Principles of Statutory Construction
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or controversy is the essence of the judicial power, and thus beyond the
reach of both Congress and President.
Accordingly, it is up to the judges themselves to develop and adopt
their own rules of interpretation, just as members of Congress are free to
adopt their own rules of legislative procedure (about which the Constitution is also silent).
It should not be concluded from this observation, however, that judges
are given free rein under the Constitution to interpret it as they please. If
this were the case, they might substitute their own intentions for those of
the people, as expressed in the Constitution, and interpret the Constitution out of existence. A more accurate and reliable reading of the Constitution and the Convention debates suggests that the Framers assumed
that the judges would interpret the Constitution according to established
principles of Anglo-American law.
Principles of Statutory Construction
What are these established rules or principles of interpretation, and where
might a judge turn for guidance? In 1789, when the Federal Judiciary was
first organized, he would have first turned to the writings of the English
jurists, especially Coke and Blackstone, and possibly also to the writings
of the international law jurists of Europe, such as Jean Jacques Burlamaqui, Emerich Vattel, and Hugo Grotius. Over the centuries, the English
jurists had developed coherent, well-defined principles of construction
for interpreting acts of Parliament, and the international law jurists had
likewise established rules for interpreting treaties among foreign nations.
There was no body of legal literature to which American judges might
turn for guidance for the interpretation of a constitution, however, because written constitutions were unprecedented. Hence the members of
the new Federal judici