The Volokh Conspiracy
Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent
"Yes, The Founders Were Originalists"
A critical review of a new book on history and originalism.
Does history defeat originalism? A recent book by Jonathan Gienapp, Against Constitutional Originalism, argues that it does. Will Baude and I have a critical review of the book, forthcoming in the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, that's now available on SSRN.
From the abstract:
Jonathan Gienapp's Against Constitutional Originalism accuses originalism of a kind of self-defeat, arguing that the Founders weren't really originalists. But like Jefferson Powell's similar argument forty years ago, which encouraged a shift from original intent to original meaning, Gienapp's work may only help along a similar shift, this time from original meaning to our original law.
Gienapp makes four main claims: that the Founders' Constitution wasn't conventional law; that the Founders couldn't agree on how to read it; that much of their fundamental law was unwritten; and that no originalist theory can account for this. As we argue, the first claim is bunk; the second overstated; the third true, but no problem for originalism; and the fourth a theoretical claim that the book's history utterly fails to defend. The Constitution was indeed law, understood as such by its contemporaries, and coexisting with other bodies of law in ways that originalists routinely respect. Far from proving the case against originalism, Against Constitutional Originalism only strengthens the case for originalism, done well.
As they say, read the whole thing!
