Is originalism our law?

Columbia Law Review

Volumn 115, Issue 8, 2015, Pages 2349-2408

  Baude, William ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO   (United States)

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EID: 84938226087     PISSN: 00101958     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
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References (332)

1. Mitchell N. Berman, Originalism Is Bunk, 84 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1, 37–38 (2009) (emphasis omitted) [hereinafter Berman, Bunk].
2. See Andrew B. Coan, The Irrelevance of Writtenness in Constitutional Interpretation, 158 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1025, 1088–91 (2010) (arguing writtenness does not necessarily imply originalism); Cass R. Sunstein, There Is Nothing that Interpretation Just Is, 30 Const. Comment. 193, 193 (2015) (denying inherent concept of interpretation).
3. Berman, Bunk, supra note 1, at 38.
4. Larry Alexander, Constitutional Theories: A Taxonomy and (Implicit) Critique, 51 San Diego L. Rev. 623, 642 (2014) [hereinafter Alexander, Theories]. Alexander’s other most difficult question, “how it is possible for law to be normative,” is addressed by Richard M. Re, Promising the Constitution, 110 Nw. U. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2016) (on file with the Columbia Law Review), and discussed infra section III.A.
5. The “positive turn” evokes the basic tenets of legal positivism: that the content of the law is determined by certain present social facts and that moral considerations do not necessarily play a role in making legal statements true or false. See John Gardner, Legal Positivism: 5 ½ Myths, 46 Am. J. Juris. 199, 222–25 (2001) [hereinafter Gardner, Legal Positivism] (“[A]ccording to soft legal positivists, there is no law that depends for its validity on its merits just in virtue of the nature of law, i.e. necessarily.”); Leslie Green, Positivism and the Inseparability of Law and Morals, 83 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1035, 1056–57 (2008) (discussoriginaling moral fallibility of law); Brian Leiter, Why Legal Positivism? 1 (2009) (unpublished manuscript), http://ssrn.com/abstract=1521761 (on file with the Columbia Law Review) (discussing positivist “slogan” that “‘there is no necessary connection between law and morality’”). But this Essay relies on lawyers’ assumptions rather than technical jurisprudence. Infra note 80. Indeed, even some “natural law” theorists also agree that many features of a legal regime are contingent on the social facts of a particular society. See, e.g., John Finnis, The Truth in Legal Positivism, in The Autonomy of Law 195, 195 (Robert P. George ed., 1996) (discussing law’s “variability and relativity to time, place, and polity”).
6. I call this the “bear principle,” after Justice Scalia’s oft-repeated parable. See infra section IV.B.
7. Infra section I.A.
8. Clip: Kagan Confirmation Hearing, Day 2, Part 1 (C-SPAN television broadcast June 29, 2010), http://www.c-span.org/video/?c2924010/clip-kagan-confirmation-hearing-day-2-part-1 (on file with the Columbia Law Review).
9. Matthew Walther, Sam Alito: A Civil Man, Am. Spectator (May 2014), http://spectator.org/articles/58731/sam-alito-civil-man [http://perma.cc/79PM-JETQ].
10. See Joel Alicea, Originalism and the Rule of the Dead, 23 Nat’l Aff. 149, 161 (2015) (expressing skepticism about something like inclusive originalism and submitting “[l]egal conservatives... would do better to insist on the rule of the dead”).
11. See Philip Bobbitt, Constitutional Interpretation 155–62 (1991) [hereinafter Bobbitt, Interpretation]; see also Ian C. Bartrum, Metaphors and Modalities: Meditations on Bobbitt’s Theory of the Constitution, 17 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 157, 159 (2008) [hereinafter Bartrum, Metaphors and Modalities] (rejecting “tempt[ation] to look outside the practice for a means of resolution—perhaps by ranking the modes of argument”); Pamela S. Karlan, Constitutional Law as Trademark, 43 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 385, 400 (2009) (“[A]rguments about what the Constitution commands and prohibits have always looked to multiple sources of authority....”).
12. Richard Fallon has previously put forward a similar hierarchy, arguing that “the implicit norms of our constitutional practice accord the foremost authority to arguments from text, followed... by arguments concerning the framers’ intent,” Richard H. Fallon, Jr., A Constructivist Coherence Theory of Constitutional Interpretation, 100 Harv. L. Rev. 1189, 1193–94 (1987) [hereinafter Fallon, Constructivist Coherence Theory], but his notion of hierarchy appears to be substantially weaker than mine. See id. at 1246 (denying “higher ranked categories represent preferred starting points”).
13. A related jurisprudential turn in originalism has previously been proposed by Mitchell Berman and Kevin Toh, who distinguish carefully between theories of “law” and theories of “adjudication” and argue that “old originalism was (chiefly) a theory of adjudication, whereas new originalism is (chiefly) a theory of law.” Mitchell N. Berman & Kevin Toh, On What Distinguishes New Originalism from Old: A Jurisprudential Take, 82 Fordham L. Rev. 545, 546 (2013) [hereinafter Berman & Toh, New Originalism]; see also Mitchell N. Berman & Kevin Toh, Pluralistic Nonoriginalism and the Combinability Problem, 91 Tex. L. Rev. 1739, 1739 (2013) [hereinafter Berman & Toh, Combinability] (distinguishing between “a position about what the law is or consists of” and “a position about how judges should decide or adjudicate constitutional disputes”). I won’t adhere to precisely the same framework and terminology, but I will similarly divide my inquiry into the positive question of what constitutes our constitutional law and the normative question of what judges ought to do.
14. See, e.g., Frank Cross, The Failed Promise of Originalism 134 (2011); Richard H. Fallon, Jr., Constitutional Precedent Viewed Through the Lens of Hartian Positivist Jurisprudence, 86 N.C. L. Rev. 1107, 1129–32 (2008) [hereinafter Fallon, Hartian].
15. See, e.g., Gary Lawson, The Rise and Rise of the Administrative State, 107 Harv. L. Rev. 1231, 1232–49 (1994) (arguing administrative state violates original meaning of Constitution in multiple respects).
16. This list is intended to be agnostic about various intramural disputes over what, exactly, original meaning is. My own view, following that espoused by Stephen E. Sachs, is that the original meaning is constructed by the original legal rules, and hence is “the Founders’ law, including lawful changes.” Stephen E. Sachs, Originalism as a Theory of Legal Change, 38 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 817, 819 (2015) [hereinafter Sachs, Change]. But most of this Essay’s claims do not depend on that narrow point.
17. There is of course a sense in which this form of originalism also relies “exclusively” on originalism to pedigree a constitutional decision. But it is useful to distinguish the two just as some within jurisprudence find it useful to distinguish between “inclusive” and “exclusive” legal positivism. See generally Kenneth Einar Himma, Inclusive Legal Positivism, in The Oxford Handbook of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law 125 (Jules Coleman & Scott Shapiro eds., 2002) [hereinafter Oxford Handbook]; Andrei Marmor, Exclusive Legal Positivism, in Oxford Handbook, supra, at 104.
18. I say “incorporates” or “permits” to encompass two different ways originalism might deal with other methods. See infra section I.B.
19. Interestingly, even many scholars who themselves criticize originalism concede that (3) is true and originalism is part of the law. See sources cited infra notes 307–310.
20. See Berman, Bunk, supra note 1, at 19–20 (noting many originalists are “not satisfied by a disposition on the part of interpreters to, shall we say, take original meanings and principles ‘seriously,’ or pay them substantial regard”).
21. See infra Part IV (discussing implications of recognizing originalism as one part of our law).
22. See Christopher R. Green, Originalism and the Sense–Reference Distinction, 50 St. Louis U. L.J. 555, 559–60 (2006) [hereinafter Green, Sense–Reference Distinction].
23. U.S. Const. amend. IV. But see Thomas Y. Davies, Recovering the Original Fourth Amendment, 98 Mich. L. Rev. 547, 686–93 (1999) (arguing “unreasonable” had more technical legal meaning than is usually recognized today).
24. U.S. Const. amend. VIII; see John F. Stinneford, The Original Meaning of “Unusual”: The Eighth Amendment as a Bar to Cruel Innovation, 102 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1739, 1745 (2008) (“[T]he word ‘unusual’ was a term of art that referred to government practices that are contrary to ‘long usage’ or ‘immemorial usage.’”).
25. U.S. Const. amend. V.
26. U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 12.
27. See generally John O. McGinnis & Michael B. Rappaport, The Abstract Meaning Fallacy, 2012 U. Ill. L. Rev. 737, 739 [hereinafter McGinnis & Rappaport, Abstract Meaning] (arguing seemingly abstract provisions may not turn out to be abstract upon further investigation).
28. Green, Sense–Reference Distinction, supra note 22, at 583.
29. David A. Strauss, Common Law, Common Ground, and Jefferson’s Principle, 112 Yale L.J. 1717, 1736–37 (2003) [hereinafter Strauss, Jefferson].
