Posted on 08/17/2003 9:24:24 PM PDT by DPB101
PHILADELPHIA — This city's new Constitution museum does not sugarcoat how the Founding Fathers resolved the "awful dilemma" of slavery. One display panel reminds visitors that Georgia and South Carolina threatened to leave the Union if they could not keep importing slaves. Other states were anti-slavery and the compromise, enshrined in Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution, was that the slave trade could continue until 1808, and be taxed at no more than $10 per slave.
That stunning dispatch is typical of the National Constitution Center, which opened this summer, not far from the Liberty Bell. A museum dedicated to the Constitution sounds either hopelessly geeky (what's on exhibit, legal treatises?) or propagandistic, in the old Soviet style. But the reason this one works, in addition to all the cool technology, is that it presents constitutional history as it was: a long, hard struggle against those who wanted to keep blacks enslaved or segregated, women in their place and outsiders outside.
It is, in the end, an inspiring place, because it tells a largely triumphal story of rights recognized and new groups woven into the fabric of the nation. But for anyone paying attention to the Bush administration's judicial nominations, this is a sobering time to visit. The White House seems intent on packing the courts with judges who want to reverse — or at least retard — many of the gains recorded here. The museum has a cafe with computers, and visitors are encouraged to e-mail their representatives in Congress. If museumgoers appreciate the constitutional rights they have gained over time, they should ask their senators to vote no on the worst of the Bush nominees.
As they walk through the museum's chronological display, many visitors are caught off guard at what they see in the early years. Interactive screens ask questions: Are you male? White? Do you own property? They then tell you whether you would have been allowed to vote in different periods. People learn that before the 17th Amendment, United States senators were elected by state legislatures, not by the general populace. I watched as an alarmed woman asked her companion if he was aware of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the infamous 1882 law that kept out immigrants partly to protect America's racial purity.
But for all the bad news dutifully recorded, there are also a series of extraordinary, interlaced stories of Americans moving forward as the Constitution itself moved forward, by amendment or judicial interpretation. Blacks go from Dred Scott, the 1854 Supreme Court case holding they could not be citizens (illustrated with a pair of shackles) to the Bakke decision upholding affirmative action. Women go from being denied the vote to getting a female Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O'Connor, in 1981. Some of the greatest victories vindicated rights it's hard to believe we were ever without. In 1964, the Supreme Court ruled that the equal protection clause required "one man, one vote," and barred Alabama from cramming 600,000 people into one legislative district while another had just 15,417.
If the museum were not scrupulously nonpartisan (its advisory board includes both Stephen Breyer, the liberal Supreme Court justice, and the conservative Antonin Scalia) it might have offered an instructive exhibit asking visitors to match the constitutional rights they have just learned about with the views of Bush administration judicial nominees. One Bush choice for the courts, Michael McConnell, now a federal appeals court judge, has argued that the Supreme Court was wrong to rule that the equal protection clause required legislative districts with roughly equal numbers of people.
Jay Bybee, also now an appeals court judge, has argued, incredibly, that the 17th Amendment should be repealed, and United States senators once again selected by state legislators.
William Pryor, a nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, urged Congress to repeal an important part of the Voting Rights Act.
President Bush has said he wants to appoint judges like Clarence Thomas and Justice Scalia, both embarked on campaigns to undo years of constitutional progress. Justice Scalia advocates tying Americans' rights today to the prevailing wisdom of the 18th century. In a petulant dissent in the recent sodomy decision, he argued that gay sex can be criminalized now because it was a crime in the 13 original states. Justice Thomas offered the dangerous argument in last year's school voucher case that states should be less bound by the Bill of Rights than the federal government.
Mainstream conservatives approve of the onward march of the last two centuries of constitutional history. Anthony Kennedy, named to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan, eloquently observed in his majority decision in the sodomy case that "as the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom." But many Bush nominees are not conservatives but radicals. If they take over the federal courts — and in a second Bush administration they might — the scope of our constitutional rights could be very different. The National Constitution Center might be forced to reorganize its main hall in a "U" shape, so visitors can turn around and say goodbye to the rights that were taken away.
Big words to be coupled with such scant evidence.
They forgot to add that this law would still be constitutional were it in effect today, since Congress' powers to control the border is effectively unlimited.
That's also why you have no right against search and seizure regarding any foreign correspondence or telephone call.
Morons.
Even John Dean argues the 17th amendment should be repealed.
LOL!!!...quote of the day.
The New York Times 1803:It has come to our attention that many people who desire to own a slave cannot afford even one slave while others have not just one but five, ten or hundreds of slaves. Would it not be a civic good to raise the tax on slaves from $10 to $20 and subsidize the purchase of a slave by those who,having not won life's lottery, are unable to purchse one?
The founders used the varying interests of the two bodies - Representatives aka the House of Commons (of the people), and the Senate, aka the House of Lords (representing the states). The two would be at odds over many issues, a check and balance that has been destroyed.
When you're off course, the correct thing to do is steer your way back. Kudos to two gentleman that actually understand the Constitution.
Adam Cohen should read it sometime.
Fortunately our rights are granted by God and not the State.
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