#originalism

#originalism

One of the Constitution's founding purposes was to prevent change. But another was to allow for change without violence. Amendment is a constitution's mechanism for the prevention of insurrection-the only way to change the fundamentals of government without recourse to rebellion. Amendment is so essential to the American constitutional tradition-so methodical and so entirely a conception of endurance through adaptation-­that it can best be described as a philosophy. It is, at this point, a philosophy all but forgotten.

A 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.