30. On the distinction between ambiguity and vagueness, see Lawrence B. Solum, The Interpretation–Construction Distinction, 27 Const. Comment. 95, 97–98 (2010) [hereinafter Solum, Interpretation–Construction]. As Solum notes, many people do not use the terms in their precise senses.
31. See Randy Barnett, Restoring the Lost Constitution 120–31 (2d ed. 2014); Keith Whittington, Constitutional Constructions: Divided Powers and Constitutional Meaning 3–9 (1999); Solum, Interpretation–Construction, supra note 30; Lawrence B. Solum, Originalism and Constitutional Construction, 82 Fordham L. Rev. 453, 455–56 (2013) [hereinafter Solum, Constitutional Construction].
32. See William Baude, Sharing the Necessary and Proper Clause, 128 Harv. L. Rev. orum 39, 48 (2014), http://cdn.harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/vol128_Baude.pdf [http://perma.cc/J7ML-4XCG] (“Liquidation (think ‘liquidated damages’) was a term for settling the meaning of a contested or vague legal provision through practice.”); Caleb Nelson, Stare Decisis and Demonstrably Erroneous Precedents, 87 Va. L. Rev. 1, 10–21 (2001) [hereinafter Nelson, Stare Decisis] (similar).
33. See Gary Lawson, Legal Indeterminacy: Its Cause and Cure, 19 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 411, 421–28 (1996) (explaining how burdens of proof operate as presumptions that resolve indeterminacy).
34. John O. McGinnis & Michael B. Rappaport, Originalism and the Good Constitution 142–43 (2013) [hereinafter McGinnis & Rappaport, Good Constitution].
35. Id. at 82.
36. See Stephen E. Sachs, The “Unwritten Constitution” and Unwritten Law, 2013 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1797, 1803–10 [hereinafter Sachs, Unwritten Law] (describing “interpretive rules” that are “outside the written text”).
37. For more on such rules, and an argument that they are inevitable, see William Baude & Stephen Sachs, The Law of Interpretation (unpublished manuscript) (on file with the Columbia Law Review).
38. See, e.g., Martha Nussbaum, Reply to Diane Wood, Constitutions and Capabilities: A (Necessarily) Pragmatic Approach, 10 Chi. J. Int’l L. 431, 431–36 (2010) (describing “[c]apabilities [a]pproach” that arguably “shaped the public meaning of key elements of the text” at Founding).
39. See Gary Lawson, Mostly Unconstitutional: The Case Against Precedent Revisited, 5 Ave Maria L. Rev. 1, 3–4 (2007) [hereinafter Lawson, Mostly Unconstitutional] (arguing Court should “mostly never” “choose precedent over direct examination of constitutional meaning” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Michael Stokes Paulsen, The Intrinsically Corrupting Influence of Precedent, 22 Const. Comment. 289, 289 (2005) [hereinafter Paulsen, Corrupting Influence] (“Stare decisis contradicts the premise of originalism....”).
40. See John Harrison, The Power of Congress over the Rules of Precedent, 50 Duke L.J. 503, 525–31 (2000) (“There is good reason to believe that most of what we know as the law of precedent in federal court is general law....”); John O. McGinnis & Michael B. Rappaport, Reconciling Originalism and Precedent, 103 Nw. U. L. Rev. 803, 828 (2009) [hereinafter McGinnis & Rappaport, Precedent] (“[G]iven the absence of an alternative source of law and its conformity with the history, the argument for treating precedent as a matter of common law is compelling.”).
41. See Nelson, Stare Decisis, supra note 32, at 83–84.
42. See Stephen E. Sachs, Constitutional Backdrops, 80 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1813, 1863–66 (2012) [hereinafter Sachs, Backdrops] (“Stare decisis might simply be a recognized common law doctrine.... Having (allegedly) been in effect at the time of the Founding,... it therefore continues to be in effect today.”).
43. See Robert H. Bork, The Tempting of America 159 (1990) (“[T]hose who adhere to a philosophy of original understanding are more likely to respect precedent than those who do not.”); Randy J. Kozel, Original Meaning and the Precedent Fallback, 68 Vand. L. Rev. 105, 108–09 (2015) (“Asking judges to defer to the pronouncements of their predecessors can be a useful mechanism of judicial constraint, which is a value that many originalists have long prized.”); Kurt T. Lash, Originalism, Popular Sovereignty, and Reverse Stare Decisis, 93 Va. L. Rev. 1437, 1473–77 (2007) (arguing stare decisis supports principles of popular sovereignty).
44. See McGinnis & Rappaport, Precedent, supra note 40, at 823–29 (“There are strong reasons for concluding that the Framers’ generation would have understood the judicial power [in Article III] to include the minimal concept of precedent....”); Sachs, Backdrops, supra note 42, at 1865 (noting precedent was “one of the well-understood background assumptions of the common law” at time Framers were drafting (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Michael Stokes Paulsen, Abrogating Stare Decisis by Statute: May Congress Remove the Precedential Effect of Roe and Casey?, 109 Yale L.J. 1535, 1577 (2000))).
45. See Sachs, Unwritten Law, supra note 36, at 1819–21 (“[O]ur legal language is what logicians call ‘defeasible’: we ordinarily state legal rules subject to unnamed exceptions that defeat their operation in particular cases.”).
46. McGinnis & Rappaport, Precedent, supra note 40, at 813–23 (enumerating many pieces of evidence establishing acceptance of doctrine of precedent at time of Founding); Sachs, Unwritten Law, supra note 36, at 1832 (discussing common law practice of stare decisis).
47. Thanks to Larry Alexander for this challenge.
48. See William Baude, The Judgment Power, 96 Geo. L.J. 1807, 1809 (2008) [hereinafter Baude, Judgment Power] (“[T]he judicial power is the power to issue binding judgments.”).
49. McGinnis & Rappaport, Precedent, supra note 40, at 829 (making this analogy).
50. My instincts lie close to the view implied in Nelson, Stare Decisis, supra note 32, but the matter deserves further study and may be examined somewhat in Baude & Sachs, supra note 37.
51. Fallon, Hartian, supra note 14, at 1113.
52. Id. (footnote omitted).
53. Helvering v. Davis, 301 U.S. 619, 634 (1937) (upholding payment of social security “Old Age Benefits”); Legal Tender Cases, 79 U.S. (12 Wall.) 457, 529 (1870) (upholding law making paper money “legal tender”).
54. Richard H. Fallon, Jr., How to Choose a Constitutional Theory, 87 Calif. L. Rev. 535, 548 (1999).
55. See infra section II.B.2.
56. See, e.g., Cross, supra note 14, at 133–34.
57. See Thomas B. Colby, The Sacrifice of the New Originalism, 99 Geo. L.J. 713, 715, 744–64 (2011) (claiming by accommodating precedent and flexibility “originalism has sacrificed... the very thing that made it what it is”); James E. Fleming, Are We All Originalists Now? I Hope Not!, 91 Tex. L. Rev. 1785, 1788–94 (2013) (arguing new originalism lacks “one unified view”); Karlan, supra note 11, at 400–01 (“Originalism has become a blanket term describing constitutional interpretation, rather than a distinctive form of a generic practice.”).
58. McGinnis & Rappaport, Good Constitution, supra note 34, at 139–43.
59. Jack M. Balkin, Living Originalism (2011) [hereinafter Balkin, Living].
60. Bernadette Meyler, Towards a Common Law Originalism, 59 Stan. L. Rev. 551, 593–600 (2006).
61. Solum, Constitutional Construction, supra note 31; Lawrence B. Solum, Originalism and the Unwritten Constitution, 2013 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1935, 1942–43.
62. See Paul Brest, The Misconceived Quest for Original Understanding, 60 B.U. L. Rev. 204, 223, 231–34 (1980) (discussing “moderate originalism”).
63. See Berman, Bunk, supra note 1, at 10, 20, 22, 29–31 (describing as “modest variant of strong originalism” that “interpreters must accord original meaning... lexical priority when interpreting the Constitution”).
64. See Colby, supra note 57, at 776–78 (decrying popular conception of originalism).
65. As for instance, it would, if one accepted the arguments made by Lawson, Mostly Unconstitutional, supra note 39, or Paulsen, Corrupting Influence, supra note 39.
66. U.S. (2 Dall.) 419 (1793).
67. U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857).
68. U.S. 429 (1895).
69. U.S. 112 (1970); see Burt Neuborne, The Binding Quality of Supreme Court Precedent, 61 Tul. L. Rev. 991, 993 & n.7 (1987) (acknowledging legitimacy of overruling these decisions by amendment); see also Stephen E. Sachs, The “Constitution in Exile” as a Problem for Legal Theory, 89 Notre Dame. L. Rev 2253, 2277 (2014) [hereinafter Sachs, Constitution-in-Exile] (wondering what would happen to Brown v. Board of Education if Fourteenth Amendment were repealed).
