Faculty Research Repository

This Article proposes a new form of originalism — Counterpublic Originalism — as a method to better incorporate excluded communities into the narratives of constitutional history. Looking at a broad range of originalists, from conservative (McGinnis & Rappaport, Calabresi & Rickerts) to progressive (Amar, Balkin), I find that each wrongly assumes some version of a single “public” at the time of ratification, a “public” comprised of the very elites who were benefiting from the exclusionary practices. Focusing on the Reconstruction period, I argue that there was no definitive “public” but instead a series of partial publics, some (white men) who were legally and socially privileged and dominant, and others (feminists, African-Americans) who operated as dissenting communities that developed their own normative discourse and challenged dominant views and interests. I then argue that these dissenting communities, or counterpublics, provide important sources of public discourse and activity that spoke to precisely the questions and ideas raised in constitutional amendments, and particularly in the Reconstruction Amendments. In the process I also challenge the Supreme Court’s and scholarly treatment of African-American materials on the meaning of the Second Amendment during Reconstruction.