The New Gospel

[The Constitution] defines our most fundamental rights and protections in open-ended terms: “freedom of speech,” for example, and “equal protection under the laws,” “due process of law,” “unreasonable searches and seizures,” “free exercise” of religion and “cruel and unusual punishment.”  These terms are not self-defining; they did not have clear meanings even to the people who drafted them.  The framers fully understood that they were leaving it to future generations to use their intelligence, judgment and experience to give concrete meaning to the expressed aspirations.