70. Sachs, supra note 16, at 821; see also Stephen G. Calabresi & Gary Lawson, The Rule of Law as a Law of Law, 90 Notre Dame L. Rev. 483, 503 (2014) (“The Constitution uses rules when it means to use rules, and it uses standards when it means to use standards.... To discover the meaning of the Constitution, one cannot start with a presumption in favor of one or the other....”).
71. U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2.
72. Articles of Confederation of 1781, art. XIII, para. 1 (“And the Articles of this confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State....”).
73. Const. of the Confederate States of 1861, art. VI, cl. 3 (“This Constitution... shall be the supreme law of the land … .”).
74. See Frederick Schauer, Precedent and the Necessary Externality of Constitutional Norms, 17 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 45, 52 (1994) [hereinafter Schauer, Necessary Externality] (making similar point about legal status of document he drew up and stuck in jurisprudenhis pocket); see also Frederick Schauer, The Force of Law 79 (2015) [hereinafter Schauer, Force] (repeating this example).
75. Bruce Ackerman, We the People: Transformations 92 (1998) (“I accept th[e] challenge [of legal positivism].”); David A. Strauss, The Neo-Hamiltonian Temptation, 123 Yale L.J. 2676, 2680 (2014) [hereinafter Strauss, Neo-Hamiltonian] (“Ackerman, to his credit, does not accept Hamilton’s suggestion that the will of the People is embedded in the written Constitution alone. We the People have other ways of changing the Constitution.”); see also Heather K. Gerken, The Hydraulics of Constitutional Reform: A Skeptical Response to Our Undemocratic Constitution, 55 Drake L. Rev. 925, 930–32 (2007) (citing more than dozen other sources); David A. Strauss, We the People, They the People, and the Puzzle of Democratic Constitutionalism, 91 Tex. L. Rev. 1969, 1981 (2013) (stating “Constitution we actually have” is “an evolutionary one, not one that is under glass”).
76. Fred Schauer also gives the example of the Rhodesian Unilateral Declaration of Independence trumping British law. Schauer, Force, supra note 74, at 79–80.
77. See Matthew D. Adler, Interpretive Contestation and Legal Correctness, 53 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1115, 1117–18 (2012) [hereinafter Adler, Contestation] (suggesting there is consensus on text but not interpretive method); Adam M. Samaha, Dead Hand Arguments and Constitutional Interpretation, 108 Colum. L. Rev. 606, 644 (2008) [hereinafter Samaha, Dead Hand Arguments] (same). On the general idea of interpretive rules as law, see Baude & Sachs, supra note 37.
78. See John Harrison, On the Hypotheses that Lie at the Foundations of Originalism, 31 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 473, 474 (2008) (“[Immediately after the Founding,] every interpreter’s methodology, whatever it was, had to be ‘originalist,’ because the origin had been so recent.”).
79. Reva B. Siegel, Heller and Originalism’s Dead Hand—In Theory and Practice, 56 UCLA L. Rev. 1399, 1405 (2009).
80. Three important versions of legal positivism are those espoused by Hart, Joseph Raz, and Scott Shapiro. H.L.A. Hart, The Concept of Law (3d ed. 2012); Joseph Raz, The Authority of Law 237 (2d ed. 2009) [hereinafter Raz, Authority]; Joseph Raz, Between Authority and Interpretation (2009); Scott J. Shapiro, Legality (2011). Hart will sometimes make appearances in the footnotes here because his work is more frequently invoked in the relevant legal scholarship. Accord Lawrence B. Solum, Semantic Originalism 140 n.361 (U. of Ill. Pub. Law and Legal Theory Res. Papers Series, No. 07-24, 2008), http://ssrn.com/abstract=1120244 (on file with the Columbia Law Review) [hereinafter Solum, Semantic] (similar observation); see also Richard H. Fallon, Jr., Legitimacy and the Constitution, 118 Harv. L. Rev. 1787, 1805–06, 1848 (2005) (following Hart’s framework). But none of this should be taken to be an assertion in technical jurisprudence, just a lawyer’s operating assumption. See Solum, Semantic, supra, at 140 n.361 (expressing “agnostic[ism] as between Hart’s theory and its most contemporary rivals”).
81. On the question of who one would survey, see Hart, supra note 80, at 101–03; infra notes 224–227 and accompanying text. For survey efforts, see generally Donald L. Drakeman, What’s the Point of Originalism?, 37 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 1123, 1133–38 (2013); Jamal Greene, Nathaniel Persily & Stephen Ansolabehere, Profiling Originalism, 111 Colum. L. Rev. 356, 362–70 (2011). An experimental study is Kathryn Bi, Lay Judgments of Constitutional Interpretation 15–23 (unpublished manuscript) (on file with the Columbia Law Review).
82. Again, to the extent this view turns on popular rather than official views, it cannot be traced to Hart’s technical jurisprudence, supra note 81, but I suspect that it has sufficient purchase for some that it is worth discussing here.
83. E.g., Steven G. Calabresi, The Tradition of the Written Constitution: A Comment on Professor Lessig’s Theory of Translation, 65 Fordham L. Rev. 1435, 1454 (1997).
84. Saikrishna B. Prakash, Overcoming the Constitution, 91 Geo. L.J. 407, 436 (2003) (reviewing Richard H. Fallon, Jr., Implementing the Constitution (2001)) (discussing this intuition).
85. See Sachs, Change, supra note 16, at 839, 845 (noting Article V amendments are consistent with the Founders’ rule of change).
86. See Ackerman, supra note 75, at 99–115 (discussing implications of Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments’ putative noncompliance with Article V); see also Sachs, Change, supra note 16, at 854–55 (acknowledging threat).
87. See generally Jamal Greene, Fourteenth Amendment Originalism, 71 Md. L. Rev. 978, 1014 (2012) (arguing originalists neglect Fourteenth Amendment and attributing this to “cultural affinity” announced by originalism).
88. E.g., Laurence Claus, Law’s Evolution and Human Understanding 29–37 (2012).
89. Jamal Greene, On the Origins of Originalism, 88 Tex. L. Rev. 1, 63–71 (2009) [hereinafter Greene, Origins].
90. Id. at 81 (emphasis omitted).
91. Id. at 82–88.
92. Sachs, Change, supra note 16, at 820–21.
93. Id. at 844–45 (“[F]rom the Founding on, [originalism] requires that changes be lawful … .”).
94. Id. at 870.
95. Id. at 871.
96. See Brett M. Kavanaugh, Our Anchor for 225 Years and Counting: The Enduring Significance of the Precise Text of the Constitution, 89 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1907, 1913–14 (2014) (“The precise text of the Constitution controls our structure, and we do not ignore the text of the Constitution simply because it was ratified 225 years ago, or may be outdated, or has not adapted to modern conditions.”).
97. U.S. Const. art. II, § 1.
98. Presidents John Quincy Adams, Rutherford Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, and George W. Bush all had lower popular-vote totals than their competitors. Robert A. Dahl, How Democratic Is the American Constitution? 79–80 (2001).
99. U.S. 98, 110 (2000) (invalidating recount ordered by Florida Supreme Court).
100. See Keith E. Whittington, The Status of Unwritten Constitutional Conventions in the United States, 2013 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1847, 1855–57 (discussing “tradition of the two-term presidency”); see also Akhil Reed Amar, America’s Constitution: A Biography 433–35 (2005) (noting ambiguities in this tradition).
101. Strauss, Jefferson, supra note 29, at 1733. For sophisticated and elaborate discussion, see Russell Hardin, Liberalism, Constitutionalism, and Democracy 88–114 (1999).
102. Strauss, Jefferson, supra note 29, at 1734.
103. Frederick Schauer, Easy Cases, 58 S. Cal. L. Rev. 399, 431 (1985).
104. Id. at 430–31.
105. Hardin, for example, suggests that the original “intentions” of the Framers rapidly became obsolete, Hardin, supra note 101, at 112, though it is less clear what he thinks of original meaning or inclusive originalism. Cf. id at 113 (quoting Madison on “liquidation”).
106. Adler, Contestation, supra note 77, at 1131.
107. Ronald Dworkin, Law’s Empire 4–6 (1986). For explication and critique, see generally Brian Leiter, Explaining Theoretical Disagreement, 76 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1215 (2009) [hereinafter Leiter, Explaining].
108. See generally Sachs, Constitution-in-Exile, supra note 69, at 2263 (“Government officers don’t all share an actual knowledge of the law, but rather a broad consensus—like that held by ordinary citizens—about where they should look or whom they should ask.”). For an analogous argument from the natural law perspective, see Allan Beever, The Declaratory Theory of Law, 33 Oxford J. Legal Stud. 421, 428–29 (2013).
109. See Leiter, Explaining, supra note 107, at 1236–38 (arguing Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153 (1978), invoked by Dworkin, supra note 107, at 21–23, does not really contain theoretical disagreement).
110. See Leslie Green, Notes to the Third Edition, in Hart, supra note 80, at 309, 317 [hereinafter Green, Notes to the Third Edition] (discussing whether judges have special role, compared to other officials, in constituting rule of recognition).
