What Might James Wilson Say to Today’s Supreme Court?
He can do more than, as John Roberts would have him doing, in affirming the law of non-contradiction.
Originalism
Rahimi’s Natural Law Moment – Part 2
In Part One of this essay, I argued that the Supreme Court’s opinion in United States v. Rahimi set the stage for lawyers and judges to incorporate natural law principles into their reasoning. In Rahimi, the Court appealed to the “principles underlying the Second Amendment” in order to ascertain the scope of its protections. Our …
Rahimi’s Natural Law Moment – Part 1
Following the 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, Hadley Arkes wrote that Justice Scalia’s putatively originalist opinion might have appealed to “something resembling—brace yourself—‘natural law.’” After all, Scalia’s look into the text and history of the Second Amendment revealed that it codified a right that preexisted the Constitution. Arkes queried, “Was he suggesting …
VIDEO: Hadley Arkes Receives 2025 Benedict Leadership Institute Award at Belmont Abbey College
Contra Koppelman: What Mere Natural Law Was About
Editors Note: This piece originally appeared in the Per Curiam section of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy as a response to a review by Prof. Andrew Koppelman of Hadley Arkes’s Mere Natural Law. It is reproduced here with permission from the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.
Natural Law and Labor Law with Alex MacDonald
Alex MacDonald, a DC-based labor lawyer, touches on the historical roots of the right to work, the right’s connection with natural-law principles, and its return to modern jurisprudence. Informed by JWI Co-Director Hadley Arkes’s Mere Natural Law, Alex examines how that return could transform modern labor law, especially the concept of exclusive representation. This episode, …
Securitization: A Solution to the Migration Crisis in the United States
Editor’s Note: This piece was originally published in late November 2024 at The New Digest. It is reproduced at Anchoring Truths with permission. We reproduce it here for timeliness in the current debates over immigration and the broader American constitutional order. The Trump administration’s declaration of a national emergency at the southern border has echoes …
Originalism and Ancient Rabbinic Exegesis
“Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the transmission of fire.” (Gustav Mahler, 1860 – 1911) The first official prayer in America’s newly-constituted Continental Congress took place in September 1774. Through this event, Congress firmly emphasized the religious ethos of America’s founding. In particular, primacy and honour was accorded to the 3,000 year-old Hebrew scriptures …
Ed Meese & the Revolution of Originalism
Join the Anchoring Truths Podcast for both a look back and a look ahead for originalism, through the lens of one of the most influential living Americans on our constitutional order. Edwin Meese III’s tenure as Attorney General under President Reagan was one of the most significant ones – and almost no one knows it. Ed …
Hadley Arkes 2024 Norton Lectures at SBTS
Video Recordings of the Norton Lectures Delivered by JWI Co-Director Prof. Hadley Arkes at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, October 8-9, 2024. Lecture I: The Enduring Rediscovery: The Polis as a Moral Association Lecture II: On Aristotle and Political Science as the “Architectonic Science” Lecture III: The American Founding and Natural Theology – And a …
