Government, but attempts no definition of republican government. The Fourteenth Amendment proscribes state abridgments of the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, but contains no catalog of privileges or immunities. (Tribe, 48). There are many issues presented to us today that the framers would never have been able to fathom. An example of this would be the recent controversies over the censoring of pornography over the Internet. The Internet is a medium for communication that was far beyond the realms of imagination only twenty years ago, so how could the framers of our Constitution possibly set any limits to freedom of speech over 200 years ago that would be applicable to this new form of speech? The answer is that they simply could not. This being the case, it is necessary for judges to be able to use the Constitution as a blueprint, and to make decisions based on good judgment, not on laid out specific rules. Even with all of these proofs, one of the most solid pieces of evidence that leads to the conclusion that the Constitution should be used as a backbone for judges today is a direct quote once taken from James Madison stating that future generations will need to make ...useful alterations suggested by experience (Scholastic Update, 4). One would figure that if this came from the mouth of one of the original framers, that it is the way it should be. It could mean that they purposefully made vague statements as mentioned above in order to allow for interpretation. This is not necessarily correct, though. There is also much evidence against this way of looking at the Constitution. Some say that the Constitution should be taken very literally when relating to modern days. One of the forerunners of this idea is United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Justice Scalia has made many speeches and rulings following his belief that ...the U.S. Constitution is not a living document, changing with the...
