Constitutional Law

Coming Soon: Keeping Faith with the Constitution

This Friday, ACS will release two books on the Constitution and constitutional interpretation. Keeping Faith with the Constitution, a book that provides a compelling and common-sense approach to constitutional interpretation, will offer a counter to the proponents of originialism.

Keeping Faith by scholars Goodwin Liu, Pamela S. Karlan and Christopher H. Schroeder, examines the text and history of the Constitution to show how the Framers inscribed the fundamental values of liberty, equality and democracy into the document. It also offers an approach to interpreting the Constitution that the authors call 'constitutional fidelity,' which as the Framers envisioned, applies the Constitution's broad principles to a changing society and enables the document to retain its relevance an authority over time.

The authors also explain why this approach is more faithful to the Constitution than 'originalism' or so-called 'strict construction.' ACS will also release a companion volume called It Is a Constitution We Are Expounding: Collected Writings on Interpreting Our Founding Document, which includes a foreword by Professor Laurence H. Tribe. The book is edited by Pamela Harris and Karl Thompson and includes excerpts from the most influential writings on constitutional interpretation, culled from Supreme Court decisions and other opinions, writings and speeches by justices, judges, scholars and others.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on April 27, 2009 (boomark / email).