Recapturing the Constitution1994

Recapturing the Constitution: Race, Religion, and Abortion Reconsidered claims that our wayward courts are partly responsible for our current societal ills and calls for a moral and cultural renewal by turning back to our Framers' understanding of law and society. Presser illuminates the original understanding of the Constitution by exploring the decisions of the earliest federal judges, those who interpreted it closest in time to its ratification. What he finds is that these judges, as well as the Framers themselves, believed in an inextricable link between law and morality. Unlike the proponents of today's self-fulfillment culture, the Founders realized that in order for a society to prosper there needs to be a delicate balance struck between individual liberty and individual responsibility to the community. When constitutional jurisprudence is returned to the original understanding. Presser contends, we will reject government mandated, race-conscious remedies, including most affirmative action, race-norming, or quota programs, and return to a "color-blind" Constitution; we will return to an understanding of the First Amendment which permitted state and local governments to promote religion on a non-sectarian basis; and we will allow state governments to decide the extent to which they wish to regulate abortion without interference from the federal courts.