An article from last October's "Keeping Faith with the Constitution in Changing Times" symposium, co-sponsored by Constitutional Interpretation and Change Issue Group and Vanderbilt University Law School. The symposium was held at Vanderbilt University Law School in October 2006.

Jack Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment, Yale Law School, discusses constitutional fidelity in Fidelity to Text and Principle. Professor Balkin explains, “Fidelity to the Constitution means grappling with its text and its principles, applying them to our present circumstances, and making use of the entire tradition of opinions and precedents that have sought to vindicate and implement the Constitution. Reasonable people may disagree on what those principles mean and how they should apply. But the larger point about constitutional interpretation remains. We decide these questions by reference to text and principle, applying them to our own time and our own situation, and in this way making the Constitution our own. The conversation between past commitments and present generations is at the heart of constitutional interpretation. That is why we do not face a choice between living constitutionalism and fidelity to the original meaning of the text. The two are opposite sides of the same coin.