Government by Judiciary: The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment

As its title suggests, Raoul Berger\u27s Government by Judiciary states an extreme version of a familiar thesis: The Supreme Court has abandoned its proper role as interpreter of the Constitution and has usurped the power to act as a third legislative chamber. Like kadis under a tree, the Court creates law from mere personal predilections. The main instrument of this judicial coup has been the fourteenth amendment. Government by Judiciary is an historian\u27s book, strongest when using the historian\u27s tools to illuminate the past. Underlying this research, however, is a remarkably simplistic theory of constitutional interpretation, a theory that forms the basis for Professor Berger\u27s dire conclusions about the role of the Supreme Court in American government