SUBTWEETING maga:

The first essay, published in 1987, is "Toward a 'Plain Reading' of the Constitution--The Declaration of Independence in Constitutional Interpretation." The title itself was a provocation: as conservative judges, lawyers, and scholars coalesced around a constitutional jurisprudence to re-anchor judicial decisions in the original meaning of the Constitution's words, Thomas challenged them to recognize that the words could only be understood as embodying the nation's founding principles, best expressed in the Declaration.

Thomas read the Constitution as "the fulfillment of the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, as Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and the Founders understood it." He explicitly rejected Dred Scott's assertion that the Constitution gave no protection to black Americans. Even if early Americans failed to live up to their founding principles, "the Declaration's promise of equality of rights" was the timeless criterion by which government must be judged.

For Thomas, this was a fundamental matter of republican government, in the small-r sense. Liberty was a reflection of each citizen's equality. And the "principle of equality," in turn, "is contained within the republican principle of self-government," he wrote.

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