(Letter begins at page 277 of link.)
Constitution ping!
“Boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem.”
It is the part of a good judge to enlarge his jurisdiction.
Timeless Jefferson.
5 of our first 7 presidents served two terms. The two that served only one term were liberals...and they were both named Adams.
The Federal courts now have powers that were never given to them by We the People. They just took those powers for themselves. This needs to be stopped. No government court should ever be telling US what the Constitution or the Bill of Rights mean. We the People should be telling the government what the Constitution and Bill of Rights mean. That’s our job! It’s what the Founding Fathers intended for us to do.
The ultimate arbiters of the Constitution are the people, since the power inherent in it has the people as its source.
“We, the People of the United States...”
Having said that, those who represent us, each and every officer of government, in every branch and at every level, has a sworn duty to correctly interpret and follow the Constitution in every detail.
Just because one officer in one branch breaches that oath, no other officer in other branch has leave to breach his own.
The primary reason the courts are out of control now is that our executives and legislators are refusing to do their Constitutional duty.
Unfortunately, the Republican Party is rotted clear through with judicial supremacists.
And it’s taking down the republic and destroying our liberty.
No! There is a relatively new book, “Nullification,” by Thomas E. Woods. The author’s argument “The Supreme Court itself, after all, although usually pointed to as the monopolistic and infallible judge of the constitutionality of the federal government’s action, itself a branch of the federal government.”
True check on the federal government is the several States. The states have the power to nullify any action of the federal government by a simple majority. Great book just got started reading it. Very timely.
I believe that a fully informed jury is the last ditch.
Pardon me for posting this again here...
Impeachment of Supreme Court Justices
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Constitution of the United States
Article I Section 2: The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker and other officers; and shall have the sole power of impeachment.
Article II Section 4: The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Article III Section 1: The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.
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A Supreme Court Justice may be impeached by the House of Representatives and then removed from office if convicted in a Senate trial, but only for the same types of offenses that would trigger impeachment proceedings for any other government official under Article I and II of the Constitution.
Article III, Section 1 states that judges shall hold their offices “during good behavior.” The courts have interpreted the phrase “good behavior” to be the same level of seriousness as “high crimes and misdemeanors”.
So, although the mechanism for doing so exists, NO Supreme Court justice has EVER been “removed from office” by the Senate, and ONLY ONE Supreme Court Justice has ever been “impeached” by the House of Representatives.
In 1804, the House of Representatives accused Samuel Chase (a signer of the Declaration of Independence) of letting his political leanings affect his rulings, and served him with eight articles of impeachment. One article concerned Chase’s handling of the trial of John Fries; two concerned his conduct in the trial of James Callender; four concerned Chase’s procedural errors on various matters; and the eighth article had to do with Chase’s “intemperate and inflammatory”; “indecent and unbecoming”; “highly unwarrantable”; and “highly indecent” remarks made to a Baltimore grand jury. In 1805, the Senate acquitted Chase of all charges, establishing the right of the judiciary to independent opinion. Chase continued on the Court until his death in June 1811.
In 1957, Georgia Governor Marvin Griffin signed a resolution passed by the Georgia General Assembly titled “The Impeachment of Certain U.S. Supreme Court Justices”. The resolution targeted six Supreme Court Justices (Earl Warren, Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, Tom Campbell Clark, Felix Frankfurter, and Stanley Forman Reed) who were believed to be enabling communism with their decisions “for usurping the congressional power to make law in violation of Article I, Sections I and 8”, “violations of Sections 3 and 5 of the 14th Amendment”, and “nullification of the 10th Amendment of the Constitution.” Nothing ever came of their efforts. Signs were erected across the south saying “Impeach Earl Warren”, many of which were still standing when Warren retired from the bench in 1969.
Abe Fortas (served from 1965-1969) was almost impeached due to a tax and financial scandal involving Wall Street financier, Louis Wolfson. When President Richard Nixon learned of the scandal, he said Fortas should be “off of there”. The House of Representatives had already taken preliminary steps toward impeachment. Chief Justice Earl Warren urged Fortas to resign, to save the reputation of the Court. Fortas resisted at first, but eventually stepped down “to avoid damaging his wife’s legal career”.
Please teach your children how to read the constitution and THE BILL of RIGHTS.
In the Anti-Federalist Papers, "Brutus," generally believed to be New York State Supreme Court Justice Robert Yates, likewise warned what would happen with an out-of-control activist judiciary, writing in his 15th essay that "The supreme court under this constitution would be exalted above all other power in the government, and subject to no control."
seems to me that the extreme efforts made to seperate power and provide checks and balances was an admission by the framers that power corrupts.
