What is the point of writing a constitution unless you intend it to be applied as faithfully as possible? The founding fathers don’t need Mr. Jackson to come to their defense. No one has accused them of being terrified of change. They deliberately provided a constitutional process for amending the Constitution.
In fact, the founding fathers provided a second mechanism for amending the Constitution: It requires Congress to call a constitutional convention to propose amendments when two-thirds of the states apply for such a convention. But if you mention that option, you will find all the liberals running as fast as they can in the other direction. Who exactly is terrified of change?
Liberals don’t want “we the people” to amend the Constitution in the ways prescribed by the founding fathers. They want liberal justices to stealthily amend the Constitution. That has worked for them in the past. Mr. Jackson’s prescription—“effective governance lies somewhere between revisionism and textualism”—is completely vacuous. Who would get to choose when the text controls and when revision is called for?
IAN MAITLAND
Minneapolis
Note from KBJ: As I explained in my Ph.D. dissertation (entitled "Constitutional Interpretation") many years ago, interpretation lies between discovery and invention. It is both constrained (by the text) and creative (in that texts are vague and ambiguous). There will always be debates (theories) about how to interpret the United States Constitution. This is a good thing, not a bad thing.