111. The importance of the Court in such positive inquiries has been recognized by Richard H. Fallon, Jr., Precedent-Based Constitutional Adjudication, Acceptance, and the Rule of Recognition, in The Rule of Recognition and the U.S. Constitution 47, 60 (Matthew D. Adler & Kenneth Einar Himma eds., 2009).
112. See Sachs, Constitution-in-Exile, supra note 69, at 2256 (“Because history proceeds at its own pace … any constitution worth its salt may spend a good bit of time in exile.”).
113. On why it need not be “always,” see infra section II.C.2.
114. Sachs, Constitution-in-Exile, supra note 69, at 2277 (quoting W. Va. Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943)).
115. Hart, supra note 80, at 144. In assessing any disagreement, note that the original meaning of the amended Constitution can be yielded by an ultimate rule of recognition on which all may agree: “The rule of recognition is a customary rule of judges and other officials, but it is not legislated and is not positive law. In particular, it is not the formal constitution or any part of it. (Such a constitution must itself be validated by the rule of recognition.)” Green, Notes to the Third Edition, supra note 110, at 317.
116. S. Ct. 2550 (2014).
117. I should note that I coauthored an amicus brief in the case. Brief of Constitutional Law Scholars as Amicus Curiae in Support of Respondents, Noel Canning, 134 S. Ct. 2550 (2014) (No. 12-1281).
118. McCullen v. Coakley, 134 S. Ct. 2518, 2548 (2014) (Scalia, J., concurring).
119. Noel Canning, 134 S. Ct. at 2577.
120. Id. at 2578 (citation omitted) (quoting Missouri v. Holland, 252 U.S. 416, 433 (1920)). It is not clear whether this is intentional, but interpreting “the Constitution in light of its text” seems to suggest that the Constitution and “its text” aren’t exactly the same; what sense would it make to interpret a document “in light of itself”?
121. Id. at 2592 (Scalia, J., concurring).
122. Id. at 2617 (Scalia, J., concurring).
123. Id. at 2617–18 (Scalia, J., concurring).
124. Id. at 2617 (Scalia, J., concurring).
125. Id. at 2553 (majority opinion).
126. Id. at 2565.
127. Supra section I.B.1.
128. Noel Canning, 134 S. Ct. at 2565.
129. Id. at 2560 (quoting Letter from James Madison to Spencer Roane (Sept. 2, 1819), in 8 Writings of James Madison 447, 450 (G. Hunt ed. 1908)).
130. Supra section I.B.2.
131. Noel Canning, 134 S. Ct. at 2568.
132. Id. at 2617 (Scalia, J., concurring).
133. Transcript of Oral Argument at 6, Noel Canning, 134 S. Ct. 2550 (No. 12-1281).
134. Id. at 6–8.
135. See Fallon, Constructivist Coherence Theory, supra note 12, at 1240–43 (observing Court generally attempts to reconcile seemingly competing methods).
136. Noel Canning, 134 S. Ct. at 2560 (citing remaining cases in this paragraph).
137. U.S. 655, 689–90 (1929) (emphasis added).
138. U.S. 361, 399–401 (1989).
139. U.S. 919 (1983).
140. Id. at 945.
141. Id. at 959 (citation omitted).
142. U.S. 570, 634–35 (2008).
143. Supra section I.B.3.
144. U.S. 56, 65–66 (1980) (holding confrontation rights turn on “indicia of reliability”).
145. U.S. 36, 60 (2004) (overruling Roberts in favor of “original meaning of the Confrontation Clause”).
146. Jack M. Balkin, “Wrong the Day It Was Decided”: Lochner and Constitutional Historicism, 85 B.U. L. Rev. 677, 696–98 (2005).
147. Steven G. Calabresi, The Tradition of the Written Constitution: Text, Precedent, and Burke, 57 Ala. L. Rev. 635, 637 (2006); see also Akhil Reed Amar, Foreword: The Document and the Doctrine, 114 Harv. L. Rev. 26, 34 n.29 (2000) (discussing “triumph of the document over the doctrine” in incorporating Bill of Rights).
148. U.S. 398 (1934).
149. Erwin Chemerinsky, The Elusive Quest for Value Neutral Judging: A Response to Redish and Arnould, 64 Fla. L. Rev. 1539, 1541 (2012).
150. Charles A. Bieneman, Legal Interpretation and a Constitutional Case: Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, 90 Mich. L. Rev. 2534, 2537 (1992).
151. Barry Friedman & Scott B. Smith, The Sedimentary Constitution, 147 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1, 18 (1998).
152. Jamal Greene, Selling Originalism, 97 Geo. L.J. 657, 677–78 (2009) [hereinafter Greene, Selling].
153. Randy E. Barnett, The Gravitational Force of Originalism, 82 Fordham L. Rev. 411, 432 (2013).
154. U.S. Const. art. I, § 10.
155. Home Bldg. & Loan Ass’n v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398, 420 (1934).
156. Id. at 425–26 (quoting Wilson v. New, 243 U.S. 332, 348 (1917)).
157. Id. at 428.
158. See id. at 453–56 (Sutherland, J., dissenting) (discussing original expectations); Jed Rubenfeld, Reply to Commentators, 115 Yale L.J. 2093, 2093–94 (2006) (arguing Blaisdell “repudiate[s] a foundational Application Understanding”).
159. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. at 451 (Sutherland, J., dissenting).
160. Id. at 428 (majority opinion); see McGinnis & Rappaport, Abstract Meaning, supra note 27, at 768 (accusing Blaisdell of committing abstract meaning fallacy).
161. Colby, supra note 57, at 767.
162. U.S. 436 (1966).
163. See generally William Baude, Understanding Prophylactic Supreme Court Decisions, Jotwell (July 14, 2014), http://conlaw.jotwell.com/understanding-prophylactic-supremecourt-decisions [http://perma.cc/W3G7-R484] (reviewing John F. Stinneford, The Illusory Eighth Amendment, 63 Am. U. L. Rev. 437 (2013)) (discussing debates about Miranda as “prophylactic”).
164. David A. Strauss, The Ubiquity of Prophylactic Rules, 55 U. Chi. L. Rev. 190, 198 (1988).
165. Mitchell N. Berman, Constitutional Decision Rules, 90 Va. L. Rev. 1, 61 (2004) [hereinafter Berman, Decision Rules]; see also Mitchell N. Berman, Aspirational Rights and the Two-Output Thesis, 119 Harv. L. Rev. Forum 220, 221 (2006), available at http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2488&context=faculty_scholarship [http://perma.cc/QBL6-ZYMU] (providing further elaboration).
166. It is also possible that this distinction is illusory, see Berman, Decision Rules, supra note 165, at 43–50 (suggesting it is), in which case the existence of constitutional doctrine, even prophlyactic doctrine, is unlikely to be particularly threatening to inclusive originalism.
167. Stinneford, supra note 163, at 464.
168. See New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649, 653–55 (1984) (describing Miranda as “prophylactic” and rejecting Miranda claim); Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 439 (1974) (same combination); cf. Michigan v. Payne, 412 U.S. 47, 53 (1973) (labeling Miranda “prophylactic” and ruling against analogous claim).
169. See Barry Friedman, The Wages of Stealth Overruling (with Particular Attention to Miranda v. Arizona), 99 Geo. L.J. 1, 19–20 (2010) (suggesting this was theme of Rehnquist Court’s Miranda jurisprudence).
170. See Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428, 432–34 (2000) (describing history leading up to Miranda); see also Dist. Attorney’s Office v. Osborne, 557 U.S. 52, 73 n.4 (2009) (“[T]he underlying requirement at issue in … [Miranda] that confessions be voluntary had roots going back centuries.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
171. U.S. at 438.
172. U.S. 483 (1954).
173. Michael W. McConnell, Originalism and the Desegregation Decisions, 81 Va. L. Rev. 947, 952 (1995) [hereinafter McConnell, Originalism]; see also Akhil Reed Amar, America’s Unwritten Constitution 247 (2012) [hereinafter Amar, Unwritten Constitution] (noting Brown has “special constitutional authority”); Greene, Selling, supra note 152, at 679 (“Polite company requires, after all, that constitutional methodologies be premised on Brown’s correctness … .”).
174. See McConnell, Originalism, supra note 173, at 951–52 (citing sources).
175. But see Sachs, Constitution-in-Exile, supra note 69, at 2278 (“The general structure of our constitutional practices leans against the idea that Brown, or any other accepted constitutional landmark, effectively stands on its own bottom.”).
176. Miscellaneous Orders, 345 U.S. 972, 972–73 (1953). There were also two remedial questions. See id.
177. Brown, 347 U.S. at 489.
178. Alexander M. Bickel, The Original Understanding and the Segregation Decision, 69 Harv. L. Rev. 1, 59–65 (1955).
179. Mark Tushnet & Katya Lezin, What Really Happened in Brown v. Board of Education, 91 Colum. L. Rev. 1867, 1882 n.84 (1991).
