress Charles R. Kesler
Part V. The Supreme Court, Congress, and the Future of the Constitution
11. One supreme court
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, and the progressive revolution in constitutional jurisprudence Bradley C. S. Watson
12. Regulations from the executive in need of scrutiny
the REINS Act and the art of teaching constitutionalism by legislation Eric R. Claeys.