The Language of Law and the Foundations of American Constitutionalism

For much of its history, the interpretation of the United States Constitution presupposed judges seeking the meaning of the text and the original intentions behind that text, a process that was deemed by Chief Justice John Marshall to be 'the most sacred rule of interpretation'. Since the end of the nineteenth century, a radically new understanding has developed in which the moral intuition of the judges is allowed to supplant the Constitution's original meaning as the foundation of interpretation. The Founders' Constitution of fixed and permanent meaning has been replaced by the idea of a 'living' or evolving constitution. Gary L. McDowell refutes this new understanding, recovering the theoretical grounds of the original Constitution as understood by those who framed and ratified it. It was, he argues, the intention of the Founders that the judiciary must be bound by the original meaning of the Constitution when interpreting it.

ISBN 0521192897   Pages 428 ISBN13 9780521192897 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 720 Publisher Cambridge University Press   Published in Cambridge Imprint Cambridge University Press   Height (mm) 234 Format Hardback   Width (mm) 156 Publication date 28 Jun 2010   Spine width (mm) 28 DEWEY 342.73029   Academic level Professional / Scholarly DEWEY edition DC22

		Preface and Acknowledgments
		Introduction: The Politics of Original Intention		1
1		The Constitution and the Scholarly Tradition: Recovering the Founders' Constitution		9
2		Nature and the Language of Law: Thomas Hobbes and the Foundations of Modern Constitutionalism		55
3		Language, Law, and Liberty: John Locke and the Structures of Modern Constitutionalism		82
4		The Limits of Natural Law: Modern Constitutionalism and the Science of Interpretation		169
5		The Greatest Improvement on Political Institutions: Natural Rights, the Intentions of the People, and Written Constitutions		225
6		Chains of the Constitution: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the "Political Metaphysics" of Strict Construction		252
7		The Most Sacred Rule of Interpretation: John Marshall, Originalism, and the Limits of Judicial Power		311
8		The Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever: Joseph Story and the Permanence of Constitutional Meaning		343
		Epilogue: The Moral Foundations of Originalism		379
		Index of Cases		401
		General Index		403

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