Tillman, Seth Barrett (2003) The Federalist Papers as Reliable Historical Source Material for Constitutional Interpretation. West Virginia Law Review, 105. pp. 601-619.

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Abstract

The Federalist Papers ill serves judicial opinion writing when cited for anything but analyzing the largest constitutional structures and their purposes - as opposed to the Constitution's details, which, although discussed, were not the main subject matter of contention between those supporting and those opposing ratification. Moreover, modern judicial craftsman cannot assume that each and every paper is free of error. They are not. Across the Papers are both minor and major errors of various sorts; thus, the Papers must be read and analyzed (as any other document must be) rather than casually cited (as if each and every Paper is free of defect) for the point under discussion. And, lastly, blithely relying on the rationales put forward by the Papers should not preclude our realizing that not only are some passages of the Constitution in deep tension, but rather, some passages are logically incoherent. Under these circumstances, all rationales put forward - those in the Papers included - are equally problematic. This paper is largely written in a comic mode so as to be more accessible to the generalist lawyer and lay reader - the same audience to whom the Papers were originally addressed. Additionally, this paper also explores some undiscussed aspects of House and Senate contingency elections in the event of the failure of the electoral college to select a President and/or a Vice President.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Constitutional law; The Federalist Papers; interpretation; error; quorum requirements; size of the legislature; House and Senate contingency elections for President and Vice President; function of tie-breaking vote of Vice President; electors selected by state legislatures and not by the people;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Law
Item ID:	2936
Depositing User:	Seth Tillman
Date Deposited:	12 Jan 2012 10:11
Journal or Publication Title:	West Virginia Law Review
Publisher:	West Virginia University College of Law
Refereed:	No
URI:
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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