Posted on 05/06/2012 9:27:44 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
I am sure the Founders would have approved State Governors having sex with hookers on Government time, and Presidents lying under oath to Grand juries in Civil Rights Cases, (Clinton). I just cannot find it in the Federalist....
I bet Ashley Dupre is all for ObamaCare.
America's Founders understood human nature well enough and were wise enough to form a Constitution based on enduring principles for the protection of Creator-endowed individual liberty. It was as Justice Story wrote in his "Commentaries on the Constitution . . . ,"
"The structure has been erected by architects of consummate skill and fidelity; its foundations are solid; its compartments are beautiful, as well as useful; its arrangements are full of wisdom and order; and its defences are impregnable from without. It has been reared for immortality, if the work of man may justly aspire to such a title. It may, nevertheless, perish in an hour by the folly, or corruption, or negligence of its only keepers, THE PEOPLE. Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them."
Sadly, Spitzer's comments here reflect his own inadequacy to grasp the long view of history, his apparent lack of study of civilization's struggles to overcome tyranny and the remarkable nature of his own nation's Constitution. Else, how could he make such uninformed remarks about the Constitution and Constitutional interpretation?
Fortunately, a man long recognized as a true American statesman and intellectual held a different view on the manner in which the Constitution should be approached.
In "When Jefferson Dined Alone," Professor Jonathon Gross of DePaul University (Steerforth Press, May 2006) wrote: "At a gathering of 49 Nobel Prize recipients at the White House on April 29, 1962, John F. Kennedy noted that never before had such talent been assembled in one room, except, perhaps, when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." Read more about Jefferson.
The point of telling that story is that it was none other than Thomas Jefferson who said:
"On every question of construction, let us 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, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p. 322.
"Until the people have, by some solemn and authoritative act, annulled or changed the established form, it is binding upon them collectively, as well as individually; and no presumption or even knowledge of their sentiments, can warrant their representatives [the executive, judiciary, or legislature]; in a departure from it prior to such an act." - Alexander Hamilton
In the first of the eighty-five "Federalist Papers," Alexander Hamilton emphasized that:
"... it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection or choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force."
The Framers knew that the passage of time would surely disclose imperfections or inadequacies in the Constitution, but these were to be repaired or remedied by formal amendment, not by legislative action or judicial construction (or reconstruction). Hamilton (in The Federalist No. 78) was emphatic about this:
"Until the people have, by some solemn and authoritative act, annulled or changed the established form, it is binding upon them collectively, as well as individually; and no presumption, or even knowledge of their sentiments, can warrant their representatives in a departure from it prior to such an act."
Mr. Spitzer, there are volumes of writings from America's first 50-100 years which refute your theory that the Founders could not "even have envisioned" the kinds of "problems," or intrusions on liberty we face today. In their wisdom, they did, in fact envision such things.
Poor Eliot. He’s too lazy to actually read the text of the Second Militia Act of 1792 to see what Congress passed and Washington signed.
“...each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia,...”
So, first of all it applied to every male of a certain age, not every living being.
“...every citizen, so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock,...”
So, each male was to “provide himself.” There was no mandate to buy anything. Real brilliant reasoning there Spitz.
Spitzer, take your Spitz and find a Honey, you loathsome jerk. No one gives a care what you think or say. Now go away.
Elliot, no government is going to dictate to me what I am going to buy.
Now STFU.
I have had enough! Big Government is Going Down. Peacefully I hope this November.
And our old deeds say "Free and Independent". It's called States Rights.
The government was getting stuck with the tab for their losses. This was the solution. Was it adhered to? Was it outlawed?
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