by David F. Forte Reprinted from the Heritage Foundation An
excerpt from The Heritage Guide to the Constitution Written
constitutionalism implies that those who make, interpret, and
enforce the law ought to be guided by the meaning of the United
States Constitution–the supreme law of the land–as it was
originally written. This view came to be seriously eroded over
the course of the last century with the rise of the theory of
the Constitution as a “living document” with no fixed meaning,
subject to changing interpretations according to the spirit of
the times. In 1985, Attorney General Edwin Meese III delivered a
series of speeches challenging the then-dominant view of
constitutional jurisprudence and calling for judges to embrace a
“jurisprudence of original intention.” There ensued a vigorous
debate in the academy, as well as in the popular press, and in
Congress itself over the prospect of an “originalist”
interpretation of the Constitution. Some critics found the idea
too vague to be pinned down; others be