The use of history in law is a time honoured tradition. Over the years the practise has assumed many forms to include historicism, intentionalism, interpretivist history, law office history, historical narrative and originalism. History, Originalism, and the Constitution picks up where past commentators have left off in this time honoured debate. The book weighs and considers the different historically based approaches to adjudicating constitutional questions, particularly originalism and asserts that history in law is only legitimate if it leads to accurate results. History, Originalism, and the Constitution then proposes an approach to accomplish the objectives of historical accuracy, objectivity and therefore legitimacy. Known as the historical guidepost approach, it respects historical methodologies, places text and events in total historical context, is honest about what the evidentiary record does and does not provide, mitigates judicial mythmaking and applies history as more of a guide to legal reasoning than a strict outcome determinative tool.

About the Author
Patrick J. Charles is the recipient of the 2008 Judge John R. Brown Award for Excellence in Writing for his research on the Second Amendment and the ""right to bear arms"" in state constitutions. He holds a J.D. from the Cleveland-Marshall School of Law, works as a historian for the 352nd Air Force Special Operations Group and is a contributor to Encyclopedia Brittanica on the Second Amendment and gun control. He lives in Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Reviews
"The past too easily becomes a political football, a pawn in contemporary political debates about law and history. Charles is keenly aware of the abuse of history by lawyers, but also the abuse of law by historians. History's 'dead hand,' Charles argues, should be invoked carefully and judiciously. To his credit, Charles's goal in this book is to improve the fraught dialogue between history and law."-Robert J. Spitzer, SUNY Cortland, author of Saving the Constitution from Lawyers and The Politics of Gun Control; "A rich and searching account of how the past should shape the present that sheds new light on many of our generation's most challenging constitutional problems."-Gerard Magliocca, Samuel R. Rosen Professor of Law, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law; "In this thoughtful and ambitious book, Patrick Charles addresses some of the central questions in all of constitutional interpretation. Charles 'historical guideposts' approach simultaneously supports and challenges the positions of self-identified originalists and living constitutionalists alike. It represents a useful intervention in the ongoing debate between those camps."-Joseph Blocher, Associate Professor of Law, Duke University.



Book Information
ISBN 9780786479313
Author Patrick J. Charles
Format Paperback
Page Count 272
Imprint McFarland & Co Inc
Publisher McFarland & Co Inc
Weight(grams) 376g
Dimensions(mm) 226mm * 149mm * 20mm