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Contemporary opinions, including those of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, say the idea of a state’s right to secede died with the hundreds of thousands of bloodied victims of the Civil War, and that the sentiment behind the dozens of petitions on a White House website seeking permission for most of the 50 individual governments to leave the union will be fruitless. But historians would note that even Thomas Jefferson, a “pole star among political philosophers because he based his politics on the eternal, self-evidence, fundamental truths that all men are created free and equal and that they are endowed...

God bless Scalia. If he can hang in there for two more years, we have a chance. Here's the bottom line -- Scalia is a brilliant and patriotic conservative. But he's not a spring chicken any more. If he retires from the Supreme Court, then there's only thing stopping Obama from appointing another Kagan -- the Senate. This next off-year is 2014. We'll feel pain from now until then -- you can bet. But here's the bright side -- pain = votes [unless your candidate fails to rally conservatives]. It's a terrible way to gain ground, but America chose'em, not...

(CNSNews.com) – Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said recently that--"especially after last term"--he does not know if he is confident the Constitution can be restored to its original meaning. He likened his own efforts to do so to the character "Frodo" in the Lord of the Rings, who fights the good fight not certain he will win. While discussing his new book Reading Law at Stanford University on Oct. 19, the Hoover Institution’s Peter Robinson quoted to Scalia a passage from Scalia's book, Reading Law: "Originalism does not always provide an easy answer, or even a clear one. Originalism is...

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia visits Uncommon Knowledge for a wide ranging interview including the living constitution, Roe v. Wade, Congress' relationship to the court, and to discuss his new book Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts.

Piers Morgan Interviews Justice Scalia

Justice Antonin Scalia says his method of interpreting the Constitution makes some of the most hotly disputed issues that come before the Supreme Court among the easiest to resolve. Scalia calls himself a "textualist" and, as he related to a few hundred people who came to buy his new book and hear him speak in Washington the other day, that means he applies the words in the Constitution as they were understood by the people who wrote and adopted them. So Scalia parts company with former colleagues who have come to believe capital punishment is unconstitutional. The framers of the...

Justice Antonin Scalia says his method of interpreting the Constitution makes some of the most hotly disputed issues that come before the Supreme Court among the easiest to resolve. Scalia calls himself a ‘‘textualist’’ and, as he related to a few hundred people who came to buy his new book and hear him speak in Washington the other day, that means he applies the words in the Constitution as they were understood by the people who wrote and adopted them. So Scalia parts company with former colleagues who have come to believe capital punishment is unconstitutional. The framers of the...

Jeffrey Toobin's latest book portrays Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia as increasingly cranky and partisan — and infuriated with Chief Justice John Roberts over the court's recent decisions on healthcare and immigration. Toobin, who writes for The New Yorker and also covers the court for CNN, credits Scalia for a sea change in how both sides of the political spectrum think about the law. But he says the justice's bombast has become off-putting to more even-tempered colleagues.

Jeffrey Toobin's latest book portrays Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia as increasingly cranky and partisan — and infuriated with Chief Justice John Roberts over the court's recent decisions on healthcare and immigration. Toobin, who writes for The New Yorker and also covers the court for CNN, credits Scalia for a sea change in how both sides of the political spectrum think about the law. But he says the justice's bombast has become off-putting to more even-tempered colleagues. Toobin's latest book, "The Oath," chronicling the Roberts court and the Obama presidency, is being released today. Here are 5 key takeaways: Scalia...

The Constitution is as clear as the nose on your face. According to Article II, Section 1, to be eligible to be president or vice president of the United States one must be a “natural born citizen.” That means born in the United States to two American citizen parents. The framers, concerned about destructive foreign influences at a time of the founding of the nation, were wary that the foreign biases of parents could tragically influence the country’s leadership, especially during its formative years. Being largely from England themselves, with British parents, the framers also knew and lived among Tories...