180. Id. at 1919.
181. Id.; see also Richard Kluger, Simple Justice 618–19 (1975) (quoting Thurgood Marshall on originalist arguments: “A nothin’-to-nothin’ score means we win the ball game.”).
182. The Brown–Bickel thesis about the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment might also be the best way to read seemingly antihistoric election law cases like Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663, 669 (1966) (“[T]he Equal Protection Clause is not shackled to the political theory of a particular era.”), and Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 567 (1964) (“Representation schemes once fair and equitable become archaic and outdated.”). It is also possible that those cases reflect a method of analysis that the Court would never repeat anew today outside of precedent, infra section II.C.2, and that they are partly for this reason not exactly part of the modern constitutional canon. Compare Richard H. Pildes, Democracy, Anti-Democracy, and the Canon, 17 Const. Comment. 295, 296 (2000) (“[S]ustained attention to democracy itself has been startlingly absent from the constitutional canon … .”), with Jamal Greene, The Anticanon, 125 Harv. L. Rev. 379, 392 n.68 (2011) (“These cases are … arguably part of the constitutional canon.”).
183. U.S. 558, 562 (2003).
184. Id. at 568.
185. Id.
186. Id. at 571–72.
187. S. Ct. 2584 (2015).
188. Id. at 2598.
189. Id. (citing Lawrence).
190. Id.
191. Sachs, Change, supra note 16, at 821. 192. Though mostly beside the present point, it is worth noting that many originalists did suggest that there were plausible originalist arguments in favor of the claimants’ position. E.g., Steven G. Calabresi & Hannah Begley, Originalism and Same Sex Marriage 3 (Nw. Pub. Law, Research Paper No. 14-51, 2014), http://ssrn.com/abstract=2509443 (on file with the Columbia Law Review); Michael Ramsey, Is There an Originalist Case for Same-Sex Marriage?, The Originalism Blog (Mar. 25, 2013), http://originalismblog.typepad.com/the-originalism-blog/2013/03/is-there-an-originalist-case-for-same-sex-marriage-michael-ramsey.html [http://perma.cc/PEZ2-RVXJ]; Mike Rappaport, More on Originalism and Same Sex Marriage: A Response to Mike Ramsey, Library of Law & Liberty (Apr. 25, 2013), http://www.libertylawsite.org/2013/04/25/more-on-originalism-and-same-sex-marriage-aresponse-to-mike-ramsey [http://perma.cc/Y5S4-MJUE]; Francis Wilkinson, Originalism, Scalia, and Gay Marriage: An Interview with Jack Balkin, Bloomberg View (Mar. 26, 2013, 10:05 AM), http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-03-26/originalism-scalia-and-gay-marriage-an-interview-with-jack-balkin [http://perma.cc/96XL-TSG5]. But see William N. Eskridge Jr., The Marriage Equality Cases and Constitutional Theory, 2015 Cato Sup. Ct. Rev. 111, 112–21 (arguing there were strong originalist arguments that Obergefell court did not adopt).
192. U.S. 113 (1973).
193. Id. at 129.
194. Id. at 139 (emphasis added).
195. See id. at 157–58 (canvassing text’s use of word “person” first, before then relying on claim that “throughout the major portion of the 19th century prevailing legal abortion practices were far freer than they are today,” and then finally noting lower courts had reached same conclusion).
196. See George Kannar, Comment, The Constitutional Catechism of Antonin Scalia, 99 Yale L.J. 1297, 1309 (1990) (“It is not unkind to attribute former Attorney General Meese’s espousal of [originalism] … to a result-oriented interest in eliminating affirmative action and overruling Roe v. Wade.”).
197. Hart, supra note 80, at 144. But see John Hart Ely, The Wages of Crying Wolf: A Comment on Roe v. Wade, 82 Yale L.J. 920, 947 (1973) (claiming, though not as originalist, Roe “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be”).
198. U.S. 833, 854–69 (1992). To be sure, Casey’s theory of precedent has in turn been criticized by originalists, see, e.g., McGinnis & Rappaport, Good Constitution, supra note 34, at 189–91, but that is a question of the substance of the doctrine, not the authority.
199. Michael J. Gerhardt, Super Precedent, 90 Minn. L. Rev. 1204, 1226–30 (2006).
200. Mary Anne Case, The Ladies? Forget About Them. A Feminist Perspective on the Limits of Originalism, 29 Const. Comment. 431, 445, 448 (2014).
201. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sexual Equality Under the Fourteenth and Equal Rights Amendments, 1979 Wash. U. L.Q. 161, 161.
202. U.S. 515 (1996).
203. U.S. 71, 76 (1971). The four-Justice opinion in Frontiero v. Richardson recounts the “long and unfortunate history of sex discrimination,” but it also purports to be an application of “‘traditional’ equal protection analysis,” as laid out by precedent, to new facts. 411 U.S. 677, 682–88 (1973) (plurality opinion) (Brennan, J.).
204. See Steven G. Calabresi & Julia T. Rickert, Originalism and Sex Discrimination, 90 Tex. L. Rev. 1, 2–3 (2011) (claiming sex discrimination violates original meaning of Fourteenth and Nineteenth Amendments); see also Michael Stokes Paulsen, Does the Constitution Prescribe Rules for Its Own Interpretation?, 103 Nw. U. L. Rev. 857, 901 (2009) (stating sex discrimination “largely” violates original meaning of Fourteenth Amendment). But see Ward Farnsworth, Women Under Reconstruction: The Congressional Understanding, 94 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1229, 1230 (2000) (arguing Fourteenth Amendment “was understood not to disturb the prevailing regime of state laws imposing very substantial legal disabilities on women”).
205. McGinnis & Rappaport, Good Constitution, supra note 34, 181–85.
206. U.S. 335 (1963).
207. See William P. Marshall, Progressive Constitutionalism, Originalism, and the Significance of Landmark Decisions in Evaluating Constitutional Theory, 72 Ohio St. L.J. 1251, 1264–66 (2011) (“Gideon … reflects the progressive understanding of how constitutional guarantees should be applied to meet existing conditions.”).
208. Id. at 1265 & n.103 (noting some are skeptical of Gideon “[p]erhaps” because it is “not originalist”).
209. U.S. Const. amends. VI, XIV.
210. Alexander Holtzoff, The Right of Counsel Under the Sixth Amendment, 20 N.Y.U. L.Q. Rev. 1, 7–8 (1944).
211. U.S. 458 (1938).
212. U.S. 455 (1942).
213. Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 341–42 (1963) (collecting cases).
214. See Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46, 89–91 (1947) (Black, J., dissenting) (“[T]he original purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment [was] to extend to all the people of the nation the complete protection of the Bill of Rights.”); Akhil Reed Amar, 2000 Daniel J. Meador Lecture: Hugo Black and the Hall of Fame, 53 Ala. L. Rev. 1221, 1223–34 (2002) (crediting modern incorporation doctrine to Black).
215. See, e.g., Henry J. Friendly, The Bill of Rights as a Code of Criminal Procedure, 53 Calif. L. Rev. 929, 945–46 (1965) (suggesting due process rationale); see also Akhil Reed Amar, Sixth Amendment First Principles, 84 Geo. L.J. 641, 707–08 (1996) (same).
216. Richard Primus, Why Enumeration Matters, 114 Mich. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2016) (manuscript at 8), http://ssrn.com/abstract=2471924 (on file with the Columbia Law Review).
217. Id. (manuscript at 10).
218. Id. (manuscript at 13–27); cf. Hart, supra note 80, at 107–08, 111 (discussing “what the Queen in Parliament enacts is law” as “rule of recognition”).
219. Primus, supra note 217, (manuscript at 19–23).
220. Eric Posner, Originalism Class 4: Brown (Jan. 30, 2014), http://ericposner.com/originalism-class-4-brown/ [http://perma.cc/66QH-ZU63]. The post is part of a dialogue arising out of a class we taught together, and this section expands on part of my response. Will Baude, Originalism, the Bear Principle, and the Reading of Entrails, Volokh Conspiracy (Jan. 31, 2014), http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/01/31/originalism-the-bear-principle-and-the-reading-of-entrails [https://perma.cc/P4G3-XA5C] [hereinafter Baude, Bear Principle]; see also Andrew Koppelman, Passive Aggressive: Scalia and Garner on Interpretation, 41 Boundary 2: Int’l J. Literature & Culture 227, 231 (2014) (“[T]hey’ve been reshaping the law as they like, reciting originalist slogans as they go, in the spirit of rowers who sing together as they lay on the oars. The music does not make the boat go, but it encourages the crew.”).
221. See supra note 111 and accompanying text (noting previous inquiries have looked to Supreme Court opinions).
222. That is why I said they were exemplary rather than exhaustive. See supra text accompanying note 111.
223. See Green, Notes to the Third Edition, supra note 110, at 361 (“For Hart, ultimate rules of recognition inhere in customary practices by officials.”).
