Hello all,
 
I am posting this notice on behalf of our friends at VCU.
 
Gregg Kimball
 
**************************
 
Dr. Saul Cornell will be giving VCU's first Society of the Cincinnati
Lecture on Wednesday, April 20th, at 4 pm in the VCU Student Commons
(907 Floyd Ave.) in Richmond Salons I and II. 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 given many 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.



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