It seems obvious that judges should interpret legal documents according to the plain meaning of the documents’ words as they were understood at the time they were agreed to or promulgated. This applies equally to documents arising in private law, such as wills and contracts, and public law, such as legislation or written constitutions. No one would favor a probate court reinterpreting a will to satisfy the judge’s sense of fairness rather than the testator’s particular intention expressed in writing. This layman’s understanding aligns well with that of William Blackstone, whose Commentaries on the Laws of England deeply informed the legal thinking of the framers of the Constitution: “Words are generally to be understood in their usual and most known signification…their general and popular use.”
It’s therefore surprising that such a commonsense canon of interpretation was largely absent from judicial chambers for much of the 20th century, at least when it came to constitutional matters. The fact that it has made a strong, albeit incomplete, comeback is a tribute to the efforts and insights of Edwin Meese III, who served as the 75th attorney general of the United States from 1985 to 1988, and was President Reagan’s friend and counselor for far longer than that.
Meese’s 1985 speech at the American Bar Association’s annual meeting is now
