Description: A comprehensive history of the contract clause from the constitutional convention to the present, examining the wide range of issues that have given rise to contract clause disputes and tracing the gradual decline of the provision in constitutional law.
Brief description: James W. Ely, Jr., is Milton R. Underwood Professor of Law, emeritus, and professor of history, emeritus, at Vanderbilt University. His books include The Guardian of Every Other Right: A Constitutional History of Property Rights and Railroads and American Law, published by Kansas.
Review Quotes:
"Professor Ely has indeed written the 'definitive history' of the clause that once was the Constitution's most prolific source of litigation. It will immediately become the indispensable text, superseding Benjamin F. Wright's classic but outdated study. With his unrivaled mastery of case law and legal scholarship, Ely has crafted a work that in telling the particular story of the contract clause is also a probing examination of constitutional law's elusive quest to draw the line between governmental regulation and the free pursuit of economic activity."--Charles F. Hobson, author of The Great Chief Justice: John Marshall and the Rule of Law
"Students of the modern Constitution pay little attention to the Contract Clause, yet for more than 150 years it was one of the most litigated issues before American courts. James Ely has done a masterful job in not only analyzing the development of Contract Clause jurisprudence, but does so in a way that will be understandable by lay persons as well as scholars. This will be the definitive book on this subject for many years to come."--Melvin I. Urofsky, author of Dissent and the Supreme Court: Its Role in the Court's History and the Nation's Constitutional Dialogue