Richard Epstein’s The Classical Liberal Constitution: A Public Choice Refraction
In The Classical Liberal Constitution, Richard Epstein argues that the American constitutional system was founded on principles of classical liberalism. Those principles are reflected in the complex structural framework of the American Constitution. Governmental powers are not concentrated but are distributed among legislative, executive, and judicial offices. They are also distributed among the states and the federal government through what was a robustly federalist form of government. The power of the federal government mainly limited to repelling foreign invasion, keeping peace among the states, and maintaining competition and free mobility across states. While the federal government could restrain state action, so too could the states restrain federal action. Perhaps especially significant in this regard was the Constitutional provision that members of the federal Senate were appointed by state legislatures. The Senate was originally an assembly of states, as it were. This constitutional structure was a genuine as distinct from a spurious form of federalism.
