![]() ![]() The attorney general reiterated the theme of “original intention” in a speech to the Federalist Society, saying that interpreting the Constitution’s “spirit” instead of its words invited the danger of “seeing the Constitution as an empty vessel into which each generation may pour its passion and prejudice.” He charged that the current judicial activism was not faithful to the written Constitution. Dick Howard, a professor of law at the University of Virginia, and “Mr. ![]() “There is a sense that a sea change is upon us,” commented A. Meese calmly responded that he welcomed Brennan to the widening legal debate about the Constitution. ![]() when he described the constitutional views endorsed by Meese as “little more than arrogance cloaked as humility.” Defending his judicial activism, Brennan stressed the need to adapt the Constitution “to cope with current problems and current needs.” ![]() They hailed Supreme Court Associate Justice William J. They protested that the Meese Justice Department was engaging in a “badly disguised attempt” to limit the constitutional rights of minorities. The reactions of the proponents of an ever evolving “living constitution” ranged from the incredulous to the furious. 5, at noon, The Heritage Foundation will host an event, “ The Originalism Revolution Turns 30: Evaluating Its Impact and Future Influence on the Law,” featuring Meese. And in a speech to the Knights of Columbus, the largest Catholic lay group in America, Meese argued that it “begs credulity” that American values cannot be “religious in nature.”īy removing from public education and discourse all references to traditional religion and substituting the morality of the cult of self, he warned, “we run the risk of subordinating all other religions to a new secular religion which is a far cry from the traditional values … which underlie the American people.” Wade decision legalizing abortion on demand be overturned. The Department of Justice under Meese kept up the pressure by filing a “friend of the court” brief with the Supreme Court asking that the 1973 Roe v. Roosevelt to question how the Constitution ought to be interpreted and to recognize there is a role for the executive branch in “shaping the form of jurisprudence.” In challenging the Supreme Court, legal scholar Bruce Fein pointed out, Meese was the first attorney general since Robert Jackson under President Franklin D. It is fair to conclude, he said, that far too many of the court’s opinions were “more policy choices than articulations of long-term constitutional principles.” Instead, Meese said, the high court should employ a “Jurisprudence of Original Intention”-a return to the intent of the authors of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In a July 1985 speech to the American Bar Association, Meese declared that the Supreme Court had engaged in too much policymaking in its latest term and showed too little “deference to what the Constitution-its text and intonation-may demand.” Meese, the Ronald Reagan distinguished fellow emeritus at The Heritage Foundation, began by targeting the most visible violator of the principle of originalism. His goal was to persuade judges, even Supreme Court judges, to agree they should respect the text of the Constitution and the intent of the Founders who wrote it. Three decades ago, then-Attorney General Edwin Meese III initiated a spirited national debate about the proper application of our most important governing document-the U.S. ![]()
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