Shlomo Pill (Emory University School of Law) has posted Jewish Law Antecedents to American Constitutional Thought (Mississippi Law Journal, Vol. 85, No. 3, 2016) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This Paper explores how the political and legal theories that drove the Framers' drafting and ultimately ratifying the United States Constitution were not merely a reflection of post-Reformation political theory grounded in homiletic rabbinic literature. Rather, constitutional principles, including equality, constitutional government, popular sovereignty, and federalism are substantially present in legalistic Jewish writings as well. In drawing upon major halachic sources, including the Talmud, Mishnah Torah, Arbah Turim, and Shulchan Aruch, as well as responsa literature, this Paper demonstrates that Jewish law decisors have long grappled with and applied these principles in governing local Jewish communal life and national Jewish affairs.