Myth: The Constitution was intended to change with society, as society progressed. Its meaning is very flexible, and so it should be interpreted by the courts in such a way as to reflect the sensibilities and priorities of the current generation, as well as deal with new problems that can arise that the Founders could not have anticipated.
Truth: The Founders realized that the Constitution they drafted was not a perfect document. They realized that, as the country expanded and developed, changes and additions would become necessary. To this end, they established a procedure for changing and adding to the language of the Constitution.
Conservatively reasoning that change is not inherently good, the amendment process they put in place is a time consuming and difficult process requiring widespread willingness to change. This process for changing the Constitution protects its standing as the supreme law of the land – if the meaning of the Constitution can change, whoever is responsible for that change has more authority than the Constitution itself.
The Constitution means and always will mean what it meant when it was adopted. Modern liberals advocate a “living, breathing Constitution,” allowing the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution according to their opinions or “social norms.” They accuse those who hold to original intent analysis of a slavish devotion to the Founders. The Founders themselves, however, realized that the Constitution would need to adapt and, realizing that the power to change the Constitution needed to be divided in order to maintain it as supreme law of the land, included a process where original intent could be maintained and the Constitution could be changed. Returning to original intent analysis of the Constitution does not mean it could never be changed, but merely that the words, absent a desired and properly executed amendment process, cannot be changed to whatever meaning a particular group decides to force upon them.
While any written constitution could not anticipate all the problems that could come up centuries later, we can infer how the Constitution’s general principles apply to a modern dilemmas. Our Constitutional interpretation must give the text the meaning it had when it was adopted. We can do this through studying Original Intent: the writings of its authors, the records of the Constitutional Convention, the official records of the state ratification conventions, and the public debates surrounding them. Where the Constitution is not clear enough or needs to address a specific issue, it can be fixed by amending the Constitution in accordance with the 5th Amendment.
In cases where the people of America believe a change should be made to the Constitution, they can attempt to pass a Constitutional amendment. Using the Supreme Court to try to force the Constitution into saying something that it did not originally intend or to enact constitutional change runs the risk of judicial tyranny. The United States has averted tyranny by dividing political power between several branches of government all under the rule of the Constitution. To allow any of the branches to rise above the Constitution by altering or adding to it is to accept that branch as the supreme lawmaker or the land. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and can only be changed according to its rules.
