Constitutional Interpretation

A friend of mine is a lawyer for the Securities Exchange Commission in Washington. He once told me that he found it beautiful that the Constitution could be interpreted in so many different ways. He seemed to find comfort in that. I could say my father finds comfort in what he believes, which is the direct opposite. He is a originalist and clings to exactly what was penned on those pages so many years ago. As I recently wrote, Thomas Jefferson once entertained the possibility of what he called a 'sovereign generation'. By that term, he meant that each generation changed in scope, in beliefs, and in values. Subsequently, new laws should be drafted to accommodate the change.

Originalists cloak their personal beliefs with those of our forefathers. They seem to forget the references in those prized documents that acknowledge and legalize slavery and shun women's rights. I find no problem with what they fight for. I believe slavery is wrong. I am against abortion (surprised?). I believe that people should be able to protect their families. However, I do not pretend that our founding fathers meant for us to take their words to further our own unique generational problems. They had no looking glass, no master plan and certainly no pretenses of what the future of our country would hold. Carrying no misgivings, they knew that what rights they granted in the Constitution and even in the amendments would not cover the vast scope of problems brought forth by the citizenry. They most certainly laid a firm foundation, and America built off that model. The new model was cast from a democratic mold and smashed the old, which was one grounded in the aristocracy and feudal system that reigned supreme in Europe since the Middle Ages.

Jefferson's theory is essentially what transpires these days, albeit in a much disguised version. The law is not rewritten; indeed to do so would ensnare our legal system in a state of constant gridlock. Instead, laws are proposed and reinterpreted over the course of many years and spanning generations. Take the case of Brown vs. Board of Education, and what eventually gave black Americans equal ground when it came to education. That was the result of a long fight that started with the Emancipation Proclamation and ended with black Americans finally having recognition in one more arena of modern American life. Considering Jefferson's storied history with Sally Hemings and his own personal utopian tendencies he carried in that classical cranium of his, I imagine that he would have been pleased with the modern result.