We have repeatedly marveled here at the discovery by some of a secret plot by conservatives and libertarians to reimpose the so-called "Constitution in Exile." So secret, apparently, that advocates of the theory won't even use the label in public (of course, they don't seem to use it in private either...). Jesse Jackson is the latest to have unmasked the nefarious plot:

Now, on the far right of American politics, comes a new reaction proclaiming that the real Constitution has been "in exile" since the 1930s. They want to roll back not only the privacy doctrine on which women's right to choose rests, but the Warren Court's rulings and those of the Roosevelt Court also. They would return the nation to the era of the Gilded Age, when unions were outlawed as a restraint on trade, when corporate regulation was struck down as exceeding congressional power and when states' rights were exalted.

Alito is in that line.

Courtesy of Ann Althouse, who provides a pithy assessment of Professor Jackson's legal analysis as well.

My question is more pedestrian--where in the world did Jesse Jackson latch on to the phrase "Constitution in Exile"? If it has filtered down to popular use in this manner, this is a meme that seems to have a remarkable degree of strength.

Interestingly, I see that Wikipedia actually has a page for the phrase, which discusses Orin and David's critique of the term's supposed use.