Dr. Saul Cornell will be giving VCU's first Society of the Cincinnati Lecture on 
Wednesday, April 20th, at 4 pm in Richmond Salons I and II in the VCU 
Student Center. Please feel free to pass this information along to anyone who 
might be interested. Dr. Cornell is the Paul and Diane Guenther Chair of 
American History at Fordham University and a Senior Research Fellow at Yale 
University. He is the author or co-author of at least five books, 32 articles, 
and dozens of amicus briefs, including to the Supreme Court. He has been a 
guest on Newshour and National Public Radio, and has given lectures at 
universities and law schools across the country.
 
Dr. Cornell will be lecturing on "Will the Real Founding Fathers Please Stand 
Up:  The Original Debate over how to Interpret the Constitution" and provides 
this description of the lecture:

 "Modern Americans are basically divided over how to interpret the 
Constitution. About half of  the people polled  on this question believe that  
judges ought to seek  the original intent or understanding of the Founders. 
The opposing view, which also commands broad respect, asserts that  the 
Constitution ought to be interpreted as a living document.  Only one group in 
America seems  resolutely against originalism—historians.  Although it may 
seem ironic that historians, a profession devoted to understanding the past, 
would oppose originalism, this conundrum  seems less puzzling if one looks 
closely at the methods used by historians and those employed by originalists. 
Indeed, the greatest irony of all may well be that a belief in a living 
constitution was itself one of the original understandings of how the 
Constitution ought to be interpreted."

This lecture is funded by the Society of the Cincinnati. It is free and open to 
the public.

***************************
Sarah Meacham, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of History
Virginia Commonwealth University
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