We the People cover image

The Modern History of Originalism

We the People

CHAPTER

The Moral Argument for Adopting a Written Constitution

Sharif: For me, there are lots of different ways you could set up a system. I would include not just the original meaning, but the original criteria for interpretation or to the extent that they've been lawfully changed since then. The main reason to adopt a written constitution is that we face a bunch of crucial choices that we have to make as a community. So it's precisely our expectation of future disagreements about what's morally or politically justified that leads us to tie our hand by a text adopted in the past.

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