ABSTRACT
We have discussed in the last five chapters how the courts and legislatures make and apply rules that channel private conduct. We have taken for granted the authority of those bodies to make and apply legal rules. But think for a moment of citizens who find their activities thwarted by statutes, decisions, or administrative rulings they consider outrageous. These citizens might well wonder about the authority exercised by those whose actions have proved so annoying. If they explore the matter, they would learn that the ultimate sources of all official authority in the U.S. legal system are the state and federal constitutions and that rules about official authority stated in those constitutions or developed through judicial interpretation are known collectively as constitutional law.
