Book Reviews Review Essay Tales of the Text: Originalism, Theism, and the History of the U. S. Constitution James Arnt Aune A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law. By Antonin Scalia. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1997; pp. xiii + 139. $19.95. God and Man in the Law: The Foundations of Anglo-American Constitutionalism. By Robert Lowry Clinton. Lawrence, Kans.: University Press of Kansas, 1997; pp. xiv + 293. $35.00. Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution. By Jack N. Rakove. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996; pp. xvi + 439. $35.00 cloth; $17.00 paper. In 1995, three University of Texas law professors announced the shocking discovery that no U.S. president since Zachary Taylor has been constitutionally legitimate. Article II of the Constitution reads, "No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President." Note that the phrase "at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution" is separated by a comma from the phrase preceding it. The comma suggests that it modifies both "natural-born Citizen" and "a Citizen of the United States." Since Zachary Taylor (1784-1850) was the last president to be a citizen of the United States at the time of the Constitution's adoption, he was clearly the last legitimate president.1 Steiker, Levinson, and Balkin defend their interpretation on the grounds of the "plain-meaning" or "textualist" approach defended by Justices Scalia and Thomas.2 They argue that extensive historical research further justifies what may seem on the surface to be a frivolous interpretation: "Reserving the presidency to persons who were citizens at the time of the Founding is hardly shortsighted. To the contrary, it James Amt Aune is Associate Professor of Speech Communication at Texas A&M University in College Station, Teaxs. He wishes to thank the Office of the Vice President for Research for a Scholarly and Creative Activities Grant that enabled him to complete the research for this essay. © Rhetoric & Public Affairs Vol. 1, No. 2, 1998, pp. 257-298 ISSN 1094-8392 258 Rhetoric & Public Affairs reflects the deeply held Jeffersonian impulse in American constitutionalism, with its emphasis on the need for periodic reconsideration and even revolution regarding our institutional structures" (246). The law professors go on to examine the record of the original convention, which had three different versions of the punctuation of this particular clause. After other historical and legal pedantries they raise the question of the plain meaning of their own essay. Is it simply intended to mock textualism? Is it possible for an essay with serious intentions to be read as a parody, or vice versa? Law professors seem to live for this sort of eristic exercise, and it may seem a bit precious even to academics outside of law schools. Yet any student of American rhetoric and public affairs recognizes how matters of constitutional interpretation have come to dominate our public life since Roe v. Wade, if not earlier. Tocqueville argued long ago that political questions in the United States have a way of turning themselves into judicial questions.3 The books reviewed here represent not the final word on the role of the judiciary and judicial interpretation of the Constitution, but they do represent well the current status of the debate. Political moderates and conservatives generally defend some form of textualism or originalism. Political liberals generally defend the craft values of common law interpretation or the idea of a "Living Constitution." The terms of the debate have shifted since the 1930s. Then, New Deal liberals argued for the virtues of textualism and strict construction against the Supreme Court's expansive notion of "liberty of contract." Since Roe, conservatives have accused liberals of making an end run around democratic majorities in the name of newly discovered "individual rights." The books reviewed in this essay represent three very different stances and methods . The first book, A Matter of Interpretation, is Justice Antonin Scalia's defense of his "textualism" in statutory and constitutional interpretation, with responses by some of the most prominent legal scholars in the United States. God...