Original Meanings

I began reading Jack N. Rakove’s “Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution” (1997) to try to come to grips with the term “originalism” as applied in recent years to rulings by the United States Supreme Court. Having at first been a little perplexed about how to take the terminology (Slavery then, slavery now?), I have now quickly come to realize, in more specific terms, just how utterly complex this subject is, beyond any one hot button issue. Such that I cannot summarize all the key pieces in one meagerly essay, but I can share an essence today by quoting from two powerful chapters, each of whose titles alone are telling. One is entitled “The Perils of Originalism,” and the other “The Politics of Constitution-Making.” From the first: “Our reconstruction …