How should textualists search for the original meaning of laws when the text alone does not provide a complete answer? Some scholars argue that originalism must look beyond written provisions to the unwritten principles that informed the Constitution’s drafting. In his 2023 Scalia Lecture at Harvard Law School, Professor Will Baude proposed that originalism should incorporate general law—the body of unwritten legal principles that supplied many of the rights codified in the Constitution. Proponents see this approach as essential to recovering the Constitution’s original meaning, while skeptics warn of its methodological and doctrinal challenges. This debate will examine whether originalism should embrace general law, what that would mean in practice, and how it might reshape constitutional interpretation.

Featuring:

Prof. Jud Campbell, Stanford Law School
Prof. Larry Solum, University of Virginia School of Law
Moderator: Prof. Julia Mahoney, University of Virginia School of Law

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