What is originalism?

There is much confusion about what the differences are between originalism and activism when talking about Supreme Court nominees these days. With that in mind, we thought it might be a good idea to define what originalist actually means.

In our search for a definition, we discovered that Edward Whelan has written an article for the National Review Online, which asks the question, Are You an Originalist? We found the article to be quite interesting as well as educational. The following is his test to see if you are an originalist:

“Here’s my simple single-question multiple-choice test for whether you are an originalist:

Q. The Constitution provides, as one of the criteria to be eligible to become president, that a person must be a “natural born Citizen” (or, alternatively, in a provision that long ago ceased to apply to any (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)