Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty is a 2003 book about the United States Constitution written by Randy Barnett, a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center. In the book, Barnett outlines his theory of constitutional legitimacy, interpretation and construction. He argues for an interpretation of the Constitution based on its "original meaning" . Restoring the Lost Constitution was awarded the 2005 Lysander Spooner Award for Advancing the Literature of Liberty by Laissez Faire Books. Restoring the Lost Constitution is broken into four parts, each... addressing an aspect of the U.S. Constitution. Below is a summary of the arguments made in the book. A general theory of constitutions. Some suggest that the Constitution gains legitimacy through the consent of the governed. In other words, the people consent to the Constitution like any other contract and are thus bound by its terms. But since the Constitution binds all citizens, such consent would need to be unanimous—completely impractical in any reasonably large country. In response, some propose theories of tacit or implicit consent.
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