224. See Matthew D. Adler, Popular Constitutionalism and the Rule of Recognition: Whose Practices Ground U.S. Law?, 100 Nw. U. L. Rev. 719, 729–45 (2006) (outlining this alternative); see also Schauer, Force, supra note 74, at 207 n.17 (citing sources).
225. See Strauss, Neo-Hamiltonian, supra note 75, at 2678 (“One way or another … the People are the final authority on what the Constitution requires.”).
226. Barry Friedman, The Will of the People 367–76 (2009) (discussing connection between popular will and Supreme Court opinions); see also sources cited supra notes 81–84 (discussing popular beliefs about originalism).
227. Curtis A. Bradley & Neil S. Siegel, Constructed Constraint and the Constitutional Text, 64 Duke L.J. 1213, 1238–67 (2015).
228. Cf. Micah Schwartzman, Judicial Sincerity, 94 Va. L. Rev. 987, 991 (2008) (defining and defending duty of judicial sincerity).
229. Primus, supra note 217 (manuscript at 18) (“None of this is to claim that Justices who articulate internal limits are in the secret recesses of their minds saying, ‘I will appear to take internal limits seriously, but I will also ensure that Congress retains the ability to regulate more or less as it sees fit.’”).
230. See James A. Gardner, The Positivist Foundations of Originalism: An Account and Critique, 71 B.U. L. Rev. 1, 4 (1991) [hereinafter Gardner, Positivist Foundations] (“[O]ur courts, for better or for worse, continue to speak the language of originalism—as indeed they have since the founding of the republic.”).
231. See Sachs, Change, supra note 16, at 847–48 (making this point). Tangentially, for a deep exploration of legal continuity in English law, see generally Richard S. Kay, The Glorious Revolution and the Continuity of Law (2014).
232. See, e.g., Gardner, Positivist Foundations, supra note 231, at 13 (asserting departure from originalist tradition during part of late twentieth century); Edwin Meese III, Reagan’s Legal Revolutionary, 3 Green Bag 2d 193, 196 (2000) (criticizing courts’ abandonment of originalism from late 1950s through 1970s). But see Amar, Unwritten Constitution, supra note 173, at 141–99 (discussing “general fidelity of the Warren Court to the deepest ideals of the written Constitution”); Cross, supra note 14, at 92–98 (highlighting use of originalism by Warren and Burger courts).
233. See Sarah H. Cleveland, Powers Inherent in Sovereignty: Indians, Aliens, Territories, and the Nineteenth Century Origins of Plenary Power over Foreign Affairs, 81 Tex. L. Rev. 1, 250 (2002) (chronicling this trend in “cases over Indians, aliens, and territories”); see also William Baude, Rethinking the Federal Eminent Domain Power, 122 Yale L.J. 1738, 1802–03 (2013) [hereinafter Baude, Rethinking] (suggesting it extended to domestic constitutional disputes as well).
234. Baude, Rethinking, supra note 234, at 1801; see also Michael D. Ramsey, The Constitution’s Text in Foreign Affairs 1–43 (2007) (arguing “inherent” powers idea is “extra-constitutional”). But see Johnathan O’Neill, Originalism in American Law and Politics 24 (2005) (claiming originalism was dominant in late nineteenth century).
235. See John Harrison, The Lawfulness of the Reconstruction Amendments, 68 U. Chi. L. Rev. 375, 390–93 (2001) (arguing Reconstruction purported to comply with constitutional rules); see also Baude, Rethinking, supra note 234, at 1812 (“The Constitution was not abolished and replaced; it was amended.”). But see Ackerman, supra note 75, at 113–15, 241–47 (suggesting enactment process was self-consciously not formalist).
236. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Address on Constitution Day (Sept. 17, 1937), http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15459 [http://perma.cc/2GGU-25PC]; see also Balkin, Living, supra note 59, at 87, 310 (discussing Roosevelt’s invocation of original meaning).
237. See Robert Post & Reva Siegel, Originalism as a Political Practice: The Right’s Living Constitution, 75 Fordham L. Rev. 545, 547, 554–61 (2006) (linking originalism’s “claim of methodological exclusivity” to 1980s political practice). Others have provided this view more pointedly in conversation. Cf. Philip Larkin, Annus Mirabilis, in High Windows 34, 34 (1974).
238. See, e.g., Office of Legal Policy, Original Meaning Jurisprudence: A Sourcebook 2, 50–57 (1987) (claiming originalism has “predominated” for most of American history).
239. For a historical survey of theories on constitutional meaning, see Morton J. Horwitz, Foreword: The Constitution of Change: Legal Fundamentality Without Fundamentalism, 107 Harv. L. Rev. 30, 41–64 (1993).
240. Cf. Greene, Origins, supra note 89, at 87–88 (suggesting increasing demographic diversity and the 2008 financial crisis might revitalize nonoriginalist theories); Meese, supra note 233, at 193 (“I am not sure that originalism has won an enduring victory.”).
241. Supra section II.B.2.
242. U.S. 478 (1964).
243. U.S. (7 How.) 283 (1849).
244. Hart, supra note 80, at 144.
245. This is a moral intuition, not an axiom of legal positivism. Gardner, Legal Positivism, supra note 5, at 213–14. And it brackets the question of indeterminacy. Id. At 211–12. For analysis of the indeterminacy problem by originalists, see Christopher R. Green, Constitutional Theory and the Activismometer: How to Think About Indeterminacy, Restraint, Vagueness, Executive Review, and Precedent, 54 Santa Clara L. Rev. 403, 408–15 (2014); Gary Lawson, Proving the Law, 86 Nw. U. L. Rev. 859, 862–67 (1992).
246. Richard A. Posner, Response, Some Realism About Judges: A Reply to Edwards and Livermore, 59 Duke L.J. 1177, 1181 (2010).
247. Michael W. McConnell, Textualism and the Dead Hand of the Past, 66 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1127, 1129 (1998).
248. See Matthew D. Adler, Social Facts, Constitutional Interpretation, and the Rule of Recognition, in The Rule of Recognition, supra note 111, at 193, 206–09 (noting this pattern); see also William N. Eskridge, Jr., Nino’s Nightmare: Legal Process Theory as a Jurisprudence of Toggling Between Facts and Norms, 57 St. Louis U. L.J. 865, 867 (2013) (“The public face of judging in this country is positivism … .”).
249. Post & Siegel, supra note 238, at 557.
250. Nelson Lund, Stare Decisis and Originalism: Judicial Disengagement from the Supreme Court’s Errors, 19 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 1029, 1029 (2012); see also Ian Bartrum, Two Dogmas of Originalism, 7 Wash. U. Juris. Rev. 157, 179 (2015) (“[T]he originalist protagonists of the 1980s seemed almost to take this point for granted.”); Berman & Toh, New Originalism, supra note 13, at 547 (“Originalists … take for granted—[usually] implicitly in varying degrees—that the law that the Constitution imposes is equivalent to the semantic contents of the inscriptions in the constitutional text, and, consequently, that discerning the semantic contents of the constitutional text is equivalent to discovering the constitutional law.”).
251. See Samaha, Dead Hand Arguments, supra note 77, at 643–45 (arguing little of normative consequence follows from “brute fact” of positive acceptance).
252. See Alexander, Theories, supra note 4, at 642 (noting “one of the two most difficult questions in legal philosophy”: “[H]ow can we be obligated to comply with the law when compliance conflicts with the deliverances of our first-order practical reasoning?”). For accounts, compare Mark Greenberg, The Moral Impact Theory of Law, 123 Yale L.J. 1288 (2014) (arguing law changes our moral obligations), with Claus, supra note 88 (denying this), and Louis Michael Seidman, On Constitutional Disobedience (2012) (same).
253. Re, supra note 4, at 7–23; see also Christopher R. Green, Equal Citizenship, Civil Rights, and the Constitution: The Original Sense of the Privileges or Immunities Clause 25–26 (2015) (providing valuable elaboration).
254. The actual text is: I, _______ _______, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as _______ under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God. 28 U.S.C. § 453 (2012). The “duties” mentioned in the oath have traditionally been understood to require judges to apply the law, as explained by Philip Hamburger, Law and Judicial Duty 316–17 (2008).
255. Re, supra note 4, at 11–14.
256. See, e.g., Larry Alexander, Was Dworkin an Originalist? 14–15 (Univ. of San Diego Sch. of Law, Working Paper No. 15-185, 2015), http://ssrn.com/abstract=2576416 (on file with the Columbia Law Review) (“[C]onsenting or promising … carries no moral weight.”); see also Jeffrey Brand-Ballard, Limits of Legality: The Ethics of Lawless Judging 146–47 (2010) (“[M]oral reasons can undermine or override promissory obligations.”).
257. Re, supra note 4, at 15–23.
258. Id. at 23–36. The “time of the oath” constraint also raises important questions about how judges should conduct themselves when legal revolutions post-date their oath of office, see generally id. at 56–59, but that’s an issue I won’t tackle here.
259. See Brand-Ballard, supra note 257, 156, 157–78 (2010) (distinguishing arguments grounded in “oath” from those grounded in “judicial role” and finding latter more availing).
260. See Baude, Judgment Power, supra note 48, at 1810 (2008) (noting appeal and other review processes “are internal to the Judiciary”).
261. Joseph Raz, On the Authority and Interpretation of Constitutions, in Constitutionalism 152, 160 (Larry Alexander ed., 1998); see also Raz, Authority, supra note 80, at 237 (acknowledging promises and community status can produce special obligations to obey law even if there is no general duty to obey law).
262. Re, supra note 4, at 16.
263. Frank H. Easterbrook, Textualism and the Dead Hand, 66 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1119, 1122 (1998).
264. See Brian Leiter, Book Review, 56 J. Legal Educ. 675, 677 (2006) (reviewing Ronald Dworkin, Justice in Robes (2006) and Exploring Law’s Empire: The Jurisprudence of Ronald Dworkin (Scott Hershovitz ed., 2006)) (“Positivists have always been clear that a judge’s legal duty to apply valid law can be overridden by moral or equitable considerations in any particular case … .”). See generally Amar, Unwritten Constitution, supra note 173, at 419–48 (arguing “conscience” can trump written law in specific circumstances); Robert M. Cover, Justice Accused: Antislavery and the Judicial Process 197–256 (1975) (discussing when opposition to slavery could override obedience to law).
265. Thanks to Alon Harel for making this argument to me. See Case, supra note 201, at 449–50 (comparing originalism to astrology); Steven D. Smith, Decisional Originalism: A Response to Critics, Library of Law & Liberty (Dec. 19, 2014), http://www.libertylawsite.org/liberty-forum/decisional-originalism-a-response-to-critics [http://perma.cc/2WSJ-BQ4Y] (comparing horoscopes and originalism).
266. Selection and Confirmation of Federal Judges: Hearings Before the Comm. On the Judiciary, 96th Cong. 450 (1979) (statement of Sen. Alan Simpson).
267. Id. (statement of J. Pregerson).
268. See Paul M. Collins, Jr. & Lori A. Ringhand, Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings and Constitutional Change 2 (2013) (celebrating confirmation hearings as mechanism of constitutional change); cf. Out of the Past (RKO Radio Pictures 1947) (“I never told you I was anything but what I am. You just wanted to imagine I was.”).
269. Cf. Schauer, Force, supra note 74, at 83–85 (discussing revolutions that created new legal authority).
270. For an argument that such change may not be problematic, see Adam M. Samaha, On the Problem of Legal Change, 103 Geo. L.J. 97, 142 (2014).
271. The question of what kinds of reasoning would falsify is separate from the question of how much of that reasoning is necessary to falsify, a harder question which I won’t resolve here in light of the tentative and provocative nature of this Essay. See Hart, supra note 80, at 144–47, for one possibility.
272. Eric A. Posner & Adrian Vermeule, Terror in the Balance: Security, Liberty, and the Courts (2007).
273. Gary Lawson, Ordinary Powers in Extraordinary Times: Common Sense in Times of Crisis, 87 B.U. L. Rev. 289, 293 (2007).
274. Eric A. Posner & Adrian Vermeule, Originalism and Emergencies: A Reply to Lawson, 87 B.U. L. Rev. 313, 317 (2007).
275. David A. Strauss, Common Law Constitutional Interpretation, 63 U. Chi. L. Rev. 877 (1996).
276. See id. at 886–87, 904–05 (“The vision of the common law is precisely that the law is the product not of a few exceptional lawgivers (or one lawyering generation), but of many generations of lawyers and judges.”).
277. See Steven D. Smith, That Old-Time Originalism, in The Challenge of Originalism: Theories of Constitutional Interpretation 223, 223–24 (Grant Huscroft & Bradley W. Miller eds., 2011) (arguing for less “philosophical sophistication” in originalist interpretation). For related views, see Alicea, supra note 10, at 149–52 (arguing against originalist methods which “reject[] the authority of the past and the duties rightfully imposed by our forebears”).
278. See supra note 39 and accompanying text (discussing several such originalists).
279. G. Alan Tarr, Understanding State Constitutions 194–99 (1998) (drawing comparisons between state constitutions and federal Constitution in originalism analysis).
280. E.g., Caleb Nelson, The Legitimacy of (Some) Federal Common Law, 101 Va. L. Rev. 1, 25–28 (2015).
281. Jack N. Rakove, Original Meanings 96–108 (1996) (discussing adoption by “surrogate legislatures”); Jack N. Rakove, Fidelity Through History (or to It), 65 Fordham L. Rev. 1587, 1603–04 (1997) (same).
282. See G. Alan Tarr, State Constitutional Design and State Constitutional Interpretation, 72 Mont. L. Rev. 7, 14–15 (2011) (describing variation in “changeability” among state constitutions).
283. Jack L. Landau, Some Thoughts About State Constitutional Interpretation, 115 Penn St. L. Rev. 837, 849–50 (2011).
284. See James A. Gardner, Interpreting State Constitutions 226–27 (2005) (“[T]he search for a methodology of state constitutional interpretation must begin with the question: what function have the people of the state in fact assigned to their courts?”).
285. State v. Jenkins, 3 A.3d 806, 854 (Conn. 2010). The phrase seems to have originated in State v. Dukes, 547 A.2d 10, 19 (Conn. 1988).
286. State v. Cannon, 190 A.2d 514, 516 (Del. 1963) (cited in Dukes, 547 A.2d at 19).
287. People v. Nutt, 677 N.W.2d 1, 6 (Mich. 2004).
288. Jack Balkin, Why Are Americans Originalist?, in Law, Society and Community: Socio-Legal Essays in Honour of Roger Cotterrell 309, 309 (Richard Nobles & David Schiff eds., 2015) [hereinafter Balkin, Americans]; see also Kim Lane Scheppele, Jack Balkin Is an American, 25 Yale J.L. & Human. 23 (2013) (highlighting originalism as “distinctively American”).
289. Vicki C. Jackson & Mark Tushnet, Comparative Constitutional Law 652 (2d ed. 2006).
290. See Coan, supra note 2, at 1068–70 (describing large democracies with written constitutions but without originalism).
291. Greene, Origins, supra note 89, at 62.
292. See Balkin, Americans, supra note 289, at 309–10 (distinguishing between “thin version of original meaning” and version offering “exclusive approach to interpretation”—the version “that mystifies many lawyers and judges outside the United States”). But see Coan, supra note 2, at 1070 n.162 (“This seems exceedingly unlikely.”).
293. Edwards v. Attorney General (Persons), [1930] AC 124, 136 (Can. P.C.) (appeal taken from S.C.C.); see also Re Same Sex Marriage, [2004] 3 S.C.R. 698, para. 22 (Can.).
294. See Jack M. Balkin, Nine Perspectives on Living Originalism, 2012 U. Ill. L. Rev. 815, 839 (highlighting Canada’s lack of interest in originalism); Greene, Origins, supra note 89, at 20–40 (explaining living nature of Canada’s Charter); Mark Tushnet, The Charter’s Influence Around the World, 50 Osgoode Hall L.J. 527, 540 (2013) (discussing Canada’s “living tree” constitutional philosophy).
295. E.g., Peter W. Hogg, Canada: Privy Council to Supreme Court, in Interpreting Constitutions: A Comparative Study 55, 83 (Jeffrey Goldsworthy ed., 2006) (“Originalism has never enjoyed any significant support in Canada.”).
296. See Joel C. Bakan, Constitutional Arguments: Interpretation and Legitimacy in Canadian Constitutional Thought, 27 Osgoode Hall L.J. 123, 148–53 (1989) (discussing methods of Canadian constitutional interpretation); see also Vicki C. Jackson, Constitutions as “Living Trees”? Comparative Constitutional Law and Interpretive Metaphors, 75 Fordham L. Rev. 921, 947–54 (2006) (discussing historical basis and boundaries of “living tree” metaphor).
297. Otto Pfersmann, The Only Constitution and Its Many Enemies, in Constitutional Topography: Values and Constitutions 45, 60 (András Sajó & Renáta Uitz eds., 2010).
298. Const. pmbl. (Fr.), available in translation at http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionnel/root/bank_mm/anglais/constiution_anglais_oct2009.pdf [http://perma.cc/33Z2-2RZA]; see Travaux préparatoires de la Constitution du 4 Octobre 1958 (cited in Alec Stone Sweet, The Juridical Coup d’Etat and the Problem of Authority, 8 Ger. L.J. 915, 922 n.20 (2007)).
299. See Conseil constitutionel [CC] [Constitutional Court] décision No. 71-44 DC, July 16, 1971, J.O. 7114 (Fr.); cf. Mila Versteeg, Unpopular Constitutionalism, 89 Ind. L.J. 1133, 1142 n.41 (2014) (noting this case is outlier and globally preambles have not generally been thought justiciable).
300. Pfersmann, supra note 298, at 60. For similar assessments, see Stone Sweet, supra note 299, at 922 (describing this development as “juridical coup d’etat”); Louis Henkin, Revolutions and Constitutions, 49 La. L. Rev. 1023, 1046–47 (1989) (“Constitutional review in France today is probably not what the framers of the French Constitution contemplated.”). 302. Stone Sweet, supra note 299, 919–22, 924–27 (giving these as other examples of “juridicial coup d’état”). For yet another example elsewhere, see S.P. Sathe, India: From Positivism to Structuralism, in Interpreting Constitutions, supra note 296, at 245.
301. Aharon Barak, HaMahapecha HaHukatit: Zechuyot Adam Muganot [The Constitutional Revolution: Protected Human Rights], 1 Law & Gov’t in Isr. 9 (1992–1993) (quoted in Daphne Barak-Erez, From an Unwritten to a Written Constitution: The Israeli Challenge in American Perspective, 26 Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 309, 311 (1995)); see also Itzhak Zamir & Allen Zysblat, Public Law in Israel 47–48 (1996) (describing revolutionary success of Israeli Supreme Court in forging “remarkable statement of basic rights and freedoms”).
302. See Barak Cohen, Empowering Constitutionalism with Text from an Israeli Perspective, 18 Am. U. Int’l L. Rev. 585, 635–36 (2003) (“The fact that the Israeli judiciary ultimately holds responsibility for evaluating subsequently passed Basic Laws against this highly subjective norm imbues the two new Basic Laws with a previously unrealized supralegislative potential for judicial review.”); Menachem Hofnung, The Unintended Consequences of Unplanned Constitutional Reform: Constitutional Politics in Israel, 44 Am. J. Comp. L. 585, 591–99 (1996) (“[T]he High Court was able, by judicial interpretation and judicial activism, to establish in the case law several universal individual and human rights, of the kind that are usually entrenched in national constitutions elsewhere.”); Barak Medina, Four Myths of Judicial Review: A Response to Richard Posner’s Critique of Aharon Barak’s Judicial Activism, 49 Harv. Int’l. L.J. Online 1, 2–3 (2007), available at http://law.huji.ac.il/upload/Medina_response_to_Posner1.pdf [http://perma.cc/3MUJ-7U2F]. But see Hon. Dalia Dorner, Does Israel Have a Constitution?, 43 St. Louis U. L.J. 1325, 1329–30 (1999) (making textual argument).
303. See Jeffrey Goldsworthy, Australia: Devotion to Legalism 144–52, in Interpreting Constitutions, supra note 296, at 106; Jeffrey Goldsworthy, Originalism in Constitutional Interpretation, 25 Fed. L. Rev. 1 (1997) (arguing Australia has “no tradition of nonoriginalist interpretation”); see also Greene, Origins, supra note 89, at 41–62 (calling Australian originalism “faint-hearted”). These sources should be noted with the caveat, thanks to David Fontana, Comparative Originalism, 88 Tex. L. Rev. See Also 189, 192–93 (2010), http://www.texaslrev.com/wp-content/uploads/Fontana-88-TLRSA-189.pdf [http://perma.cc/QZ8Q-R2NG] that one not confuse what foreign scholars say with what foreign courts do.
304. See Yvonne Tew, Originalism at Home and Abroad, 51 Colum. J. Transnat’l L. 780, 800–31 (2014) (describing constitutional culture in Malaysia and Singapore); Ozan O. Varol, The Origins and Limits of Originalism: A Comparative Study, 44 Vand. J. Transnat’l L. 1239, 1252–87 (2011) (describing constitutional culture in Turkey).
305. Berman, Bunk, supra note 1, at 10 n.21.
306. Michael Dorf, Integrating Normative and Descriptive Constitutional Theory: The Case of Original Meaning, 85 Geo. L.J. 1765, 1766 (1997).
307. Philip Bobbitt, Constitutional Fate: Theory of the Constitution 12–22 (1982) [hereinafter Bobbitt, Fate]. Bobbitt calls it the “historical modality,” which he distinguishes from the “textual modality.” There is much to quibble with in his descriptions, but my point is only that he does not deny its status as a mode of legal argument in the United States.
308. Solum, Semantic, supra note 80, at 2–12 (arguing rules of constitutional law include at least some content “fixed by the original public meaning of the text”).
309. Fallon, Constructivist Coherence Theory, supra note 12, at 1194.
310. Bobbitt, Fate, supra note 309, at 7–8, 93.
311. Bobbitt, Interpretation, supra note 11, at 155.
312. Phillip C. Bobbitt, The Age of Consent, 123 Yale L.J. 2334, 2372 (2014) [hereinafter Bobbitt, Consent]; see also Bobbitt, Fate, supra note 309, at 58 (“[Modalities] do not seem to mesh with each other and do not join issue on a common ground according to common rules.”).
313. Bobbitt, Interpretation, supra note 11, at 22; see also J.M. Balkin & Sanford Levinson, Constitutional Grammar, 72 Tex. L. Rev. 1771, 1790 (1994) (“Bobbitt believes that orginalists make a fundamental mistake. They convert what is only one modality of constitutional argument into a criterion for all constitutional interpretation.”).
314. Bobbitt, Consent, supra note 314, at 2370 n.137. For more instances of ambiguity, compare Philip Bobbitt, Reflections Inspired by My Critics, 72 Tex. L. Rev. 1869, 1874 (1994) (“I reserved the resolution of such conflicts for the conscience of the decider.”), id. (“Of course, the decider had to be conscientious in the first place.”). See also Bartrum, Metaphors and Modalities, supra note 11, at 159 & n.13 (discussing Bobbitt’s conception of “conscience”).
315. See Bobbitt, Interpretation, supra note 11, at 106–10 (“[T]he constitutional case against the nomination had been made.”); see also Balkin & Levinson, supra note 315, at 1793–94 (interpreting this passage).
316. Antonin Scalia, Originalism: The Lesser Evil, 57 U. Cinn. L. Rev. 849, 864 (1989) [hereinafter Scalia, Lesser Evil].
317. Marcia Coyle, The Roberts Court: The Struggle for the Constitution 165 (2013).
318. See generally Bobbitt, Fate, supra note 309, at 59–73, 93–122.
319. Antonin Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation 140 (Amy Gutmann ed., 1997).
320. See Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law 414 (2012) (“[Stare decisis] is an exception to textualism … born not of logic but of necessity.”). But see also id. (“Stare decisis has been a part of our law from time immemorial … .”).
321. Cf. Mitchell N. Berman, Judge Posner’s Simple Law, 113 Mich. L. Rev. 777, 804 (2015) (“[N]either Scalia nor Garner is a legal theorist, and many things they say that touch on theory are just confused. So some charitable reconstruction is called for.”).
322. See Adler, Contestation, supra note 77, at 1121–24 (summarizing deep contestation over interpretive methodology); Balkin & Levinson, supra note 315, at 1790 (“[T]here may be no consensus concerning whether debates about the legitimate forms of constitutional argument are themselves a legitimate part of constitutional discourse.”).
323. Hart, supra note 80, at 272–76.
324. Larry Alexander, Telepathic Law, 27 Const. Comment. 139, 146–47 (2010) [hereinafter Alexander, Telepathic].
325. Id. at 147. For a counterpoint, see Berman & Toh, Combinability, supra note 13, at 1762–84 (arguing there is nothing incoherent about absence of a meta-rule).
326. Accord Alexander, Telepathic, supra note 326, at 147 (“At most, considerations of justice can be invoked when an authoritative standard needs to be given content, or invoked as evidence of original meaning. All of the other modalities mentioned by Bobbitt and others, can, I believe, be shown to be derivative of original meaning or precedent.”).
327. See Brian Leiter, Constitutional Law, Moral Judgment, and the Supreme Court as Super-Legislature, 66 Hastings L.J. 1601, 1601 (2015) (arguing “there is very little actual ‘law’ in federal constitutional law in the United States” and Supreme Court therefore “operates as a kind of super-legislature, albeit one with limited jurisdiction.”).
328. Baude, Bear Principle, supra note 221.
329. Id. Versions of the bear joke are regularly told by Justice Scalia. See Stephen Breyer, Making Our Democracy Work: The Yale Lectures, 120 Yale L.J. 1999, 2014 (2011); Charles Fried, On Judgment, 15 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 1025, 1034 (2011). He has put the point less colorfully in print. See Scalia, Lesser Evil, supra note 318, at 855.
330. Eric Posner, Originalism Class 7: The Evolving Constitution, at http://ericposner.com/originalism-class-7-alternatives-to-originalism/ [http://perma.cc/MY8U-R328] (“I prefer Waldron’s view that judicial review should be junked altogether … . Alas, Waldron’s position is as remote from American reality as Mars.” (discussing Jeremy Waldron, The Core of the Case Against Judicial Review, 115 Yale L.J. 1346 (2006))).
331. Breyer, supra note 331, at 2014.
332. Cf. Cass R. Sunstein, Must Formalism Be Defended Empirically?, 66 U. Chi. L. Rev. 636, 657–58 (1999).