Power of Federal Judiciary Over Legislation by J. Hampden Dougherty is a compact but weighty work first published in 1912, offering a vigorous defense of the judiciary’s power to strike down unconstitutional laws. Written during an era of growing skepticism toward centralized authority, Dougherty’s book situates judicial review as an indispensable safeguard built into the American constitutional system. He begins by tracing the intellectual and historical roots of this power, arguing that it was not an accidental byproduct but an intentional creation of the framers. Drawing on the Constitutional Convention debates and the Federalist Papers—particularly Alexander Hamilton’s famous exposition in Federalist No. 78—Dougherty insists that the courts’ ability to declare legislative acts void is central to maintaining the supremacy of the Constitution.
Read today, Dougherty’s work resonates in a world facing renewed tensions between legislatures and courts. The questions he grappled with—how much power unelected judges should have over elected lawmakers, whether the judiciary can check majoritarian excesses without overstepping, and how to reconcile constitutional text with evolving social norms—remain pressing in 2025.
In an age of polarized politics, social media-driven outrage, and legislative gridlock, the themes of Dougherty’s book speak directly to contemporary challenges. His work encourages a sober reflection on whether judicial power is a threat to democratic self-government or an essential defense against its excesses.
More than a historical artifact, Power of Federal Judiciary Over Legislation functions as a mirror for modern constitutional crises. It underscores how the tensions between law and politics, and between judicial restraint and activism, are not new but woven into the fabric of American governance. As debates continue in 2025 about court-packing, term limits for justices, and the appropriate scope of judicial intervention, Dougherty’s concise and forceful treatise offers both a defense of the judiciary’s traditional role and a challenge to ensure it remains a stabilizing rather than destabilizing force in constitutional democracy.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2025. 108p.

By Gilbert E. Roe . Preface By Colin Heston

This book is, at its heart, a constitutional and civic indictment—a sharp rebuke of a legal system which, in Roe's view, had drifted from its republican moorings and embraced a kind of conservative absolutism in the guise of judicial interpretation. It is a work of advocacy, history, and democratic theory. Roe's central thesis is unambiguous: the American judiciary, and especially the federal courts, had evolved into a quasi-aristocratic institution, usurping powers not granted by the Constitution and resisting the popular will under the pretense of legal finality.

Our Judicial Oligarchy is a courageous and principled statement from a time when democratic ideals were under pressure from concentrated power—whether corporate, financial, or judicial. Its enduring relevance lies in its challenge to all Americans: to ensure that no institution, no matter how cloaked in legality or tradition, becomes so removed from the people that it ceases to serve them.

In rereading Roe today, we find not only a vivid picture of Progressive Era politics, but a warning and a reminder—that constitutional democracy requires not just good laws and courts, but an active and informed citizenry unwilling to surrender sovereignty to any oligarchy, judicial or otherwise.

 Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2025. p. 111.

By Edward Payson Powell. Edited by Colin Heston

In Nullification and Secession in the United States: A History of the Six Attempts During the First Century of the Republic, Edward Payson Powell undertakes an ambitious and far-reaching examination of one of the most fraught and recurring themes in American political development: the idea that individual states possess the legal or moral authority to nullify federal law or withdraw from the Union altogether. Written at the close of the 19th century and first published in 1897, Powell’s work reflects both the urgency of historical clarification in the aftermath of the Civil War and the enduring philosophical contest over the balance between federal power and state sovereignty.

This volume is not merely a chronicle of constitutional crises; it is a sustained meditation on the challenges of national unity in a country designed as a federation of semi-autonomous states. Powell, a journalist, historian, and keen observer of American public life, assembles a carefully documented history of six separate episodes where nullification or secession was proposed, debated, or attempted—beginning with the earliest murmurings under the Articles of Confederation and culminating in the cataclysm of the Confederate rebellion. His purpose is not only to recount these events but to interpret them, to understand the motivations behind them, and to identify the forces—legal, ideological, economic, and sectional—that allowed the American Union to survive repeated assaults on its coherence.

Nullification and Secession in the United States is more than a chronological account of rebellion and reaction; it is a civic education, a warning, and a testament. Edward Payson Powell offers readers both a panoramic view of American political development and a moral argument for the sanctity of national unity. In an age when the bonds of Union had been sorely tested, he reaffirms that the survival of the Republic has depended not only on laws and courts but on the ongoing negotiation between principle and compromise, autonomy and allegiance.

For modern readers—historians, political thinkers, and citizens alike—Powell’s work remains a rich and valuable resource. It shows that the story of America has never been one of perfect consensus, but of persistent debate and, ultimately, a shared determination to hold the states together in common purpose. Few books of its era so skillfully combine historical scholarship with constitutional insight, and few provide as clear a window into the recurring crises that have shaped—and tested—the idea of the United States itself.

Read-Me.Org Inc. Australia, New York & Philadelphia. 2025. 230p.

By Bruce Davis

This is the first comprehensive study of the history and evolution of American indecent exposure laws. The study informs a critical analysis of the role of courts as custos morum, or custodian of the morals. It contains a detailed constitutional analysis of legal management of morality.

The laws are a cornerstone of government regulation of morals, with roots tracing back to seventeenth century English and American cases, laws, and regulations. The state interests protected by indecent exposure laws focus on deterring public behaviors contrary to prevailing moral order and protecting the public from offense or alarm. As moral authority has shifted away from Christianity, the moral authority supporting maintenance of moral order have diminished and fragmented, leaving nuisance as the main justification. Most state statutes now define indecent exposure in terms of audience reaction, reflecting this dependence on nuisance theory. Supreme Court trends have weakened even this justification, raising questions about the viability of current indecent exposure laws.

Despite their fundamental role in moral regulation, indecent exposure laws have received little academic, political, or legal scrutiny. This analysis elucidates their origins, history, and effects, informing development of more effective policies on managing sexuality and nudity. The history of indecent exposure laws also provides insights into managing morals and church-state relations in secular societies. Legal, social, and political trends have created multiple complex jurisprudential dilemmas, exposing the laws to potential constitutional challenges based on the Establishment Clause, free exercise of religion, free speech, privacy, autonomy, overbreadth and vagueness, viewpoint restrictions, content-based restrictions, prior restraints, and equal protection precedent and doctrines. Changes in indecent exposure laws are likely but their costs and benefits remain unclear.

The book chronicles the origins and evolution of courts as custodian of morals. Aspects of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health abortion case decided in 2023 suggest that this regime may be nearing an end. Competing moral authorities are contributing to a worsening crisis in moral jurisprudence. The book proposes a public policy framework more aligned with our maturing Constitution that may be better suited to current conditions, based on an empirical approach to legal management of morals in a pluralistic liberal democracy.

New York. Read-Me.Org Inc. 2024. 313p.

By Oscar Vilhena Vieira

In 2013, Brazil faced political and social upheaval, amid widescale public protests over economic challenges and startling revelations of corruption in the Operation Car Wash investigation. The crisis led to a presidential impeachment and the election of a far-right politician, Jair Bolsonaro, in 2018.

In a new book, “Battle of Powers,” Oscar Vilhena Vieira examines the historical and institutional context of this tumultuous period in recent Brazilian history. In doing so, he offers a reminder of the dangers extremist political movements pose for the rule of law in Brazil and elsewhere, and the importance of constitutional barriers to contain authoritarian cycles. The book also demonstrates how the failure of a government to deliver basic public goods can gradually erode democratic culture and open opportunities for political movements that are less willing to accept institutional constraints on executive power.

Wilson Center and FGV Sao Paulo Law School, 2024