[Tahts-a-dats-ago]

Excellent as always. Your thoughts remind me of someone else:

"Whenever the words of a law will bear two meanings, one of which will give effect to the law, and the other will defeat it, the former must be supposed to have been intended by the Legislature, because they could not intend that meaning, which would defeat their intention, in passing that law; and in a statute, as in a will, the intention of the party is to be sought after." --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1808. ME 12:110


"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 to William Johnson, 1823. ME 15:449

"Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction." --Thomas Jefferson to Wilson Nicholas, 1803. ME 10:419

[Congressman Billybob]

You honor me, my friend, by comparing my words to those of Jefferson. Yes, I am aware of those statements by Jefferson, and the one in which he calls the federal judiciary, "the most dangerous branch."

It was not that way in Jefferson's time. But as with many things, his vision reached across the cneturies. He saw what the federal judiciary could degenerate into. And as usual, he was right.

John / Billybob