In the context of United States constitutional interpretation, original meaning is the dominant form of the legal theory of originalism today. It was made popular by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and contends that the terms of the United States Constitution should be interpreted as meaning what they meant when they were ratified, which is to say, it asks the question: "What would a reasonable person living at the time of ratification have understood these words to mean?"
The theory stands in equal opposition to interpretivist theories such as original intent, and legal realist theories such as that of the Living Constitution.
Famous quotes containing the words original and/or meaning:
“... in nine out of ten cases the original wish to write is the wish to make oneself felt ... [ellipsis in source] the non-essential writer never gets past that wish.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“Experience has taught me that the shallowest of communist platitudes contains more of a hierarchy of meaning than contemporary bourgeois profundity.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)