The Founders of the Bill of Rights: Triangulating To Meaning

[Paul Finkelman]

Sandy:  I have said in all my postings that there were two kinds of 
A-Fs.  Some, like the Va. Baptists (many of whom voted for Madison when 
he ran for the Convention, but where still more or less fearful of hte 
Constitution),  were sincere in their fear of the lack of a bill of 
Rights.  Others, like Henry, Clinton, Mason, Lee, etc. were simply 
opposed to the constitutution and used any argument they could.   By the 
way, Henry was a "good faith" opponent of the constitution, he was a 
"bad faith" proponent of a bill of rights; there is a differnce.

Sanford Levinson wrote:

> I'm with Henderson and Siegel.  Assume that the Kurds and Shiites 
> premptively amend the Iraqi constitution to mollify the Sunnis and 
> that the Sunnis are in fact sufficiently mollified to start 
> participating seriously in the ongoing political order.  It would 
> surely be foolish to leave the Sunnis out of any "original 
> understanding" argument.  One might believe that many of the 
> Anti-Federalists were in bad faith, but I think that my colleague 
> Calvin Johnson and my good friend Paul Finkelman err in confusing 
> Patrick Henry and George Mason with each and every good faith 
> anti-federalist opponent of the new order and, concomitantly, the 
> probability that many of the latter were in fact mollified by what 
> (they thought) the text was saying (especially with, say, the Second 
> Amendment, where there may indeed be dramatic differences between 
> author's intention and the audience's original understanding).
>  
> sandy
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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-- 
Paul Finkelman
Chapman Distinguished Professor of Law
University of Tulsa College of Law
3120 East 4th Place
Tulsa, OK  74105

918-631-3706 (voice)		
918-631-2194 (fax)

Paul-Finkelman at utulsa.edu


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