Thanks again for the excellent comments. Here I’ll take up those offered by Professors Spiro and Ku. I agree with Professor Spiro that historical textualism can only go so far in answering modern questions (assuming one wanted to use it that way), and that some contemporary perspective is inevitable. But I think it goes a...
Professor Lederman asks in a comment to Professor Kent’s post if we could clarify our disagreement on the President's power to respond to attacks. Briefly, here is how I understand it. I think both of us agree: (1) That Congress has the ultimate control over the U.S. response to an attack, in that it can limit the response by...
Thanks to Professors Flaherty and Kent for their insightful comments. Both of them have done great prior work in illuminating the Constitution’s historical understanding, and I continue to learn from them. Professor Flaherty’s cautions about history’s ambiguities must always be kept in mind in attempting a project like this. I’ve tried to be clear in the book that I...
The excellent posts by Professors Ku, Golove and Sloss address a central constitutional issue in the law-of-war field: which branch of the U.S. government has the authority to decide what the laws of war require. Below are a few thoughts based on my assessment of the text’s original meaning (for what that may be worth). 1. Ultimate authority on...
[Opinio Juris welcomes Professor Michael Ramsey as a guest respondent. He is a professor of law at San Diego School of Law and an expert in foreign relations law.] My thanks to Opinio Juris for setting up this fascinating exchange and for inviting me to participate, and to John Bellinger for taking time to provide such thoughtful posts. As...
