James R. Stoner is Professor of Political Science at Louisiana State University. He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in political science from Harvard University, and an A.B. from Middlebury College. He is the author of Common-Law Liberty: Rethinking American Constitutionalism (2003) and Common Law and Liberal Theory: Coke, Hobbes, and the Origins of American Constitutionalism (1992).