Given National Review’s consistent 70-year stance against having the courts find novel constitutional rights in our Constitution, it’s appropriate in this special issue to investigate the left’s renewed efforts to make originalism a smear word. Often the critics won’t say what, precisely, they mean by the term. Instead, they vaguely equate the term with Supreme Court outcomes they detest — especially by the conservative majority. The latest sortie is by the Harvard historian Jill Lepore in the October issue of The Atlantic.
As a long admirer of Jill Lepore’s writing, I was at first delighted to see her piece sporting the title “Amend It!” on the cover together with most of what appears below it: “The authors of the Constitution believed that it could, and should, change over time. The process of amendment is built into the document. Why have we abandoned — and all but forgotten — this essential tool?”
Comments