Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution is a 2005 book by United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. The general theme of the book is that Supreme Court justices should, when dealing with Constitutional issues, keep "active liberty" in mind, which Justice Breyer defines as the right of the citizenry of the country to participate in government. Breyer's thesis is commonly viewed as a liberal response to originalism, a view espoused by Justice Scalia.
Famous quotes containing the words active and/or liberty:
“The most intellectual of men are moved quite as much by the circumstances which they are used to as by their own will. The active voluntary part of a man is very small, and if it were not economised by a sleepy kind of habit, its results would be null.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“An educational method that shall have liberty as its basis must intervene to help the child to a conquest of liberty. That is to say, his training must be such as shall help him to diminish as much as possible the social bonds which limit his activity.”
—Maria Montessori (1870–1952)