Justice Scalia on Interpreting Constitutional Texts
[T]he Great Divide with regard to constitutional interpretation is not that between Framer’s intent and objective meaning, but rather that between original meaning (whether derived from Framer’s intent or not) and current meaning.The ascendant school on constitutional interpretation affirms the existence of what is called The Living Constitution, a body of law that (unlike normal statutes) grows and changes from age to age, in order to meet the needs of a changing society. And it is the judges who determine those needs and "find" that changing law. Seems familiar, doesn’t it? Yes, it is the common law returned, but infinitely more powerful than what the old common law ever pretended to be, for now it trumps even the statutes of democratic legislatures. Recall the words I quoted earlier from the Fourth-of-July speech of the avid codifier Robert Rantoul: "The judge makes law, by extorting from precedents something which they do not contain. He extends his precedents, which were themselves the extension of others, till, by this accommodating principle, a whole system of law is built without the authority of interference of the legislator." Substitute word "people" for "legislator," and it is a perfect description of what modern American courts have done with the Constitution.
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It certainly can not be said that a constitution naturally suggests changeability; to the contrary, its whole purpose is to prevent change — to embed certain rights in such a manner that future generations cannot readily take them away. A society that adopts a bill of rights is skeptical that "evolving standards of decency" always "mark progress," and that societies always "mature", as opposed to rot. Neither the text of such a document nor the intent of its framers (whichever you choose) can possibly lead to the conclusion that its only effect is to take the power of changing rights away from the legislature and give it to the courts.
Source:
Scalia, A. (1998). A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law. (A. Gutmann, Ed.) Princeton University Press.
