The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson
Three Scholars Understanding and Defending the Constitution
Having a great interest in Natural and Constitutional Rights, I refer to several different scholars on these topics. The three constitutional historians and scholars that I regularly follow are Robert G. Natelson, Jonathan Turley, and Michael Stokes Paulsen. Below are some of the more interesting articles that they have written on Natural and Constitutional Rights topics.
Robert G. Natelson
Robert G. Natelson has been a law professor for over 25 years, serving at three different universities. Among other subjects, he taught Constitutional Law, Constitutional History, Advanced Constitutional Law, and First Amendment. Professor Natelson is especially known for his studies of the Constitution’s original meaning. His research on that subject has carried him to libraries throughout the United States and in Britain, including four months at Oxford. His books and articles span many different parts of the Constitution, including groundbreaking studies of the Necessary and Proper Clause, federalism, Founding-Era interpretation, regulation of elections, and the amendment process of Article V. His research articles on the Constitution’s meaning have been cited repeatedly by justices and parties in the Supreme Court. He is the author of the book “The Original Constitution: What It Actually Said and Meant”, which I believe is one of the finest books on understanding what our Founding Fathers intended in creating the Constitution. He is also the author of many commentary pieces about the Constitution in today’s society, which can be viewed by clicking here.
Several of these commentary articles are a series of essays on Constitutional topics. These essays are:
- The Values in the Declaration of Independence
- The Values in the Constitution
- The Relationship Between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
- The Poetry in the Constitution’s Preamble
- Originalism: Civics 101: How to Understand the Constitution
- Originalism: Underselling Originalism
- Originalism: Original Intent, Original Understanding, Original Meaning
- Originalism: Original intent? Understanding? Meaning?
- Originalism: A Response to a “Living Constitutionalist”
- Originalism: Constitutional Originalists Love America
- Defending the Constitution: From the ‘Living Constitutionalists’
- Defending the Constitution: Limits on Federal Authority
- Defending the Constitution: Secrets Behind Those ‘Obscure’ Provisions
- Defending the Constitution: The ‘Three-Fifths Compromise’ Was Not Based on Racism
- Defending the Constitution: The 2nd Amendment Is Not Outdated
- Defending the Constitution: The Constitution Never Discriminated Against Women
- Defending the Constitution: The Founders’ Words Were Not ‘Meaningless’ or ‘Vague’
- Defending the Constitution: The Framers Did Not Violate Their Trust
- Defending the Constitution: Why State Equality in the Senate Makes Sense
- Defending the Constitution: Why the Founders Couldn’t Abolish Slavery
- How the Supreme Court Rewrote the Constitution: 1937–1944, Part I: A government small and frugal
- How the Supreme Court Rewrote the Constitution: 1937–1944, Part II: The Stage is Set
- How the Supreme Court Rewrote the Constitution, Part III: The Court on the Brink
- How the Supreme Court Rewrote the Constitution Part IV: A packed court—and a federal land grab
- How the Supreme Court Rewrote the Constitution Part V: Killing Economic Freedom
- How the Supreme Court Rewrote the Constitution Part VI: Crushing Civil Liberties
- How the Supreme Court Rewrote the Constitution Part VII: Concentration Camps—and the End
- Understanding the Constitution: Can the 25th Amendment Be Used to Remove Biden?
- Understanding the Constitution: Constitutional Amendments Work
- Understanding the Constitution: How the Document Was Composed
- Understanding the Constitution: Income taxes, other taxes & the 16th Amendment
- Understanding the Constitution: Strict Construction, Textualism, and Originalism
- Understanding the Constitution: The 14th Amendment: Part I
- Understanding the Constitution: The 14th Amendment: Part II
- Understanding the Constitution: The 17th Amendment and Direct Election of Senators
- Understanding the Constitution: The English Foundation
- Understanding the Constitution: The Force of the Preamble
- Understanding the Constitution: The Style of the Preamble
- Understanding the Constitution: Why Most Federal Land Holdings Are Unconstitutional and Why You Should Care
- Understanding the Constitution: Why Biden is wrong to think the 9th Amendment protects abortion
- Yes, the Constitution was adopted legally
As always, with the works of Robert G. Natelson, these articles are well researched and scholarly but are brief and easily understood by the general public.
