We’re going to hold our eighth Power Line University class session on The Federalist tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon at 3 pm Pacific time, where Lucretia and I will turn to the treatment of judicial review in The Federalist, which chiefly means papers 78 – 84. If you are able to join us live, here’s the Zoom link to use.
The scope and nature of the judicial power was as uncertain and controversial as the presidency, both during the Philadelphia convention, and during the first couple decades of the Supreme Court, right up through Marbury but also McCulloch. Hamilton had a good handle on the matter, though we’ll be sure to connect his thoughts on the matter (especially his understanding of how the logic of the British common law would be applied) to his startling argument in Federalist 84 that not only did we not need a bill of rights, but that a bill of rights would be dangerous. Did he have a point here? We’ll try to leave time for some active discussion of this point. And if not, return to it in a final session for the course next week, as it is unlikely we’ll adequately cover this important topic tomorrow.
And as always if you can’t make the live webinar, it will be posted later as a podcast.
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