“Living Constitutionalists” and other opponents of constitutional government sometimes claim recovering the Constitution’s original meaning is impossible or impractical. One reason some of them think that is they they fail to take advantage of the hundreds of books available on 18th century law.

The Constitution is, of course, a legal document, and most of the framers and many of the ratifiers were lawyers. This new article shows how we can use 18th century law books to answer constitutional questions, using eminent domain (land condemnation) as an example.