Freedom’s Anchor: An Introduction to Natural Law Jurisprudence in American Constitutional History

In Freedom’s Anchor, famed legal commentator Judge Andrew P. Napolitano makes the case for using natural law principles to restrain government. Going back to Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas, Judge Napolitano identifies the origins of Natural Law Theory and explains its growth and development in English and American law. He argues compellingly that the idea that our rights come from our humanity – and not from social consensus or government – is enshrined in the Ninth Amendment, authored by none other than James Madison himself, the scrivener of the Constitution, and is binding on the courts today.

Freedom’s Anchor is essentially a history of law and power in the United States as seen through the lens of Natural Law Theory. This work traces the Supreme Court’s explicit acceptance and explicit rejection of these principles. For the first time in one volume, Judge Napolitano gives us the universe of all published works in English (and some in Latin and in Spanish) on Natural Law Theory. He has scoured the Supreme Court’s writings and examined all that reflect favorably or unfavorably upon the principles of innate human freedom.

After having published nine previous books on the U.S. constitutional history, this is Judge Napolitano’s magnum opus. It reflects a lifetime of thinking and understanding by one of America’s preeminent legal thinkers. Scholars, judges, and law students will love this book. And non-lawyers who read this book – interested in the courts’ historical treatment of fundamental human freedoms and how we lost them – will say to each other: “Wow. I didn’t know that! There is still hope.”

© 2023 Academica Press (Ebook): 9781680537093

Release date

Ebook: 14 February 2023