I think textualism is reasonable. The authors of the constitution can be expected to write what they meant. Independent of the intent of the authors, those who ratified the constitution ratified the text before them. If thy had issues with the text as it existed they could protest and ask for improvements. They succeeded in doing that. Meaning that the text as it stands, interpreted in the vernacular of the day, can be read as the law. Ok, hopefully that's not controversial even though it is with modern judges. But now lets talk about why that means we don't have an eligible president, and haven't for a long time. > No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; A, B, C, D is the form. B is an addition to A. The sentence then continues with C is a clause of A and B. If C were a descriptive of B exclusively the comma would not be necessary. Did Madison intentionally build a poison pill into the constitution fearing that the American people would fail to reestablish government two to three generations later? Within his lifetime he had seen and taken part in the people forming governments four times (first continental congress, second continental congress, articles of confederation, and constitution). It could be that the founding fathers never intended the constitution to last this long considering they believed in the reestablishment of government by the people and engaged in the practice multiple times within a single lifetime. Either way, the constitution is the law, at most, as it is written independent of intent. If the way it is written isn't very helpful, then tough noogie. Maybe it was written poorly because it was meant to be a temporary document.