ATLANTIC  |  ideas

How Originalism Killed the Constitution

原义主义如何毁灭了宪法

How Originalism Killed the Constitution
2025-09-10  10450  晦涩
字体大小

bushy-browed, pipe-smoking, piano-playing Antonin Scalia—Nino—the scourge of the left, knew how to work a crowd. He loved opera; he loved theater; he loved show tunes. In high school, he played the lead role in Macbeth: “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition.” As clever as he was combative, Scalia, short and stocky, was known, too, for his slightly terrifying energy and for his eviscerating sense of humor. He fished and hunted: turkeys and ducks, deer and boar, alligators. He loved nothing better than a dictionary. He argued to win. He was one of the Supreme Court’s sharpest writers and among its severest critics. “It’s hard to get it right,” he’d tell his clerks, sending back their drafts; they had that engraved on a plaque. Few justices have done more to transform American jurisprudence, not only from the bench but also from the seminar table, the lecture hall, and the eerie velveteen intimacy of the television stage. He gave one speech so often that he kept its outline, scribbled on a scrap of paper, tucked in his suit pocket. The Constitution is not a living document, he’d say. “It’s dead. Dead, dead, dead!”

请登录后继续阅读完整文章

还没有账号?立即注册

成为会员后您将享受无限制的阅读体验,并可使用更多功能,了解更多


免责声明:本文来自网络公开资料,仅供学习交流,其观点和倾向不代表本站立场。