The Invisible Constitution in Comparative Perspective

Requirement One: The set of operative constitutional doctrines must be 

consistent with the set that would directly translate the communicative 

content of the text into doctrine and the logical implications of that set 

(together the “direct translation set”), and the decision of constitutional 

cases must be consistent with that set.

Requirement Two: All of the communicative content of the constitutional 

text and its logical implications must be reflected in the legal content of 

constitutional doctrine.

Requirement Three: All of the content of constitutional doctrine must be 

fairly traceable to the direct translation set, where traceable content 

includes precisifications, implementation rules, and default rules pre-

supposed (or otherwise supported) by the text.

Qualification One: The requirements in (1) and (2) operate only to the 

extent that the communicative content of the constitutional text is epis-

temically accessible; they are not violated by departures from unknown 

communicative content until such time as the content becomes known.

Qualification Two: If the requirements of constraint are not satisfied, then 

constitutional practice should be brought into compliance with con-

straint over time, giving due regard to the effects of constitutional change, 

including effects on the rule of law.

Qualification Three: The requirements of constraint are defeasible in lim-

ited and extraordinary circumstances, as specified by the best theory of 

defeasibility.

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The topic of defeasibility is important but, for the most part, I will bracket the question of 

defeasibility conditions in this chapter.

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Originalism and the Invisible Constitution 

73

Constraint as Consistency can be thought of as a minimalist version of the 

Constraint Principle – the version that almost all originalists can accept and 

that (by stipulation) “nonoriginalists” reject.

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 Some originalists may affirm 

more robust versions of constraint: for example, some originalists might require 

that all the content of constitutional doctrine must be identical to or logically 

implied by the communicative content of the constitutional text. That version 

of constraint would be inconsistent with any notion of an invisible or unwrit-

ten constitution, because it leaves no room for extra-textual sources to play a 

role in the articulation of constitutional law.

Together the Fixation Thesis and the Constraint Principle (in the form 

of “Constraint as Consistency”) express the core of contemporary originalist 

thought. These are the ideas upon which almost all originalists agree as the 

minimum core of originalism. As the historical evolution of originalist thought 

demonstrates, there is another topic upon which originalists disagree. We can 

introduce this topic via a question: what determines original meaning? In this 

chapter, I will focus on one answer to this question – the version of originalism 

that is usually called “public meaning originalism.”

3.3.  Public Meaning Originalism

The history of originalism includes a set of variations on the theme of original 

meaning. Some originalists have emphasized the original intentions of the 

framers, others the original understanding of the ratifiers, and others the origi-

nal public meaning of the constitutional text.

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 This chapter will adopt public 

meaning originalism as the model version of originalism for two reasons. First, 

public meaning originalism is the dominant form of originalism in contempo-

rary originalist scholarship.

25

 Second, for reasons that I have explored at length 

in other work, I believe that public meaning originalism is the best candidate 

23 

In the text, I stipulate that “originalism” is a family of theories unified by fixation and  

constraint and that “nonoriginalism” refers to theories that reject constraint. A more adequate  

account of the divide between originalists and nonoriginalists would acknowledge the possibility 

of forms of nonoriginalism that reject the Fixation Thesis but accept the Constraint Principle. 

Moreover, the word “originalism” is the subject of metalinguistic negotiation or contestation: 

the meaning of the word is disputed. On the idea of metalinguistic negotiation, see David 

Plunkett and Timothy Sundell, “Disagreement and the Semantics of Normative and Evalua-

tive Terms” (2013) 13 Philosophers’ Imprint 23; David Plunkett and Timothy Sundell, “Dwor-

kin’s Interpretivism and the Pragmatics of Legal Disputes” (2013) 19 Legal Theory 

>3; David 

Plunkett and Timothy Sundell, “Antipositivist Arguments from Legal Thought and Talk: The 

Metalinguistic Response” in Graham Hubb and Douglas Lind (eds.), Pragmatism, Law, and