A Debt Against the Living
Ilan Wurman ‘09 graduated from CMC in 2009 with a major in government and physics. In 2013, he graduated from Stanford Law School and is now an attorney at Winston & Strawn LLP in Washington D.C. He was formerly the deputy general counsel of Rand Paul's presidential campaign and associate counsel on Tom Cotton's campaign for U.S. Senate in Arkansas. He has written extensively on constitutional interpretation and administrative law, and his writings have appeared in City Journal, National Affairs, The Weekly Standard, Commentary, and several academic law reviews.
Wurman’s Athenaeum talk, A Debt Against the Living, is based on a forthcoming book on originalism and the Constitution where he addresses views expressed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
In an oft-quoted letter to Madison, Jefferson asserts that the earth belongs to the living and that we cannot be bound by the "dead hand of the past," that the Constitution must be a "living, breathing" document that is continually updated in modern times. Less familiar, however, is Madison's response to Jefferson. If the earth be the gift of nature to the living, wrote Madison, then it belongs to them in its natural state only; the improvements made by the dead form a debt against the living, who take the benefit of them. This debt cannot be otherwise discharged, he wrote, than by a proportionate obedience to the will of the authors of the improvement—originalism.
Who is right—Thomas Jefferson or James Madison?
Wurman’s talk will address this difficult question and offer an answer in favor of Madison, originalism, and the Constitution.
Ilan Wurman’s Athenaeum talk is co-sponsored by the Salvatori Center.
View Video: YouTube with Ilan Wurman '09