Posted on 08/25/2003 5:20:00 AM PDT by RikaStrom
In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of “word for the day”. Rules: Everyone must leave a post using the “word of the day”; in a sentence. The sentence must, in some way, relate to the news of the day. Practice makes perfect.....post on....
inviolable \In*vi"o*la*ble\, adjective:
inviolability, inviolableness; noun
inviolably; adverb
1. Secure from violation or profanation: an inviolable reliquary deep beneath the altar.
2. Impregnable to assault or trespass; invincible: fortifications that made the frontier inviolable.
3. Not violable; not susceptible of hurt, wound, or harm (used with respect to either physical or moral damage)
4. Not susceptible of being profaned or corrupted; sacred; holy; as, inviolable honor or chastity; an inviolable shrine.
5. Unviolated; uninjured; undefiled; uncorrupted.
For thou, be sure, shalt give account To him who sent us, whose charge is to keep This place inviolable, and these from harm.
--Milton.
Etymology: [Middle English, from Old French, from Latin inviol bilis : in-, not; see in-1 + viol re, to violate; see violate.]
i am sorry,i can't help but picture SG screaming out FREE BIRD at a concert now...
The Court, if it had wished to rely upon Jefferson to determine the true and original intent of the First Amendment, could have served themselves and the American people well by referring to Jefferson's admonition to Judge William Johnson regarding the determination of the original intent of a statute or a constitution: `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, Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, editor [Boston: Gray and Bowen, 1830, Vol. IV., p. 373,] to Judge William Johnson on June 12, 1823).
Justice Joseph Story, considered the Father of American Jurisprudence, stated in his Commentaries on the Constitution: `The real object of the [First A]mendment was not to countenance, much less to advance Mohometanism [sp], or Judaism, or infidelity by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy [a denominational council] the exclusive patronage of the national government. (Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States [Boston; Hilliard, Gray and Company, 1833], p. 728, par. 1871.)
Chief Justice William Rehnquist made an extensive study of the history of the First Amendment. In his dissent in Wallace v. Jaffree (472 U.S. 38, 48, n. 30 [1984],) he stated: `There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the Framers intended to build the `wall of separation' that was constitutionalized in Everson. . . . But the greatest injury of the `wall' notion is its mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intentions of the drafters of the Bill of Rights. . . . [N]o amount of repetition of historical errors in judicial opinions can make the errors true. The `wall of separation between church and state' is a metaphor based on bad history. . . . It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned. . . . Our perception has been clouded not by the Constitution but by the mists of an unnecessary metaphor. It would come as much of a shock to those who drafted the Bill of Rights, as it will to a large number of thoughtful Americans today, to learn that the Constitution, as construed by the majority, prohibits the Alabama Legislature from endorsing prayer. George Washington himself, at the request of the very Congress which passed the Bill of Rights, proclaimed a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God. History must judge whether it was the Father of his Country in 1789, or a majority of the Court today, which has strayed from the meaning of the Establishment Clause.'
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