Justice Scalia: "Now, my theory of what I do when I interpret the American Constitution is I try to understand what it meant, what was understood by the society to mean when it was adopted. And I don't think it changes since then."
"Now, obviously if you have that philosophy ... foreign law is irrelevant with one exception: Old English law, because phrases like "due process," the "right of confrontation" and things of that sort were all taken from English law. So the reality is I use foreign law more than anybody on the Court. But it's all old English law."
>> “Hamilton told us to look to the language of the English legal system to define the terms of the Constitution.” <<
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Hamilton was not a patriot, he was a banker from Neves.
Second, we have no parallels with England. We cannot adopt their definitions because we have none of their kind of population. We have no “subjects,” and they have no citizens. What was “understood” by essentially slave subjects was overcome by sovereign citizens.
That is why our founders looked to other nations for our definitions; we rejected almost all of what was England.