Though it sounds tricky, it's not so difficult to rely on the original meaning of the words used in a legal document. Here's how. A foundation of statutory construction is that the law means what the words in it say, and that the words used (unless defined in the law itself) have the same meaning as they did in common usage at the time the law was written.

Take, for example, the 8th Amendment's proscription against "cruel and unusual punishment." The meaning of the terms "cruel" and "unusual" have not changed since the amendment was written, although what is considered to be cruel and what is considered to be unusual certainly have. Today, a punishment of drawing and quartering would be both cruel and unusual. It may have always been cruel, but it was at one time common to inflict such punishment. Today it would be unusual.

Consider the 16th Amenedment's use of the term "income." When the amendment was written, income meant gain, as from investments, what we would today label unearned income, as distinct from wages and salaries, or earned income.

It may take a little effort to actually research original meaning for any particular law, but it can be done and should be done.

You have just contradicted yourself if originalism is so easy then why has the definition of cruel and inhuman changed.

Originalism with regard to the constitution is absolute horseshit.Statutory construction has nothing to do with it.

I don't know why people have this bizarre obsession with the "plain meaning" of something. Every day life should teach everyone (by a fairly young age) that communication, written and spoken, often lacks an easily accessible plain meaning.

And since basic things in life don't have a plain meaning we can agree to, why should a document like the Constitution, which goes out of its way to be vague, have one?

"Cruel and unusual" is a fine example of my point, but the Constitution is filled with them. It's a phrase didn't have a specific meaning in1789, so I can't imagine why we'd expect it to be any clearer today.

Also, out of curiosity, do you have a source (legal document or dictionary, not a tax protestor web-site) for the claim that income only mean gain from investments in 1909?

The phrase is not "original meaning," but "original intent." This pseudo doctrine has always suggested that the intention of the framers was what we should consider. The notion that there is a single "intent" of so many disparate people, or that we can adequately unearth it this many years later, is highly suspect. But the real enterprise is not to establish what people thought in the late 1700's, but to provide a thin veneer of intellectual respectability to a radical assault on the judicial establishment. Apparently, it has achieved its end.

. . and consider the First Amendment's use of the word "Congress". The meaning of Congress has not changed since the 1790's when the First Amendment was adopted. And the First Amendment hasn't been amended. So a bit of a quandary, huh, to explain how come a School Board, and not Congress, could be found to have violated the First Amendment in the Bong case, if you believe in original intent and in giving words their natural and intended meaning?

Because the Constitution does not goes out of its way to be vague. What is vague about the word "Congress"? It is the first word of the First Amendment. It's meaning was clear in the 1790's and is clear now. But it is only by rejecting the plain and obvious meaning of the word that the Supreme Court can come up with decisions like the Bong case, in which the actions of school boards, and not "Congress" are ruled on. . . . see? it's not vague at all. Judicial activism seldom is.

That would have been an excellent point in 1840.

The Fourteenth Amendment expanded the protection of the First and all the other Amendments to the States.

By the way, "Judicial activism" is just an insult for decisions the speaker does not like.

See above for the answer.

Statutory construction has everything to do with it.

The definitions of cruel and unusual (not inhuman) have not changed. They mean the same thing today as they meant 200 years ago. However, what is reagrded as cruel has changed somewhat and what was usual may now be unusual and vice versa.

For example, a hundred years ago it was quite unusual for a working class family to own a car. Today, it is usual. The definition of "usual" has not changed.

Nor has the definitiojn of "cruel" changed. It's just that soem things that were not regarded as cruel in pearlier generations are considered to be cruel today.

Black's Law Dictionary.

the 14th Amendment extended the Constitution's limits on government to the states.

not a statute.The whole method of reasoning is different.Legislation usually has a record that is easily acquired.

That will answer your question.It extends the first amendment to the states.