Originalism is a fascinating exercise for historians and linguists — what would such-and-such a phrase have meant in the historical context of 1789?
...which makes it a very questionable legal philosophy as most serious historians would agree that our perception of history, our focus on the causes of historical events, and our interpretation of historical discourses are heavily influenced by our perception of and the events and discourses of our own time. There is no "objective" history. No serious modern historian would argue that there was a way to definitively paint a clear and unambiguous image of any historical issue, especially the public opinion on x and y. If historians can not do that, why should we trust the people in the legal system to that?
Besides that, I have yet to read a convincing argument on why a country should submit itself to the opinion of people who lived 250 years ago.
