Former President Trump is charged with conspiring to thwart the peaceful transfer of power following the 2020 election. In his defense, he asserts that a doctrine of permanent immunity from criminal liability for a President’s official acts, while not expressly provided by the Constitution, must be inferred. To justify this radical assertion, he contends that the original meaning of the Constitution demands it. But no plausible historical case supports his claim.

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There is a longstanding American tradition of regulating firearms possession by people who are perceived to be dangerous or otherwise threaten to disrupt the public peace. The tradition of curtailing the right to keep and bear arms of those perceived as threats to public safety and peace dates back to the common law, and continued through the colonial and Founding Eras. In some cases, dangerousness was evidenced by acts of violence, such as those who participated in Shays’ Rebellion. But actual violence was not a prerequisite to disarmament; the perceived potential for violence to others or disruption to the social order was enough.

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The original public meaning of the Elections Clause did not give the state legislatures exclusive power to regulate congressional elections, unchecked by the state constitution or other branches of state government. Nothing in the records of the deliberations at Philadelphia or the public debates surrounding ratification supports that contention. There is no evidence that anyone at the time expressed the view that Petitioners now espouse; nor would anyone have attempted to disprove an idea that had never been broached. Petitioners' interpretation is also historically implausible in view of the framers' general fear of unchecked power and their specific distrust of state legislatures. There is no plausible eighteenth-century argument to support Petitioners' view.

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Neither English nor American history supports a broad Second Amendment right to carry firearms or other dangerous weapons in public based on a generic interest in self-defense. For centuries, both English and American law have restricted individuals’ right to publicly carry arms—especially in populated places and especially in the absence of a special need for selfdefense—in order to preserve the public order and public peace.

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Fair and effective representation was the bedrock principle of constitutional governance in the new American republic. The historical record surrounding the Constitution offers ample evidence of that: The Founding generation forcefully rejected the British system of government, where legislative corruption and entrenchment of factions eroded meaningful representation, and instead designed a form of government that would be dependent on the People and responsive to the People. Americans were acutely aware of the dangers to that form of fair and effective representation posed by what we now call gerrymandering. They were particularly concerned that legislative factions acting for their own hyperpartisan interests would manipulate election rules and stifle political expression in order to entrench themselves.

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Partisan gerrymanders are of two types: drawing districts of unequal population size and manipulating district lines for partisan ends. The use of either or both of these methods can create profound distortions and undemocratic entrenchment of one political group or party. Both types of gerrymanders have been employed at various times throughout American history—sometimes separately, sometimes in combination. From a historical perspective, both types of gerrymanders conflict with the vision of actual representation that was central to the Framers

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