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The phrase "living Constitution" was expressly used by the [[liberal]] four-Justice dissent in ''Rummel v. Estelle'', 445 U.S. 263 (1980), and it has been implicitly embraced by the left side of the Court in numerous rulings.
The phrase "living Constitution" was expressly used by the [[liberal]] four-Justice dissent in ''Rummel v. Estelle'', 445 U.S. 263 (1980), and it has been implicitly embraced by the left side of the Court in numerous rulings.
==History==
===Concept===
The first progressive to develop the view that the Constitution is a living and breathing document was [[Woodrow Wilson]]. He wrote in his book ''Constitutional Government in the United States'' that:
{{cquote| Living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice. Fortunately, the definitions and prescriptions of our constitutional law, though conceived in the Newtonian spirit and upon the Newtonian principle, are sufficiently broad and elastic to allow for the play of life and circumstance.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gh9AAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA57|last1=Wilson|first1=Woodrow|title=Constitutional Government in the United States|date=1908|pages=57}}</ref>}}
He further expanded on this idea during the [[United States presidential election, 1912]], as a part of his "New Freedom" program that:
{{cquote|All that progressives ask or desire is permission-in an era when “development," "evolution," is the scientific word-to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle; all they ask is recognition of the fact that a nation is a living thing and not a machine.<ref>{{cite web |title=Woodrow Wilson Asks “What Is Progress?” |url=http://www.heritage.org/initiatives/first-principles/primary-sources/woodrow-wilson-asks-what-is-progress |work=[[Heritage Foundation]]}}</ref>}}
Other progressives have also had a hand in the development of this concept, such as [[Louis Brandeis]] with his [[Louis Brandeis#Brandeis_Brief|Brandeis Brief]]. Brandeis would later catalog some of his thoughts on what had occurred.<ref>The Living Law, Illinois Law Review, February 16, 1916</ref>
===Phrase===
The full phrase "Living constitution" would not appear until 1927 with the publication of the book "''The Living constitution, a consideration of the realities and legends of our fundamental law''", by Howard Lee McBain.
==References==
<references />
[[Category:United States Supreme Court]]
[[Category:United States Supreme Court]]
[[category:United States Constitution]]
[[category:United States Constitution]]
[[Category:Judicial activism]]
[[Category:Judicial activism]]