The Invisible Constitution in Comparative Perspective

3.6.8.  Nonconstitutional Texts

Should originalists embrace arguments that use nonconstitutional texts as 

sources of constitutional doctrine? For example, should originalists embrace 

arguments that derive the legal content of constitutional doctrine from the 

Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of York, Blackstone’s Commentaries, 

or the Federalist Papers? Various versions of these questions have been the 

subject of vigorous debate. For example, Lee Strang has argued that the 

Declaration of Independence should not be viewed as an independent source 

of constitutional norms,

66

 but others, such as Scott Gerber, have argued that 

the Declaration should play a robust role.

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 For the purposes of this discus-

sion, a “nonconstitutional text” is any text that is not part of the United States 

Constitution – the Constitution of 1789 plus all of the subsequent amend-

ments (roughly, the version of the Constitution in the United States Code).

Consider, for example, Akhil Amar’s argument for a robust role for extracon-

stitutional texts, which he treats as part of America’s “symbolic constitution”:

65 

See Solum, Supra note 17.

66 

Lee J. Strang, “Originalism, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution: a unique 

role in constitutional interpretation?” (2006) 111 Penn State Law Review 413.

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Scott Douglas Gerber, To Secure These Rights: The Declaration of Independence and Constitu-

tional Interpretation (New York, NY: New York University Press, 1995).

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Lawrence B. Solum

America’s symbolic constitution surely includes (but is not limited to) 

the Declaration of Independence, Publius’ The Federalist, the Northwest 

Ordinance, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and Warren Court’s opinion in 

Brown v. Board, and Dr. King’s “I have a dream speech.”

These works set forth background principles that powerfully inform 

American constitutional interpretation. Wherever the written Constitution 

is fairly susceptible to different interpretations, interpreters would hesi-

tate, and do in fact hesitate, to embrace any reading that would violate the 

clear letter and spirit of these other canonical texts. In short, these texts are 

constitutional in the sense that they are constitutive – adherence to these 

helps constitute Americans as a distinct people among all the peoples on 

earth.

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There is much going on in this passage; examining Amar’s case for noncon-

stitutional texts as sources of constitutional law can help us to untangle the 

various roles such texts might play.

Once again, our question is how nonconstitutional texts should be viewed 

from an originalist perspective. We can begin with an easy case for public 

meaning originalists. Some nonconstitutional texts are clearly part of the pub-

licly available context of constitutional communication. Such documents 

include The Federalist and the Declaration of Independence. Because they 

are part of the publicly available context, they can play a role in arguments 

for contextual enrichment of the semantic content of the constitutional text. 

Such enrichments might include the clarification of ambiguity, constitutional 

implicatures, or arguments about implicit content.

Originalists should embrace another role for nonconstitutional texts. The 

semantic component of original meaning is fixed by linguistic facts as they 

stood at the time each provision of the Constitution was framed and ratified. 

Linguistic facts are established or known on the basis of evidence. In the case 

of very recent amendments, there may be audio recordings that could be the 

source of evidence about relevant linguistic facts, but for the Constitution 

of 1789 and most of the amendments, the relevant linguistic evidence will 

be provided by nonconstitutional texts – including publicly available docu-

ments like The Federalist, but also including nonpublic documents, including 

diaries, private letters, and even the nonpublic records of the Philadelphia 

Convention.

There is a third role for nonconstitutional texts that some originalists may 

embrace. Nonconstitutional texts might serve as evidence of what Philip 

68 

Amar, Supra note 6, 247.

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