Replies

You wrote: Then you don't have a clue as to the brilliance of our Founding Fathers - They did not create a document from which only a select few could understand it!

The idea that you think only "certain" people are qualified goes against every concept our Founding Fathers put forth.

Hamilton wrote in Federalist 78:

To avoid an arbitrary discretion in the courts, it is indispensable that they should be bound down by strict rules and precedents, which serve to define and point out their duty in every particular case that comes before them; and it will readily be conceived from the variety of controversies which grow out of the folly and wickedness of mankind, that the records of those precedents must unavoidably swell to a very considerable bulk, and must demand long and laborious study to acquire a competent knowledge of them. Hence it is, that there can be but few men in the society who will have sufficient skill in the laws to qualify them for the stations of judges. And making the proper deductions for the ordinary depravity of human nature, the number must be still smaller of those who unite the requisite integrity with the requisite knowledge.

You are wrong about the founders’ view of what qualifications are necessary for nomination to the court. But you do raise the central point. I don’t think Miers has demonstrated she has the type of qualifications Hamilton speaks of, and that’s why I don’t support her nomination (although I’ll grant that otherwise she is a very fine person).

The Founders had an idea about who they DID NOT want on the court.

*****************************

Federalist 76:

But might not his nomination be overruled? I grant it might, yet this could only be to make place for another nomination by himself. The person ultimately appointed must be the object of his preference, though perhaps not in the first degree. It is also not very probable that his nomination would often be overruled. The Senate could not be tempted, by the preference they might feel to another, to reject the one proposed; because they could not assure themselves, that the person they might wish would be brought forward by a second or by an subsequent nomination.

They could not even be certain, that a future nomination would present a candidate in any degree more acceptable to them; and as their dissent might cast a kind of stigma upon the individual rejected, and might have the appearance of a reflection upon the judgment of the chief magistrate, it is not likely that their sanction would often be refused, where there were not special and strong reasons for the refusal.

To what purpose then require the cooperation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity. In addition to this, it would be an efficacious source of stability in the administration.

Your post regarding Hamilton says nothing with regard to those outside of the Legal profession as a way of life - It only says that those put within the position of judges be "willing" to have long/hard hours in study prior to their decisions (based off the established law).

Again, to assume only those in the Legal profession are capable of understanding of the Constitution is ridiculous.

The brilliance of our Founding Fathers was in that they created a document and system which goes exactly against that theory.

Thanks for your post. Whatever the Founding Fathers wanted, they did NOT want unqualified nominees for the judicial bench, nor did they want a compliant, uninformed electorate. The Founding Fathers never adopted the phoney "anti-elitist," pseudo-populist cant spouted by the Miers supporters here.