Why is prediction so difficult? After all, even if we reject the static concept of original intent, constitutional interpretation is “law,” and “law” should have some element of constancy, certainty, and predictability. What, then, is the problem? The problem is time. In fact, law, even constitutional law, is generally quite constant, certain, and predictable-if we look at it in relatively short time-bites. But over decades, to say nothing of centuries,…

Part I of this Article revisits the traditional account of unilateral mistake, arguing that a “subjective” theory focused on requirements of contract formation still provides the most convincing explanation of the case law and the best rule of decision. Part II suggests that the original limits to relief for unilateral mistake came to be expanded as an unintended consequence of the Holmes/Williston “objective theory” of contract, though the present-day consequences…

Scholars-at first historians and political scientists, and more recently legal scholars-who have become more enamored with the civic republican implications of early American thought have overlooked the “whig” basis of that thought. As a result, much recent scholarship about early American constitutionalism has been seriously misguided.