States in American Constitutionalism

"Much has been written in recent years about ‘horizontal departmentalism,’ the degree to which interpretive authority is shared at the national level among Congress, presidents, and the judiciary. Comparatively less has been written about the history of ‘vertical departmentalism,’ concerning the role that states can play in the enterprise of constitutional interpretation. Bradley Hays’ book should be of immense interest to any lawyer, political scientist, or historian interested in the role this important topic, which, as he demonstrates in his concluding chapters, has some considerable contemporary relevance." — Sanford Levinson, author of Framed: America’s 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance

"Professor Bradley Hays has written a signature work highlighting the importance of state actors as participants in struggles over national constitutionalism rather than as providing constitutional alternatives. His history provides readers with the remarkable variety of ways in which states have sometimes diverted, sometimes reformed, but always played a crucial role structuring the path of national constitutional law in the United States." — Mark Graber, University System of Maryland Regents Professor

"It was an article of faith of many Founders and political theorists that imperium in imperio was a blatant political solecism. But Hays’ succinct study of the ways in which a contentious set of professedly sovereign voices have jockeyed to challenge and settle national constitutional meaning moves beyond the best known—and, purportedly, discrediting—episodes to argue that there has been a tradition of sub-national interpretive pluralism over the length of American history that has helped to define the U.S. constitutional project. Hays’ account deepens our understanding of the dynamics of American federalism, and of the country’s political and constitutional development." — Ken I. Kersch, Professor of Political Science, Boston College