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Constitutional Law
Pamela S. Karlan, Mark V. Tushnet, Louis M. Seidman, Geoffrey R. Stone, Cass R. Sunstein
1704 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1986
19 people are currently reading
82 people want to read
About the author
Geoffrey R. Stone
91 books45 followersGeoffrey Stone is Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor at The University of Chicago Law School.
Geoffrey Stone has been a member of the law faculty since 1973. From 1987 to 1993, Mr. Stone served as Dean of the Law School, and from 1993 to 2002 he served as Provost of the University of Chicago. Mr. Stone received his undergraduate degree in 1968 from the University of Pennsylvania and his law degree in 1971 from the University of Chicago Law School, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review. Mr. Stone served as a law clerk to Judge J. Skelly Wright of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and to Justice William J. Brennan Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Stone was admitted to the New York Bar in 1972.
Mr. Stone teaches and writes primarily in the area of constitutional law. His most recent books are Top Secret: When Our Government Keeps Us in the Dark (2007) and War and Liberty: An American Dilemma (2007). Mr. Stone’s Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism (2004) received numerous national awards, including the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for 2005, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for 2004 as the best book in the field of history, the American Political Science Association's Kammerer Award for 2005 for the best book in Political Science, the Hefner Award for the best book on the First Amendment, and Harvard University's 2005 Goldsmith Award for the best book in the field of Public Affairs.
Mr. Stone is currently chief editor of a fifteen-volume series, Inalienable Rights, which is being published by the Oxford University Press between 2006 and 2012. The authors in the series include, among others, Richard Posner, Richard Epstein, Alan Dershowitz, Larry Lessig, Martha Nussbaum, Jack Rakove, Pamela Karlan, Lee Bollinger, and Larry Tribe.
Mr. Stone is working on a new book, Sexing the Constitution, which will explore the historical evolution in western culture of the intersection of sex, religion, and law. His past works include Eternally Vigilant: Free Speech in the Modern Era (2001), The Bill of Rights in the Modern State (1992) (with Mr. Epstein and Mr. Sunstein), Constitutional Law (6th ed. 2009) (with Mr. Sunstein), and The First Amendment (3d ed. 2008) (with Mr. Sunstein). Mr. Stone also serves as an editor of the Supreme Court Review (with Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Strauss), and he writes frequently for huffingtonpost.com and for such publications as the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Wall Street Journal.
Among his many public activities, Mr. Stone is a member of the national Board of Directors of the American Constitution Society, a member of the National Advisory Council of the American Civil Liberties Union, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the American Philosophical Society, a member of the American Law Institute, a member of the Straight for Equality Project of PFLAG, and a member of the Board of the Chicago Children's Choir.
Geoffrey Stone has been a member of the law faculty since 1973. From 1987 to 1993, Mr. Stone served as Dean of the Law School, and from 1993 to 2002 he served as Provost of the University of Chicago. Mr. Stone received his undergraduate degree in 1968 from the University of Pennsylvania and his law degree in 1971 from the University of Chicago Law School, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review. Mr. Stone served as a law clerk to Judge J. Skelly Wright of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and to Justice William J. Brennan Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Stone was admitted to the New York Bar in 1972.
Mr. Stone teaches and writes primarily in the area of constitutional law. His most recent books are Top Secret: When Our Government Keeps Us in the Dark (2007) and War and Liberty: An American Dilemma (2007). Mr. Stone’s Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism (2004) received numerous national awards, including the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for 2005, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for 2004 as the best book in the field of history, the American Political Science Association's Kammerer Award for 2005 for the best book in Political Science, the Hefner Award for the best book on the First Amendment, and Harvard University's 2005 Goldsmith Award for the best book in the field of Public Affairs.
Mr. Stone is currently chief editor of a fifteen-volume series, Inalienable Rights, which is being published by the Oxford University Press between 2006 and 2012. The authors in the series include, among others, Richard Posner, Richard Epstein, Alan Dershowitz, Larry Lessig, Martha Nussbaum, Jack Rakove, Pamela Karlan, Lee Bollinger, and Larry Tribe.
Mr. Stone is working on a new book, Sexing the Constitution, which will explore the historical evolution in western culture of the intersection of sex, religion, and law. His past works include Eternally Vigilant: Free Speech in the Modern Era (2001), The Bill of Rights in the Modern State (1992) (with Mr. Epstein and Mr. Sunstein), Constitutional Law (6th ed. 2009) (with Mr. Sunstein), and The First Amendment (3d ed. 2008) (with Mr. Sunstein). Mr. Stone also serves as an editor of the Supreme Court Review (with Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Strauss), and he writes frequently for huffingtonpost.com and for such publications as the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Wall Street Journal.
