1. 65 But if we now confer authority retroactively upon the framers (or ratifiers), treating them as though invested with legal authority ab initio, it is peculiar to infer from our practices-including widespread and robust approval of at least some constitutional judgments that do not plausibly cohere with the norms that ratifiers intended to enact or communicate-that we have conferred the unfettered authority that Alexander claims to be baked into the very concept;make constitutional law-not the members of the Philadelphia Convention, not the persons who voted in state ratifying conventions