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Cumberland on Originalism in a Nutshell

By Lawrence Solum

Emily C. Cumberland has posted Originalism, in a Nutshell on the Internet. Here is a taste:

What is originalism? It is a bedrock of constitutional interpretation for federalists, but many have found it difficult to define comprehensively what it means. Originalism is, broadly speaking, a catchall term for methods of constitutional interpretation principled on fidelity to the Constitution. It represents not one school of thought but a spectrum of theories about how the Constitution should be interpreted. There is no solid consensus as to when originalism became a formally-recognized method of constitutional interpretation, although at least one account credits Paul Brest with coining the term in ?The Misconceived Quest for Original Understanding? in 1980. Another account claims then-Attorney General Edwin Meese III first publicized originalism in a speech before the American Bar Association in 1985.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on April 09, 2010 (boomark / email).