This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, August 31st, 2017. I'm Caleb Brown.

Is the Constitution, as Elyn Werman argues in his new book, A

Debt Against the Living? His introduction to constitutional originalism makes the case that the

Constitution is just such a debt.

We spoke in July.

Where do we find the genesis of these kinds of arguments about the Constitution. I note that you note a couple of particular

quotations from Jefferson and Madison as being particularly important.

Where do we find the nut of the argument

about the Constitution and what it requires,

what it confers? Well, since you bring up Jefferson and Madison, I always love talking about where the title of the book comes from, and then I guess that'll tie into originalism.

So Thomas Jefferson wrote this rather famous letter to James

Madison in 1789 in which Jefferson says that the earth belongs to the living.

The earth belongs to the living and not to the dead. The dead

have neither power nor rights over it. So this letter is often quoted today for the

proposition that we should not be bound by the dead hand of the past, by the

dead hand of the Constitution. But what's less known is Madison's reply in which

he said he wrote to Jefferson the following if the earth be the gift of nature to the living

Then their title can extend to the earth in its natural state only.

The improvements made by the dead, Madison said,

form a debt against the living, who take the benefit of them.

This debt could not be otherwise discharged

than by a proportionate obedience to the will of the authors of the improvement.

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