Jonathan Turley
Jonathan Turley is an American attorney, legal scholar, writer, commentator, and legal analyst in broadcast and print journalism. A professor at George Washington University Law School, he has testified in United States Congressional proceedings about constitutional and statutory issues. Jonathan Turley’s articles are also well researched and scholarly but are brief and easily understood by the general public. I am particularly impressed by Professor Turley’s defense of the Natural Right of Free Speech; he has dozens of columns on free speech in newspapers or his blog. Some of his writings on Free Speech are:
- Big Brother or Little Brother: The Public Applauds As Free Speech Dies On The Internet
- Fanning The Flames: Disinformation and Extremism In The Media (pdf download)
- Free Speech Becomes Roadkill in the Crackdown on Canadian Truckers
- Free Speech Inc.: How Democrats Have Found A New But Shaky Faith In Corporate Speech
- History Shows Free Speech Is The Loser In Mob Action
- Learning To Fear Free Speech: How Politicians Are Moving To Protect Us From Our Unhealthy Reading Choices
- “Not All TV News Sources Are The Same”: Congress And The Slippery Slope Of Censorship
- The Case For Internet Originalism
- The New Censors: Poll Shows Almost Half of Americans Favor the Government Censoring “Misinformation”
- The New Censors: The Call For Banning Political Lies Threatens Free Speech
- The NYU Study: The Claim Of Anti-Conservative Bias In Social Media Is Unfounded But Inconclusive?
- The Right of The People Peacefully To Assemble: Protecting Speech By Stopping Anarchist Violence (pdf download)
Michael Stokes Paulsen
Michael Stokes Paulsen is the Distinguished University Chair & Professor of Law at the University of St. Thomas, where he has taught since 2007. Professor Paulsen is a graduate of Northwestern University, Yale Law School, and Yale Divinity School. He has served as a federal prosecutor, as Attorney-Advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, and as counsel for the Center for Law & Religious Freedom. He is the author of the book (along with his son Luke Paulsen), "The Constitution: An Introduction", which is another fine book to understand the Constitution. Michael Stokes Paulsen's articles here, here, and here are also well researched and scholarly but are brief and easily understood by the general public. Some of his more interesting articles on the Constitution are:
- Everything You Need to Know About Constitutional Law
- Citizens, Unite! Part Two of Your Constitutional Primer
- The Uselessness of Constitutional Law
- The Stakes of Free Exercise
- The Unprecedented, Extraordinary, Anti-democratic, Activist Power of Judicial Review
- Where in the Constitution is “Separation of Church and State”?
- The Constitutional Position and Powers of the Presidency: Executing Laws and Interpreting the Constitution
- The Constitutional Powers of War and Peace
- How to Avoid an Unconstitutional War: A Beginner’s Guide for Presidents and Congresses
- The Constitutional Power of the Electoral College
In addition, Michael Stokes Paulsen is passionately anti-abortion based on his understanding of Natural and Constitutional Rights. His intellectual reasoning for his stance is as follows:
- The Unbearable Wrongness of Roe
- Planned Parenthood v. Casey at Twenty: The Worst Constitutional Decision of All Time
- Casey: Enduring, Entrenched, Intentionally Evil Egregious Error
- Repudiating Roe (Part I): The Most Important Abortion Case in Thirty Years
- Repudiating Roe (Part II): The Pernicious Doctrine of Stare Decisis
- The Right to Life and the Irrelevance of Rape
- Men, Abortion, Sin, and Salvation
- Abortion and the Constitution in Another Forty Years: A Right to Life for 2053
All three of these scholars are ardent in their Understanding and Defense of the Constitution and Natural Rights, and we all should pay heed to their knowledge, intellect, and wisdom on these topics.