<table> </table> The U.S. Constitution is neither living nor dead, U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. told an overflow crowd Wednesday at the University of Kansas.</p><p>Asked by a third-year law student whether he concurred with Antonin Scalia that the nation&#8217;s ruling document is a dead, unchanging text, Roberts disagreed.</p><p>Rather, Roberts said, the Constitution means no more and no less than what it states.</p><p>&#8220;Justice Scalia gets all the good air time,&#8221; he said, referring to his colleague&#8217;s recent CBS &#8220;60 Minutes&#8221; interview when he called the document dead. &#8220;(But) it&#8217;s a legal document. Legal documents don&#8217;t live or die.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s living (only) in the sense that the people who drafted it expected it to govern the people for generations to come.&#8221;</p><p>Yet he derided the philosophy that judges should treat the Constitution as a self-evolving document that should be bent to fit modern mores. Instead, he compared it to a contract that should only change when the country formally amends it.</p><p>&#8220;The framers never envisioned &#8230; that this deal could be changed by the one branch of government that is not elected,&#8221; Roberts said.</p><p>Roberts began his appearance by reading a 30-minute speech to about 2,000 people in the KU Lied Center about the history of the Louisiana Purchase &#8212; a deal consummated exactly 205 years ago. He used it as a way to show respect for Thomas Jefferson and the other early leaders who understood the importance of commerce and government coming to terms.</p><p>He then fielded two questions each from a pair of business students and a pair of law students chosen in advance. The speech was sponsored by the KU business school.</p><p>Roberts said the court treats monumental and mundane cases with the same deliberation. And unlike decisions by Congress or the administration, he said, the court&#8217;s always come with explanation.</p><p>&#8220;If people don&#8217;t like what we&#8217;re doing, it&#8217;s just probably too bad,&#8221; he said.