This year, the Harvard Federalist Society Chapter hosted the 43rd annual National Student Symposium at Harvard Law School. Symposium panels focused on fundamental questions about our nation’s constitutional structure and the allocation of power between the three branches of government, in keeping with the conference’s theme: Why Separate Powers?

Panel I: Federalism and the Separation of Powers
It has been said that American-style split sovereignty provides the people a “double security” for their liberties. And a distinct security too: where the Framers’ primary restraint on the avarice of the United States was the enumeration of its powers, each state is omnipotent and yet typically bound by a thicker conception of the proper ends of government. But these separate sovereigns interact in unique and sometimes puzzling ways that leave the state of the vertical separation of powers in flux. And given that “split[ting] the atom of sovereignty,” as Justice Kennedy characterized it in U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton, is a uniquely American contribution, is it really necessary to secure the people’s liberty?

Featuring
- Prof. Maureen Brady, Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law and Deputy Dean, Harvard Law School
- Hon. Sarah K. Campbell, Justice, Tennessee Supreme Court
- Hon. James E. Tierney, Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School and former Attorney General, Maine
- Prof. Ernest A. Young, Alston & Bird Distinguished Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law
Moderator
- Hon. Stephanos Bibas, Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit