That’s the title of a very interesting essay by originalist scholar Joel Alicea in the new issue of National Affairs. Alicea argues that a sound originalism “insist[s] on obedience to the past in order to vindicate the sovereignty of the living.” He warns against a “new trend in originalism”—represented, he argues, by the work of Randy Barnett and Jack Balkin—that “self-consciously rejects the authority of the past” and has “internalized the basic assumptions of living constitutionalism.”

As you might expect, the divide that Alicea sketches between an originalism that is obedient to the past and one that “elevat[es] instead the will of the present and the ideologies of its theorists” largely mirrors the divide between conservative (judicial-restraint) originalism, on the one hand, and libertarian and progressive versions of originalism, on the other. Claims by libertarian and progressive originalists that the Constitution bars states from defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman illustrate Alicea’s concern that these versions have collapsed into living constitutionalism.