Among his many public activities, Mr. Stone is a member of the national Board of Directors of the American Constitution Society, a member of the National Advisory Council of the American Civil Liberties Union, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the American Philosophical Society, a member of the American Law Institute, a member of the Straight for Equality Project of PFLAG, and a member of the Board of the Chicago Children's Choir.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
May 25, 2011
I’m nearly caught up on all of the important law books I need to tell you about from this year. I’ve been saving this one because I love it so much, but now I’m in the summer. I’ve got my beach books, I’ve got my beer, and I’ve got my Bachelorette. I’m ready to tell you about constitutional law casebooks. It’s kind of like Jane Austen, where you have to give the ubiquitous hierarchy of favorites, so here it is:
1. Stone (this book)
2. Braveman
3.
4.
. . .
98.
99.
100. Sullivan, Gunther
Have I mentioned how lame the Sullivan/Gunther is? It’s really lame. The edits are the most mangled, choppy atrocities you’ve ever seen. They pulled out fingernails just because they didn’t like the nail polish. It’s the City of Bones of constitutional law.
This one, on the other hand, is like poetry. It’s beautiful. The edits are clean and powerful. I am glad I read the Braveman first because it has far fewer edits, so you have to work for the information you’re getting, but the Stone is like reading Hemingway on the Constitution. It’s lovely.
I read this one for the constitutional law class I was tutoring, and I loved every minute of it. Tutoring was fun, too, in the end. I don’t love teaching, but I love reading and debating constitutional law. The kids in my class are geniuses. About a third of them were political science majors in college, and they were all amazing. The guy I sat next to in the class looked like Marty McFly’s dad. Like, when you look at him, things turn black and white, and you transport into the 1950s. He wears a trench coat and a suit every day, and he carries a brief case, in which he has a tin where he keeps brownies that his mom made. And then he started bringing me coffee almost every class, so that was one reason it was awesome to be the tutor.
I’ve already told you tons about constitutional law, so I won’t go over it all again. Judicial review, separation of powers, federalism, commerce clause, the fourteenth amendment, etc. In this class, the professor, Dreamy McDreamerson, introduced § 5 of the fourteenth amendment before talking about due process, so that was confusing. Don’t do that.
And then there was the mistake about INS v. Chadha. That case is about the legislative veto. The legislative veto is where Congress passes a law that requires implementation by the executive branch, but then Congress gets to review the executive implementation. So, like, they said, in this case, that certain people have to be kicked out of the U.S. Then, the INS let this one guy stay. Then, the House of Representatives said, no, that’s not what we wanted, and decided to kick the guy out. Then, the Supreme Court said that the House of Representatives isn’t the boss of how the executive branch executes the law, and so the legislative veto is unconstitutional. But, Justice White pointed out that the decision is pretty wrong, and I agree. I won’t go into it now, but trust me. He’s not right about the whole thing, but he’s right.
Professor McDreamerson agreed with the Powell concurrence, though. That’s pretty legit. It’s a really well-reasoned concurrence. There’s this apocryphal story about it that I’ll tell you now, too. So, Justice Burger wrote the majority opinion (made me hungry every time we talked about it). And Justice Burger was totally pissed that Justice Powell didn’t sign on to the majority opinion and wrote his own concurrence instead. So, years later, Justice Powell was writing a pretty important opinion (I forget which one), and Justice Burger dissented from it. Justice Powell really wanted the whole court to agree, but he couldn’t get Justice Burger to sign on. After they issued the opinion, Justice Powell went to Justice Burger’s chambers and was talking to him. He asked if there was anything he could have done to persuade Justice Burger to sign on to the opinion.
Justice Burger said, “No, you were completely in the right. I agreed with you. I was just getting you back for the Chadha opinion.”
Or so they say.
Anyway, that’s not from the book. I just heard the story from an unnamed source this year and thought it was a good one. Oh, those silly Justices! I love ‘em. The lesson from all of this, though, is that if you read a constitutional law casebook on your own, in your spare time, read this one.
1. Stone (this book)
2. Braveman
3.
4.
. . .
98.
99.
100. Sullivan, Gunther
Have I mentioned how lame the Sullivan/Gunther is? It’s really lame. The edits are the most mangled, choppy atrocities you’ve ever seen. They pulled out fingernails just because they didn’t like the nail polish. It’s the City of Bones of constitutional law.
