In a time when the question of American religious identity underlies much political conversation that fills the public square, Dennis Goldford directs his readers to consider the First Amendment. The founding fathers' words, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, are the constitutional means of ensuring, however imperfectly, the American freedom to stand for something sacred. In his analysis, Goldford ably demonstrates that the very nature of these religion clauses establishes protection not for 'religion' but for 'religious freedom'. This book relocates religious identity, moving it from the nation - and the ideals of its founders - and placing it within the individual citizen.

Located at the intersection of law, political science, philosophy, and literary theory, this is a work of constitutional theory that explores the nature of American constitutional interpretation through a reconsideration of the long-standing debate between the interpretive theories of originalism and nonoriginalism. It traces that debate to a particular set of premises about the nature of language, interpretation, and objectivity, premises that raise the specter of unconstrained, unstructured constitutional interpretation that has haunted contemporary constitutional theory. It presents the novel argument that a critique of the underlying premises of originalism dissolves not just originalism but nonoriginalism as well, which leads to the recognition that constitutional interpretation is already and always structured. It makes this argument in terms of the first principle of the American political system: by their fidelity to the Constitution, Americans are a textual people in that they live in and through the terms of a fundamental text.

Located at the intersection of law, political science, philosophy, and literary theory, this is a work of constitutional theory that explores the nature of American constitutional interpretation through a reconsideration of the long-standing debate between the interpretive theories of originalism and nonoriginalism. It traces that debate to a particular set of premises about the nature of language, interpretation, and objectivity, premises that raise the specter of unconstrained, unstructured constitutional interpretation that has haunted contemporary constitutional theory. It presents the novel argument that a critique of the underlying premises of originalism dissolves not just originalism but nonoriginalism as well, which leads to the recognition that constitutional interpretation is already and always structured. It makes this argument in terms of the first principle of the American political system: by their fidelity to the Constitution, Americans are a textual people in that they live in and through the terms of a fundamental text.