[SNIP]Last week, I had the occasion to cross paths with “revered” Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia has been for many years the darling of conservatives, a judge who they believed had the guts to enforce the Rule of Law and the Constitution in the face of corrosive influences, foreign and domestic. I took the occasion to ask him a simple question, one he would be able to answer. I asked the “constitutionalist” Scalia what he believed to be the definition of “natural born citizen,” without asking him to render an opinion on whether Obama was eligible to be president,...

This week on Q & A, our guest is Justice Antonin Scalia.

In a shocking statement made this morning on FOX News Sunday with Chris Wallace, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said he believes the U.S. Constitution allows states to regulate firearms. In a response to a question about the Second Amendment from Wallace, Scalia said the following: ... there were legal precedents from the days of the Founding Fathers that banned some weapons. There were also "locational limitations" on where weapons could be carried. --They had some limitations on the nature of arms that could be borne. This statement will be perceived as a bolt of lightning in conservative circles...

Scalia on Obama: 'What can he do to me?' By KENNETH P. VOGEL | 7/29/12 10:29 AM EDT Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Sunday said he did not “view it as a threat” when President Barack Obama in April predicted his signature healthcare overhaul “will be upheld because it should be upheld” and that anything less would constitute “judicial activism” by the high court. Scalia conceded in an appearance on "Fox News Sunday" that Obama’s forceful comments on a pending Supreme Court case were “unusual, but as I say I don’t criticize the president publicly. And he normally doesn’t...

ustice Antonin Scalia, one of the Supreme Court's most vocal and conservative justices, said on Sunday that the Second Amendment leaves room for U.S. legislatures to regulate guns, including menacing hand-held weapons. "It will have to be decided in future cases," Scalia said on Fox News Sunday. But there were legal precedents from the days of the Founding Fathers that banned frightening weapons which a constitutional originalist like himself must recognize. There were also "locational limitations" on where weapons could be carried, the justice noted. When asked if that kind of precedent would apply to assault weapons, or 100-round ammunition...

Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the Supreme Court's most vocal and conservative justices, said on Sunday that the Second Amendment leaves room for U.S. legislatures to regulate guns, including menacing hand-held weapons. "It will have to be decided in future cases," Scalia said on Fox News Sunday. But there were legal precedents from the days of the Founding Fathers that banned frightening weapons which a constitutional originalist like himself must recognize. There were also "locational limitations" on where weapons could be carried, the justice noted. When asked if that kind of precedent would apply to assault weapons, or 100-round ammunition...

Coming up this evening at 9 p.m., "Piers Morgan Tonight" sits down with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in Washington D.C. for an exclusive sit-down interview.

Pope Benedict XVI has stated it clearly: homosexuality is incompatible with the priesthood. But Elizabeth Scalia, a writer/blogger for First Things and The Anchoress on Patheos, disagrees. In a blog post which may be found here, Ms. Scalia writes, "If Christians have any interest in reaching out to the gay community, if we have any hope to speak a message which can touch their hearts as well, we absolutely must be willing to live as their family. Behind his blundering obscenity, behind his facile attempts to explain Scripture away, behind the blatant hypocrisy of his behavior toward those who disagree...

[T]he irony of Roberts’s opinion must not go unnoticed. His opinion, which is the object of such conservative scorn, is in fact right out of the Antonin Scalia (who dissented) and Robert Bork playbook. (Hat tip to Donald Boudreaux for first bringing this to my attention.) Bork and Justice Scalia believe that unelected judges should not interfere with the elected branches of government except when Congress violates an express, narrowly construed right (essentially the ones in the Bill of Rights). Other interference is branded “judicial activism.” I once heard Justice Scalia say: “My job is not to strike down laws...

Dinners were served in the basement. Ambassadors, generals with many stars, senior White House officials and closely read columnists — all would walk past the yellowing kitchen, which looked as if it hadn’t been updated since the Ford administration, and down a narrow flight of stairs into the dimly lighted dining room. Guests were arrayed around the table according to rank, with the most important ones squeezed in the center. Although the Old World meals could be quite elaborate — venison paté, duck in bitter orange — they were prepared and served entirely by the host, a stickler for protocol...