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Review of "The Rule of Law in America"
By Randolph J. May
Introduction
The Rule of Law in America
Ronald A. Cass
Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001, 214 pp.
The idea of the rule of law is powerfully engrained in our constitutional culture. Indeed, as Ronald A. Cass, dean and professor of law at Boston University School of Law, points out in his new book, The Rule of Law in America, it is so engrained that, amidst all the passions of the contested 2000 election, both Al Gore and George W. Bush "were prepared to accept courts as the ultimate arbiters of matters crucial to their ambitions." Certainly, the foreknowledge that court decisions would be accepted in a contest to lead the most powerful government on Earth sets the United States apart from the majority of nations.
But what do we really mean when we invoke the rule of law? Has there been an erosion of the rule of law in the United States? And, if so, what should be done in the way of implementing corrective measures? These three questions are at the heart of Cass's book.
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