The Earth Belongs to the Living: Jefferson & Madison’s Debate [No. 86]

Thomas Jefferson famously wrote a letter to James Madison in 1789 in which he said that the earth belongs to the living, the earth belongs to the living, not to the dead. This letter is frequently quoted in favor of interpreting the Constitution as a living, breathing document. James Madison, however, has a lesser-known response. The improvements made by the dead like the Constitution form a debt against the living who benefit from them.

Professor Ilan Wurman summarizes the debate between Jefferson and Madison, and its implications for understanding the debate over whether and how the Constitution binds us today.

Ilan Wurman is a visiting assistant professor at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, where he teaches administrative law and constitutional law. He is the author of A Debt Against the Living: An Introduction to Originalism (Cambridge 2017).

As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues; all expressions of opinion are those of the speaker.

Subscribe to the series’ playlist:

[chainmail]

Both are correct to a point. Core rights should never be changed. And some laws must be changed.

[uhnstopabuhl]

Dude saw the past while in his present and thought sbout the future and how it would affect it. Damn

[Magnulus]

Madison's argument is analogous to saying laws are justified because invisible fairies in the garden made them. He's appealing to metaphysal mumbo-jumbo. The dead have no voice, outside of seances.