Well, since I acknolwedged your choice of "interpret", I was wrong. My mistake.
I don't think each succeeding generation gets to twist what it says to suit the current ever-changing fancy. Take for example the First Amendment. If at some future point a generation decides that only the government should be allowed to own/operate the print/visual/radio media, that would be a totally unacceptable interpretation of the original First.
Jefferson's writings show that he thought there were two choices for the succeeding generations if they felt the Constitution needed to cover something new or reappraise an old value..
The Constitution has a built-in method for change, the amendment. The process is spelled out. If a succeeding generation decides only the government should run the media, then an amendment is the route of choice.
"Nothing is more likely than that [the] enumeration of powers is defective. This is the ordinary case of all human works. Let us then go on perfecting it by adding by way of amendment to the Constitution those powers which time and trial show are still wanting." --Thomas Jefferson to Wilson Nicholas, 1803. ME 10:419
Since all powers not specifically enumerated and delegated to the Federal government are vested in either the States or the people as a whole,
Jefferson's comment is enlightening. If, in the future, the people feel the Federal government needs powers not specifically enumerated in the original Constitution, there should be an amendment. He certainly doesn't prescribe a fickle "reinterpretation" according to "current fashion".
"A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life; when that has disappeared, another majority is in place, holds all the rights and powers their predecessors once held and may change their laws and institutions to suit themselves. Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man." --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:48
Note that he didn't say "may
reinterpret their laws and institutions". He said "change". There are numerous quotes that show the desired method of change is to assemble and amend.
"Happy for us that when we find our constitutions defective and insufficient to secure the happiness of our people, we can assemble with all the coolness of philosophers and set it to rights, while every other nation on earth must have recourse to arms to amend or to restore their constitutions." --Thomas Jefferson to C. W. F. Dumas, 1787. ME 6:295, Papers 12:113
The other Jeffersonian method is rebellion. Should such a "government media" amendment pass in one generation and then the next generation reappraises and amends that amendment to return media to private enterprise and the government
refuses to hand it over to the people then you have grounds for rebellion.
I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.
Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much.
It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.
Hope that clears it up. Each generation doesn't interpret the Constitution to it's particular bias. The SC does narrowly interpret in the sense that it decides individual cases on Constitutional questions.
No doubt about my earlier statement that the Judicial has become the most powerful arm of the government is there? Thus the fact that SC appointments should be the highest priority when voters decide on a President.