This one, on the other hand, is like poetry. It’s beautiful. The edits are clean and powerful. I am glad I read the Braveman first because it has far fewer edits, so you have to work for the information you’re getting, but the Stone is like reading Hemingway on the Constitution. It’s lovely.
I read this one for the constitutional law class I was tutoring, and I loved every minute of it. Tutoring was fun, too, in the end. I don’t love teaching, but I love reading and debating constitutional law. The kids in my class are geniuses. About a third of them were political science majors in college, and they were all amazing. The guy I sat next to in the class looked like Marty McFly’s dad. Like, when you look at him, things turn black and white, and you transport into the 1950s. He wears a trench coat and a suit every day, and he carries a brief case, in which he has a tin where he keeps brownies that his mom made. And then he started bringing me coffee almost every class, so that was one reason it was awesome to be the tutor.
I’ve already told you tons about constitutional law, so I won’t go over it all again. Judicial review, separation of powers, federalism, commerce clause, the fourteenth amendment, etc. In this class, the professor, Dreamy McDreamerson, introduced § 5 of the fourteenth amendment before talking about due process, so that was confusing. Don’t do that.
And then there was the mistake about INS v. Chadha. That case is about the legislative veto. The legislative veto is where Congress passes a law that requires implementation by the executive branch, but then Congress gets to review the executive implementation. So, like, they said, in this case, that certain people have to be kicked out of the U.S. Then, the INS let this one guy stay. Then, the House of Representatives said, no, that’s not what we wanted, and decided to kick the guy out. Then, the Supreme Court said that the House of Representatives isn’t the boss of how the executive branch executes the law, and so the legislative veto is unconstitutional. But, Justice White pointed out that the decision is pretty wrong, and I agree. I won’t go into it now, but trust me. He’s not right about the whole thing, but he’s right.
Professor McDreamerson agreed with the Powell concurrence, though. That’s pretty legit. It’s a really well-reasoned concurrence. There’s this apocryphal story about it that I’ll tell you now, too. So, Justice Burger wrote the majority opinion (made me hungry every time we talked about it). And Justice Burger was totally pissed that Justice Powell didn’t sign on to the majority opinion and wrote his own concurrence instead. So, years later, Justice Powell was writing a pretty important opinion (I forget which one), and Justice Burger dissented from it. Justice Powell really wanted the whole court to agree, but he couldn’t get Justice Burger to sign on. After they issued the opinion, Justice Powell went to Justice Burger’s chambers and was talking to him. He asked if there was anything he could have done to persuade Justice Burger to sign on to the opinion.
Justice Burger said, “No, you were completely in the right. I agreed with you. I was just getting you back for the Chadha opinion.”
Or so they say.
Anyway, that’s not from the book. I just heard the story from an unnamed source this year and thought it was a good one. Oh, those silly Justices! I love ‘em. The lesson from all of this, though, is that if you read a constitutional law casebook on your own, in your spare time, read this one.
October 24, 2017
This is one of the most punishing reads I've labored through in a while. It's also one of the most informative.
April 20, 2022
A lot of text, very few paragraph breaks. Not a single illustration.
Read
June 28, 2025took con law starting in Jan 2025.
It was... a topical class to say the least.
Anyways happy descent into a constitutional crisis everyoneee!!!!
It was... a topical class to say the least.
Anyways happy descent into a constitutional crisis everyoneee!!!!
September 8, 2007
Footnote 4 of Carolene Products is the most famous footnote of all time (at least among Supreme Court Opinions). One can find footnote 4 in this book.
January 9, 2009
This is the life of a law student. Consider yourself warned.
February 12, 2013
I thoroughly enjoyed this textbook. It allowed me to learn Constitutional law with the assistance of the Socratic method. It was one of the only books I kept after law school.
Read
August 27, 2010excellent
July 3, 2011
In which we discover the sordid, racist history of this great country. America!
Read
August 9, 2011Great book to reference to when I have questions about something in the law. In addition it was a textbook I used in class
Read
August 24, 2015Yale Law, 1L Fall, Constitutional Law w/ Jed Rubenfeld.
July 21, 2013
Way too long; I enjoy a scholarly debate on incorporation as much as most, but there is no need for this many cases in one book.
December 14, 2013
Interesting readings, but the material could have been edited in a more organized way, as well as more succinctly.
November 7, 2019
I loved my Constitutional Law course with Risa L. Goluboff, now Dean of the University of Virginia School of Law. By extension, I also loved the textbook on which we relied.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews