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The Immorality Of Originalism, Jack M. Beermann
The Immorality Of Originalism, Jack M. Beermann
Catholic University Law Review
The central claim of this essay is that in interpreting the U.S. Constitution, it is immoral to choose original intent over social welfare, broadly conceived. Once this argument is laid out and defended on its own terms, I support the central claim with a variety of arguments, including the defective process pursuant to which the Constitution was enacted, the deeply flawed substantive content of the Constitution, the incongruity of fidelity to the views of a generation of revolutionaries, the current virtual imperviousness of the Constitution to amendment, the failure of the Constitution to resolve fundamental questions concerning the allocation of …
America’S Two Pastimes: Baseball And Constitutional Law; Review Of Adrian Vermeule, Common Good Constitutionalism, Paul J. Larkin
America’S Two Pastimes: Baseball And Constitutional Law; Review Of Adrian Vermeule, Common Good Constitutionalism, Paul J. Larkin
Catholic University Law Review
For the last 50 years, the two prevailing constitutional interpretation methodologies have been Originalism and Living Constitutionalism. The former treats the Constitution almost like a contract and demands that interpreters focus on the ordinary contemporary understanding its terms would have received when they became law. The latter treats the Constitution as a charter for the structure of a new government that would survive and mature as needed to protect both the nation and its people as new threats to government and civil liberties arise. Professor Adrian Vermeule’s book Common Good Constitutionalism offers a new approach to constitutional interpretation, one that …