Each branch of government is required by oath to uphold the Constitution.
The courts are merely another fail safe to stand between the Constitution and the legislative and executive branches possible breach of the Constitution.
The court actually has no ability to alter the Constitution.
If it fails to properly act in defense of that document it is as corrupted as the other branches and has no authority.
The States, as representing the people have more authority legally.
The Constitution ultimately is the people legal sheild against all of these institutions and empowers them to dismiss them at will.
And let’s not forget about the 57 State Supreme Courts either.
FYI the Confederate constitution permitted the legislatures of any three states to jointly impeach any federal judge and force a trial in the Senate.
No.
The ultimate arbiter of government frequently comes down to the will of those willing to take up arms and prevail, It was true for the IS in the 1770s, and the 1860s.
I think people are pretty well keeping track on which side members of the bar sit, if it comes to that. How did the Tories fare?
As noted by others, the Supreme Court has no Constitutional authority over the CiC of the military. The supreme authority over all three branches is supposed to be ‘ We the People’. The difficulty with this is that the body of ‘We the People’ changes. At the last election it changed to Obama’s favor. Hopefully in November another change will occure against Obama.
In "Our Ageless Constitution," is an essay by Dr. Walter Berns and edited for that book, entitled "Do We Have A Living Constitution?" One portion of that essay deals with what appears to have been a deliberate attempt to misquote and misinterpret Marshall in order to justify the so-called "living constitution" idea of the Progressives. That portion is excerpted here:
"A former president of the American Political Science Association argues that the idea of a " 'living Constitution'...can trace its lineage back to John Marshall's celebrated advice in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819): 'We must never forget that it is a Constitution we are expounding...intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs' " The words quoted are certainly Marshall's but the opinion attributed to him is at odds with his well-known statements that, for example, the "principles" of the Constitution "are deemed fundamental [and] permanent" and, except by means of formal amendment, "unchangeable" (Marbury v. Madison). It is important to note that the discrepancy is not Marshall's; it is largely the consequence of the manner in which he is quoted - ellipses are used to join two statements separated by some eight pages in the original text. Marshall did not say that the Constitution should be adapted to the various crises of human affairs; he said that the powers of Congress are adaptable to meet those crises. The first statement appears in that part of his opinion where he is arguing that the Constitution cannot specify "all the subdivisions of which its great powers will admit;" if it attempted to do so, it would "partake of the prolixity of a legal code" (McCulloch v. Maryland), In the second statement, Marshall's subject is the legislative power, and specifically the power "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution" the explicitly granted powers.
"Neither Marshall nor any other prominent members of the founding generation can be 'appropriated' by the living Constitution school to support their erroneous views. Marshall's and the Founders' concern was not to keep the Constitution in tune with the times but, rather, to keep the times to the extent possible, in tune with the Constitution. And that is why the Framers assigned to the judiciary the task of protecting the Constitution as written.
"They were under no illusions that this would prove to be an easy task. Nevertheless, they had reason to believe that they had written a constitution that deserved to endure and, properly guarded, would endure. Hence, Madison spoke out forcefully against frequent appeals to the people for change. Marshall had this Madisonian passage in mind when, in his opinion for the Court in Marbury, he wrote:
"That the people have an original right to establish, for their future government, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness, is the basis on which the whole American fabric has been erected. The exercise of this original right is a very great exertion; nor can it, nor ought it, to be frequently repeated. The principles, therefore, so established, are deemed fundamental: and as the authority from which they proceed is supreme, and can seldom act, they are designed to be permanent."
"At this point, it is well to remember Hamilton's strong warning about unwarranted presumptions by those in government of a power to depart from the people's established form as quoted in the title of this essay.
"Marshall referred to the "principles" which he called "permanent," and the "basis on which the whole American fabric has been erected" Yet Marshall also chose to address the much broader issue of the general scope of the national powers. The Constitution must be construed to "...allow to the national legislature that discretion, with respect to the means by which the powers it confers are to be carried into execution, which will enable that body to perform the high duties assigned to it, in the manner most beneficial to the people." It is these powers, not the Constitution, which are flexible and adaptable to meet the crises of "human affairs."
"Ironically, the very case cited by the "living Constitution" school, when properly read, demonstrates that John Marshall, at least, saw, no need for flexibility in the Constitution.
"What has been undertaken here has been providing (within a very brief compass indeed) an accurate statement of the principles underlying the American Constitution: pointing to (but by no means elaborating) the political theory from which they derive and the constitutional conclusions to which they lead. Among the latter is the untenability of the proposition that constitutional limitations can be jettisoned, constitutional power enhanced, or the constitutional division of powers altered, by means other than formal constitutional amendment.
