tion of the minds of those people—perhapsrnthe majority of Americans—whornunderstand neither the framework of thernnatural law nor the way in which ourrnConstitution was intended to operaterntherein. Very few readers, I suspect, willrnactually take the time to slog throughrnsome 700 pages (plus another 200-oddrnof footnotes), beginning with a litany ofrnevery social gathering, meeting, piece ofrncorrespondence, speech, protest, courtrnappearance, and petty catfight of a platoonrnof unhappy “upper-class, northeasternrnwomen” with ill-fitting lUD’srnand ending with ACLU attorneys runningrnto the defense of a Virginia couplernwho photographed their escapades ofrnfellatio with a Jamaican immigrantrnnamed “Earl Romeo Dunn.”rnThere are, to be sure, inspiring momentsrnwhich recount the convictions ofrnthose who defend chastity, purity, andrnlife, episodes which Garrow presents asrnexamples of the goofy and excessivernthings God-fearing people do and say.rnWe learn of Catholic hospitals with therncourage to dismiss doctors who publiclyrnsupport Planned Parenthood and of clericsrnunafraid to defend publicly the tenetsrnof their faith. One Hartford priest, FatherrnAndrew}. Kelly, whom Garrow labelsrn”vociferous,” described advocates ofrncontraception as “suicidal individualistsrn. .. [who would] change, and by changernI mean liquidate, the eternal moral codernwhich makes man, in all his human acts,rnresponsible to his Divine Creator.” Thernwhole book, in fact, is laced with citationsrnof sound legal and theological objectionsrnto the very positions its authorrntries to defend.rnGarrow’s exhaustive research has uncoveredrna plethora of arguments in defensernof contraception, abortion, andrnmany other immoralities. However, hisrnfailure to formulate his own (new orrnused) justification for infanticide and judicialrntyranny forces the reader to deducernhis position, not from any stab at arnlogical argument, but simply from thernrhetoric he employs in the depiction ofrnpeople he admires. Margaret Sanger is arn”crusader”; the collective efforts of herrncoven are described as a “struggle,” orrn”activism,” and their striking down ofrnsocial and moral codes “victories,” or, atrnthe very least, “progress.” The beneficiariesrnof their work are “the downtrodden,”rn”the poor,” “the needy” and, ofrncourse, “ethnic immigrant women.”rn(The same classes of people, by the way,rnthat the Lambeth Bishops claimed theyrnwere helping.)rnOnward they march, their eyes fixedrnon their true goal: federal protection ofrnthe “pursuit of happiness.” One earlyrncounselor for Sanger makes it clear exacriyrnwhat that is: “A right of copulationrnwithout conception is asserted upon behalfrnof women in general.” And lawyersrnfor Michael Hardwick (whose defensernreceives the gushing support of JuliarnRoberts in the film version of The PelicanrnBrief) state it even more clearly: “sexualrnconduct in private between consentingrnadults is protected by a fundamentalrnright of privacy guaranteed by the first,rnthird, fourth, fifth, ninth, and fourteenthrnAmendments.” James Madison, patronrnsamt of ACT-UP today, NAMBLA tomorrow.rnTotal sexual license, observed bothrnG.K. Chesterton and Aldous Huxley, isrnthe only freedom the totalitarian state offersrnits masses, because it is a cheap andrneffective method of reducing them tornslavery. Give us pleasure without consequence,rnand in time our consciences willrndull sufficiently that we will not protestrnas the state takes our property, our wives,rnand our children. We will not even notice,rnin our endless flight from sufferingrnand our perpetual pursuit of the right tornfeel good, that the hands gradually tighteningrnthe irons around our ankles arernour own.rnChristopher Check is the associaterndirector of the Rockford Institute Centerrnon the Family in America.rnNo Other Epitaphrnby David f. PorterrnOriginal Intentions: On thernMaking and Ratification ofrnthe United States Constitutionrnby M.E.BradfordrnAthens: University of Georgia Press;rn165 pp., $24.95rnWritten documents should be interpretedrnwith an eye toward discerningrnthe intent of the author. Whenrnthe Constitution of the United States isrnthe text under consideration, the relevantrnintentions are those of the men whorndrafted and ratified the document. Thisrnproposition reflects a long-establishedrncanon of construction: common-lawrnjudges as far back as the 12th century invokedrnoriginal intent. So did Sir EdwardrnCoke, Matthew Bacon, natural lawyerrnThomas Rutherforth, William Blackstone,rnThomas Jefferson, and JamesrnMadison, who wrote that he “entirelyrnconcur [red] in the propriety of resortingrnto the sense in which the Constitutionrnwas accepted and ratified by the nation.rnIn that sense alone it is the legitimaternConstitution. And if that be not thernguide in expounding it, there can be nornsecurity for a consistent and stable, morernthan for a faithful, exercise of its powers.”rnToday, the jurisprudence of originalrnintent is severely out of favor amongrnmost academics and many judges suchrnas Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,rnwho in 1985 wrote approvingly ofrn”boldly dynamic interpretation . . . departingrnradically from the original understanding.”rnJudicial departures fromrnthe Kramers’ understanding occurred relativelyrninfrequently during the Republic’srnearly years, with the spectacular exceptionrnof Chief Justice John Marshall’srnnational bank decision McCullock v.rnMaryland (1819). But the Court hasrnbeen at sea for much of the 20th century,rnand the debate over interpretivernmethod has been especially heated sincern1985, the year then-Attorney GeneralrnEdwin Meese urged the Supreme Courtrnto adhere to the original meaning of constitutionalrnprovisions and Justice WilliamrnBrennan responded by calling originalismrn”arrogance cloaked as humility.”rnThat exchange, followed by RobertrnBork’s failed nomination to the SupremernCourt, brought noninterpretivists out ofrnthe woodwork, and scores of books andrnarticles have subsequently been publishedrnon the subject. The standard argumentrnof judicial activists begins withrnthe presupposition that textual interpretationrnis impossible because each interpreterrnbrings to the task a set of beliefs,rndetermined by some relevant communityrnof readers, that not only prevents himrnfrom discerning the meaning intendedrnby the author but strips the text itself ofrnmeaning apart from that given to it byrnthe reader.rnM.E. Bradford dismissed such deconstructionistrnnotions as “obfuscatory” andrn”glib ingenuity.” As if to prove his pointrnsingle-handedly, Bradford generated,rnover the past decade or so, a mountain ofrnscholarship revealing the views of the extraordinaryrnmen who framed and ratifiedrnDECEMBER 1994/33rnrnrn