Is man truly the measure of all things? If so, then perhaps that very premise accounts for our nation's constitutional ills.

In a wide-ranging study based on legal history, political theory, and philosophical concepts going all the way back to Plato, Robert Clinton seeks to challenge current faith in an activist judiciary. Claiming that a human-centered Constitution leads to government by reductive moral theory and illegitimate judicial review, he advocates a return to traditional jurisprudence and a God-centered Constitution grounded in English common law and its precedents.

Building...