The Supreme Court’s recent turn to history and tradition as guides for understanding the public meaning of text has reignited longstanding debates about the uses of history in law. In Memory and Authority, the longtime advocate of “living originalism,” Jack Balkin, argues that the Court’s use of history is self-serving, and amounts to the “mirror image” of living constitutionalism. Three Law & Liberty contributors—law professor Mark Movsesian, political theorist David Schaefer, and historian Aaron N. Coleman—assess the book, as well as the promise and limitations of “law-office history” from different disciplinary backgrounds.

Aaron N. Coleman, “Judicial Supremacy Through Thick and Thin”

Mark L. Movsesian, “Traditionalizing Everything”

David Lewis Schaefer, “The Rule of Historicist Judges?”