Happy #IndigenousPeoplesDay! "Conservative" advocates before the Supreme Court are challenging federal Indian law as unconstitutional. Friendly reminder that #originalism means #landback. It means Native people get Louisiana and everything west. 1/
justsecurity.org/83460/on-indig…
justsecurity.org/83460/on-indig…
The framing generation never envisioned treaty or territory powers able to incorporate huge new swathes of land and peoples. Only those peoples in the map consented to and ratified the constitution. Want to stretch the US from sea to shining sea? Amend the Constitution. 2/
No amendment? Then #originalism means that we cannot constitutionally hold those lands or peoples as part of the United States. Not just that, but Hawai'i, Alaska, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, &c. All gone. This isn't realistic, you say. 3/
Then, let us at least then envision a constitutionalism that allows us to repair our status as empire and to ultimately transcend it. Our Constitution was stretched to incorporate all of those lands and people. At the very least, it should have the power to mitigate injustice. 4/
Our Constitution shouldn't reap injustice by holding the laws that mitigate American colonialism as unconstitutional--as the Court may hold in #Brackeen. That said, we can always do more. We can build a constitutional culture that recognizes and mitigates American colonialism.
Quite a few folks have responded that an #originalist argument against US territorial acquisition is baseless and nonsensical. To that, please don't blame me; blame Thomas Jefferson (and John Adams, &c.):
Hello again, you all might think Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were ridiculous. You all might read the plain text of the Constitution differently--especially when you read it in a world of changed circumstances. But that *isn't #originalism* that is #livingconstitutionalism.
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