
Against Constitutional Originalism
A Historical Critique
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Narrated by:
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Josh Innerst
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By:
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Jonathan Gienapp
About this listen
Constitutional originalism stakes law to history. The theory's core tenet—that the United States Constitution should be interpreted according to its original meaning—has us decide questions of modern constitutional law by consulting the distant constitutional past. Yet originalist engagement with history is often deeply problematic. And now that a majority of justices on the United States Supreme Court champion originalism, the task of scrutinizing originalists' use and abuse of history has never been more urgent.
In this comprehensive and novel critique of originalism, Jonathan Gienapp targets originalists' unspoken assumptions about the Constitution and its history. Originalists are committed to recovering the Constitution laid down at the American Founding, yet they often assume that the Constitution is fundamentally modern. Rather than recovering the original Constitution, they project their own understandings onto it, assuming that eighteenth-century constitutional thinking was no different than their own. They take for granted what it meant to write a constitution down, what law was, how it worked, and where it came from, and how a constitution's meaning was fixed. In the process, they erase the Constitution that eighteenth-century Americans in fact created. By understanding how originalism fails, we can better understand the Constitution that we have.
©2024 Jonathan Gienapp (P)2024 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Chicken Soup for the Political Soul
- By Gracie on 05-22-25
By: Elie Mystal
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The Longest Con
- How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism
- By: Joe Conason
- Narrated by: Steve Marvel
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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The Longest Con tells the fascinating story of the partisan con artists who have corrupted conservative politics in our time, creating a toxic phenomenon that culminated in the election of Donald Trump, a bumptious fraud whose checkered career and tawdry retinue, including his presidential cabinet, have featured almost every variety of scam. But long before he appeared, Trump's path to power was blazed by the motley horde of swindlers and quacks who preceded him.
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America Needs to Know the Truth and Dangers of Trump
- By Tiberius on 12-01-24
By: Joe Conason
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Peter the Great
- His Life and World
- By: Robert K. Massie
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 43 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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This superbly told story brings to life one of the most remarkable rulers––and men––in all of history and conveys the drama of his life and world. The Russia of Peter's birth was very different from the Russia his energy, genius, and ruthlessness shaped. Crowned co-Tsar as a child of ten, after witnessing bloody uprisings in the streets of Moscow, he would grow up propelled by an unquenchable curiosity, everywhere looking, asking, tinkering, and learning, fired by Western ideas.
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Narrater ruins everything
- By BrendaLouQuilts on 12-30-11
By: Robert K. Massie
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The British Are Coming
- The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 (The Revolution Trilogy, Book 1)
- By: Rick Atkinson
- Narrated by: George Newbern, Rick Atkinson - introduction
- Length: 26 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Rick Atkinson recounts the first 21 months of America’s violent war for independence. From the battles at Lexington and Concord in spring 1775 to those at Trenton and Princeton in winter 1777, American militiamen and then the ragged Continental Army take on the world’s most formidable fighting force. Full of riveting details and untold stories, The British Are Coming is a tale of heroes and knaves, of sacrifice and blunder, of redemption and profound suffering. Rick Atkinson has given stirring new life to the first act of our country’s creation drama.
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Where are the Maps?
- By George Reid on 07-08-19
By: Rick Atkinson
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Erasing History
- By: Jason Stanley
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Combining historical research with an in-depth analysis of our modern political landscape, Erasing History issues a dire warning for America and the world: the worst fascist movements of humanity’s past began in schools; the same place so many of today’s right-wing political parties have trained their most vicious attacks. Yale professor Jason Stanley exposes the true danger of the right’s tactics and traces their inspirations and funding back to some of the most dangerous ideas of human history.
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The bias attitude of the author
- By Elizabeth ohanna on 09-30-24
By: Jason Stanley
Title of my review
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Gienapp lays bare the contradictory logic employed by Originalists in their attempts to discern the meaning of the Constitution solely from the text itself—the author illustrates repeatedly how Originalists fold their own reasoning back onto itself, and end up themselves unwittingly making the case for a living Constitution. Originalists slights of hand with the text do them no favors, such as their tendency to ignore the Constitution's Preamble and its emphasis on "We the People." Gienapp demonstrates that the text can only be understood in its Eighteenth Century meaning, the context of which Originalists lose altogether by interpreting the words in the Constitution through a modern day perspective that was unheard of in 1787.
Although many significant advancements in human rights were achieved by the Warren Court of the 1960s (over and against recalcitrant legislatures), an opposite Court now is in place—and taking legislative initiative may be the way forward in the 21st Century. As US Courts become increasingly right wing with more judicial benches stacked with Originalist activists, Gienapp's observations that the Founders considered actual policy decisions to be in the political realm of the legislature is a point worth rediscovering—and acting upon.
Constitutional Originalism is judicial chicanery
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Turgid Treatise
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