Live at the National Constitution Center

For or Against Constitutional Originalism?: A Debate


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Stanford University professor Jonathan Gienapp, author of the new book, Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique, is joined by Stephen Sachs of Harvard Law School to discuss Gienapp’s challenge to originalists’ unspoken assumptions about the Constitution, the history of originalism as a constitutional methodology, and its role in constitutional interpretation today. Thomas Donnelly, chief content officer at the National Constitution Center, moderates.



Additional Resources
  • Jonathan Gienapp, “Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique” (2024)
  • Stephen Sachs and Will Baude, “Originalism and the Law of the Past” (Law and History Review, 2019)
  • Michael Stokes Paulsen and Vasen Kesavan, “Is West Virginia Unconstitutional?” (90 Cal L. Rev. 291, 2002)
  • William Baude, Jud Campbell, and Stephen Sachs, “General Law and the Fourteenth Amendment” (76 Stanford L. Rev 1185, 2024)
  • Jud Campbell, “Four Views of the Nature of the Union” (47 Harvard J. Law & Public Policy 2, 2024)
  • Fletcher v. Peck (1810)
  • District of Columbia v. Heller (2008)
  • United States v. Rahimi (2024)



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