"It will not be argued that it may sometimes be convenient to allow the Senate to originate a bill "for raising revenue," but convenience is not a measure of constitutionality. There is much to be said in favor of the legislative veto - Who would, in principle, deny the need of checks on administrative agencies? - but, as the Supreme Court correctly said, the Framers anticipated that Congress might find reason to employ such devices and, when designing the so-called "presentment clause" in Article 1, Section 7, forbade them ( Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha). And from a particular partisan perspective it is understandably frustrating, simply because the required number of states had not yet ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, to be denied the power to promote the cause of sexual equality; but frustration alone cannot justify a judicial attempt to preclude the necessity of formal ratification, as Justice Brennan is said to have wished to do. In Frontiero v. Richardson (411 U.S. 677, 1973) the Supreme Court was divided on the issue of whether sex, like race, should be treated as a suspect classification. We are told that Justice Brennan circulated a draft opinion in which he proposed to declare classification by sex virtually impermissible and that he knew this would have the effect of "enacting" the pending ERA. "But Brennan was accustomed to having the Court out in front, leading any civil rights movement," a major publication stated. Hence, we are further told, he saw "no reason to wait several years for the states to ratify the amendment." No reason, that is, other than the fact, which Brennan implicitly acknowledged, that the Constitution as then written, and which had not yet been rewritten by the only people authorized to rewrite it, did not support the role he would have the Court hand down.
"Those who would use "convenience" or "frustration" as reason, or who insist that it lies within the powers of the Court (or the Congress or the Executive) to effect constitutional change, can be charged with a lack of respect for the principles on which, as Marshall wisely observed: "the whole American fabric has been erected."
"We are told that it is unreasonable - even foolish - to expect that the Framers could have written a Constitution suitable alike for a society of husbandman and a society of multinational corporations, to say nothing of one as well adapted to the age of the musket and sailing ship as to the age of intercontinental nuclear-tipped missiles. As the problems have changed, the argument goes, so must the manner in which they are confronted and solved, and the Constitution cannot be allowed to stand in the way. Indeed, there is no reason to allow it to stand in the way, we are told, because the Framers intended it to be flexible. And we are told that John Marshall would support this position. But it was Marshall, in McCulloch v. Maryland, who stated: "Throughout this vast republic, from the St. Croix to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, revenue is to be collected and expended, armies are to be marched and supported." The United States, in this view was not intended to be a simple society of husbandmen, and Marshall Clearly saw that the Constitution empowered Congress to do what was required to meet the crises of the Republic, and to maintain the Constitutional structure intended by the Framers, changing it only when such change would be in keeping with the structure itself.
"That the American Constitution is long-lived, has enduring qualities, and was intended for the ages cannot be doubted. That it was founded on enduring principles, and that it was based on the authority of a people who are sovereign has been attested to by many of its leaders. That it can be changed when, and if, the people ordain such change is a part of its own provisions. For these reasons, it can be said to be a "Living Constitution" - but let that not be claimed by those who would use the language to subvert the structure."
Our Ageless Constitution, W. David Stedman & La Vaughn G. Lewis, Editors (Asheboro, NC, W. David Stedman Associates,1987) Part VII: ISBN 0-937047-01-5: (Essay adapted by Editors for publication in this Volume in consultation with Dr. Walter Berns from Berns' article by the same title in National Forum , The Phi Kappa Phi Journal, Fall 1984)
Justice Story asserted that it is "We, the People" who are the real arbiters of the Constitution. In a comment of admiration for its architecture and beauty, he concluded by saying:
"...and its defenses 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 virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens."
There is the Constitution of the United States of America operating under the application of the jurisdiction of the 14th Amendment and it’s derivative Act of 1871.
And then there is the original Constitution for the united states of America without the application of the jurisdiction of the 14th Amendment or it’s derivative Act of 1871.
The Supreme Court knows that the difference between these two is literally night and day, and that this difference determines every word out of their august mouths.
Yet none of the millions of words written by hundreds, if not thousands, of Constitutional “experts” touches this subject with a ten foot pole.
This would be laughable, if it wasn’t so utterly, stupendously, catastrophic.
And The Band Plays On.
“Is The Supreme Court the Ultimate Arbiter of the Constitution?”
No. Of course not.
The PEOPLE are the ultimate “arbiters” of the Constitution, if indeed that Constitution means anything at all.
We are destined to find this out in the months and years ahead.
Interesting times, indeed.
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