Lionized by the right and demonized by the left, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is the high court's quintessential conservative. This is a comprehensive and sympathetic analysis of how Scalia has decided cases during his entire twenty-year Supreme Court tenure. It also focuses on Scalia's more than 600 Supreme Court opinions and dissents.

He suggests that Scalia displays such a keen interest in defending federalism that he sometimes departs from text and tradition, and reveals that he has disagreed with other justices most often in decisions involving the meaning of the First Amendment's establishment clause. He also analyzes Scalia's positions on the commerce clause and habeas corpus clause of Article I, the take care clause of Article II, the criminal procedural provisions of Amendments Four through Eight, protection of state sovereign immunity in the Eleventh Amendment, and Congress's enforcement power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The first book to fully articulate the contours of Scalia's constitutional philosophy and jurisprudence, Rossum's insightful study ultimately depicts Scalia as a principled, consistent, and intelligent textualist who is fearless and resolute, notwithstanding the controversy he often inspires.