The Invisible Constitution in Comparative Perspective

From the Constitutional 

Text (Textual Sources)

Examples

Clauses

Commerce Clause, the 11th Amendment, the Privileges 

or Immunities Clause

Structure

The relationship between the grants of power in the first 

three Articles

Outside the 

Constitutional Text 

(Extra-textual Sources)

Examples

Other Foundational 

Documents

The Treaty of Paris, the Declaration of Independence, 

the Articles of Confederation, State Constitutions, 

Superstatutes

Documents and Records 

Relating to the Framing 

and Ratification of the 

Original Constitution or 

its Amendments

Madison’s Notes, the Ratification Debates, the 

Federalist Papers, the Antifederalist Papers, Drafting and 

Ratification History of the Amendments

Moral and Political 

Philosophy (Values)

Consequentialism, Deontology, Virtue Ethics, Social 

Contract Theory, Justice as Fairness, Popular Sovereignty 

Theory

Social Norms and  

Values

Systems of belief and associated behavior, shared beliefs 

about morality and politics, popular beliefs about the 

actual or ideal content of constitutional norms

Institutional Practice

Judicial decisions, legislation and statutes, rules, 

practices, and informal norms of Congress and the 

Executive branch, also the analogue of these at the state 

and local levels

Discretion

The discretionary decisions of officials, including judges 

and executive branch officials

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Originalism and the Invisible Constitution 

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3.5.2.  Three Roles for Extra-textual Sources in 

Constitutional Interpretation and Construction

Our typology provides a categorization of some of the possible sources of con-

stitutional norms. Our next step is to focus on the extra-textual sources, and 

investigate the roles they might play in the activities of constitutional interpre-

tation and construction. Let’s begin with the role that such sources might play 

in interpretation.

3.5.2.1.  Extra-textual Evidence of Communicative Content

Interpretation aims to recover the communicative content of the text in con-

text. In some cases, the interpretive enterprise is easy. We can discern the 

semantic context of the text because we are competent speakers of the natural 

language English; in many cases, the semantic content of the constitution is 

easily accessible, because the words and phrases used at the time the provi-

sion was drafted have the same meanings today. Frequently, we know enough 

about context without investigation. But in other cases, the meaning of the 

text will be relatively inaccessible. The meaning of the words may be unfamil-

iar, or we may need to know more about context.

Extra-textual sources can play the role of aids to interpretation. First, 

extra-textual sources can provide evidence of the conventional semantic 

meaning of the words and phrases that comprise the constitutional text. 

Evidence of the meaning of the phrase “legislative power” might be found 

in the Federalist Papers, or in the institutional practices of the Continental 

Congress, or the early Congresses of the United States. Understanding the 

ethos of the founding era might aid in discerning the meaning of the phrase 

“freedom of speech,” or we might look to the legal practice of the found-

ing era for an elucidation of the notion of “freedom of the press.” If we are 

original public meaning originalists, we will be looking for two kinds of  

evidence – evidence of conventional semantic meanings or evidence of the 

publicly available context of communication.

3.5.2.2.  Extra-textual Contributions to Constitutional 

Constructions that are Bound to the Text

The Constitution of the United States includes a variety of provisions that 

are general and abstract; some of these are vague or open-textured. These 

provisions may have a core of settled meaning, but to the extent that they 

are vague, they will have a penumbra – the space of possible cases where the 

communicative content of the text underdetermines legal content and effect. 

We can call this space “the construction zone.” In the construction zone, the 

linguistic meaning of the text cannot tell us how to decide particular cases. 

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