Over the last several days, I’ve found myself going down a rabbit hole studying a constitutional philosophy known as originalism. I’ll admit, it wasn’t something I had spent a great deal of time researching before. Like many Americans, I’d heard the term thrown around in political debates, usually as either praise or criticism depending on which side was speaking. But once I actually sat down and read what originalism is—and, just as importantly, what it is not—I began to appreciate why it has become such an important part of our national conversation.

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At its core, originalism is fairly straightforward. It holds that the Constitution should be interpreted according to the original public meaning of its words at the time they were adopted. That does not mean America must somehow return to the eighteenth century, nor does it require pretending that modern technology or contemporary problems do not exist. It simply means the meaning of the Constitution should not change because our politics do.

That distinction is important.

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I am fully aware that society changes. Technology evolves. New legal questions arise that the Founders could never have imagined. The internet, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and social media were obviously beyond their comprehension. But I believe there is a meaningful difference between applying an enduring constitutional principle to a new circumstance and redefining the principle itself.

That is where my concern begins.

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As a black conservative Christian, I often hear people speak about the Constitution as though it should be molded to fit whatever political movement currently enjoys cultural momentum. Whether the issue is on the left or the right, I find that way of thinking unsettling. A Constitution that changes its meaning according to the passions of the moment eventually ceases to function as a Constitution at all. It becomes little more than a mirror reflecting whichever ideology happens to be winning at the time.

That was never its purpose.

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The Constitution was written to place limits on government—not simply to organize it. It was designed to create stability in a nation that understood political passions come and go. Elections change. Presidents change. Congress changes. Public opinion changes. The Constitution was intended to be the stable foundation underneath all of it.

If that foundation begins shifting every time society develops a new political preference, then constitutional rights stop being rights and become temporary privileges dependent upon judicial philosophy and cultural trends.

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History gives us plenty of reasons to be cautious about allowing rights to fluctuate with popular opinion. Majorities are not always wise. Cultural consensus is not always moral. Public sentiment often defended ideas we now recognize as profound injustices. One generation may celebrate something another generation later condemns.

That is precisely why constitutional government matters.

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Its purpose is not to eliminate disagreement. Its purpose is to establish enduring rules that survive disagreement, ones rooted in objective morality.

One example that comes to mind is the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Act addressed one of the greatest moral failures in American history by prohibiting discrimination in employment, education, and public accommodations. It represented an extraordinary effort to guarantee equal treatment under the law, particularly for black Americans who had long been denied rights already promised by the Constitution. That original purpose should never be forgotten.

At the same time, it is fair to ask whether every modern interpretation of civil rights law reflects the intent of the legislation as it was enacted. Reasonable people disagree about that question, and they should be able to do so without immediately being accused of bad faith.

Some argue that broad statutory language naturally applies to new circumstances that Congress could not specifically anticipate. Others contend that certain interpretations have expanded the law beyond what Congress intended, effectively creating new legal obligations that legislators themselves never debated or approved.

Whether one agrees with either position is almost secondary to the constitutional principle involved.

Who is supposed to make those decisions?

Should sweeping changes in public policy primarily come through elected representatives accountable to voters? Or should they emerge through judicial interpretation that extends existing statutes into areas Congress never explicitly addressed?

Constitutional republics function best when major policy questions are answered through legislation rather than judicial innovation, and it’s exactly how ours was designed to work. If Americans believe new legal protections are necessary, then our elected representatives possess both the authority and the responsibility to debate those proposals openly. If constitutional change itself is required, amendments can be added in one of two ways—a process which is intentionally difficult.

Some view that as a weakness, but I view it as wisdom.

The Founders understood that liberty requires stability every bit as much as it requires freedom. They intentionally made constitutional change difficult because they recognized that temporary passions often produce permanent consequences. That principle remains just as relevant today as it was more than two centuries ago.

Too often, we have become comfortable asking not, “What does the Constitution say?” but rather, “How can the Constitution be interpreted to support what I already believe?” Those are fundamentally different questions. The first seeks truth. The second seeks validation.

A constitutional republic cannot survive if interpretation becomes little more than political preference dressed up as legal reasoning.

That concern applies regardless of who occupies the White House or which party controls Congress. Principles that allow one side to stretch constitutional meaning today inevitably allow the other side to do the same tomorrow. If we celebrate constitutional elasticity only when it produces outcomes we personally like, we have abandoned constitutional consistency altogether.

That is a dangerous precedent for any free people.

Perhaps that is why originalism has become increasingly compelling to me. Not because it promises conservative outcomes in every case—it doesn’t—but because it begins with a simple question that every judge, lawyer, legislator, and citizen should ask before anything else:

What does the Constitution actually say?

Everything else should come afterward.

Image generated by ChatGPT.