the constitution is not in fact a legal document; it is a philosophical and political charter, and law is only one (and, in isolation, a deficient) approach to it. Constitutional jurisprudence, moreover, is essentially a hermeneutical tradition; it is not the inexorable unfolding of irrefragable conclusions from unambiguous principles, but a history of willful and often arbitrary interpretation, and as such primarily reflects cultural decisions made well before any legal deliberation has begun.
