Books, Arts & Manners: Unchecked, Unbalanced

Original Intent and the Framers’ Constitution, by Leonard W. Levy (Macmillan, 525 pp., $19.95)

‘HISTORY can only be a guide, not a controlling force,” writes Leonard Levy in this blistering, sometimes bilious attack on what Edwin Meese called “the jurisprudence of original intent.” Professor Levy is an indispensable historian of the Constitution, and he wants to show that the intention of the Framers (when it can be ascertained at all) is as embarrassing to conservatives as it obviously is to his fellow liberals. He stops short of saying that original intent is irrelevant to interpreting the Constitution, but he argues that since it can’t be adhered to strictly, we should resign ourselves to a certain amount of judicial subjectivity.

Original Intent and the Framers’ Constitution, by Leonard W. Levy (Macmillan, 525 pp., $19.95)

‘HISTORY can only be a guide, not a controlling force,” writes Leonard Levy in this blistering, sometimes bilious attack on what Edwin Meese called “the jurisprudence of original intent.” Professor Levy is an indispensable historian of the Constitution, and he wants to show that the intention of the Framers (when it can be ascertained at all) is as embarrassing to conservatives as it obviously is to his fellow liberals. He stops short of saying that original intent is irrelevant to interpreting the Constitution, but he argues that since it can’t be adhered to strictly, we should resign ourselves to a certain amount of judicial subjectivity.