Originalism in the Interpretation of the US Constitution:A Study on Academic History

The debate of originalism in the US is as old as constitutional federalism.In this sense,the constitution in the US grows up in the debate of how to rightly interpret the constitution.The originalism is an important theory in the interpretation of constitution,emphasizes the original intention of legislators and original meaning of the text.It changes constantly and shows different characteristics in different times.The categorization of old and new originalism shows differences in three aspects:the theoretical nature;the relationship with autonomy of justice and democracy;the shift from intention to text.Both of the new and old originalism aim to discover the original meaning of the constitution,and face with same difficulties.New originalism has not solved the conflict of prior binding in constitutional law and successive democracy.