What it mean is that the Constitution needs to be interpreted according to the times. What is cruel and unusual now was not then. This is only one example of our not being able to ... conform to the constitution exactly the way it was written. Furthermore, it happens that the document was designed to change over time so it was never intended to be a static document.
Not so.
"Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government."
James Madison: Father of the Constitution
"It has been urged and echoed, that the power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States, amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction
what colour can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms, immediately follows; and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon. If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded as to give meaning to every part which will bear it; shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent and the clear and precise expressions, be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power?...the idea of an enumeration of particulars, which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity
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James Madison The Federalist Papers
"Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank piece of paper by construction."
Thomas Jefferson
"The true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is in the intention of the law makers. This is the most safely gathered of words, but may be sought also in extraneous circumstances provided they do not contradict the express words of the law."
Thomas Jefferson
"On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
Thomas Jefferson
"Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure."
Thomas Jefferson
"The Constitution on which our Union rests, shall be administered by me [as President] according to the safe and honest meaning contemplated by the plain understanding of the people of the United States at the time of its adoption - a meaning to be found in the explanations of those who advocated, not those who opposed it, and who opposed it merely lest the construction should be applied which they denounced as possible."
Thomas Jefferson as POTUS
"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please...Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect."
Thomas Jefferson
"It is an established rule of construction, where a phrase will bear either of two meanings to give it that which will allow some meaning to the other parts of the instrument, and not that which will render all the others useless. Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given to them. It was intended to lace them up straitly with in the enumerated powers, and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect."
Thomas Jefferson
"The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it."
James Wilson
