From our Constitution of the United States:
“Article III.
Section. 2.
The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;-- between a State and Citizens of another State;--between Citizens of different States;--between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
AMENDMENT XI
Passed by Congress March 4, 1794. Ratified February 7, 1795.
Note: Article III, section 2, of the Constitution was modified by amendment 11.
The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State."
The phrase, “The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, … between a State and Citizens of another State;--between Citizens of different States;… seems pretty clear to me. The Supreme Court is the appellate Court for Federal laws and disputes between States. It would appear it is not authorized to rule on cases affecting the internal cases of the States. The 11th Amendment further restricted the Supreme Court of the United States from interfering with the individual States.
The 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection clause is used as the excuse to interfere with the individual State’s affairs. I believe this is as much a stretch as using the interstate commerce clause (Article I Section 8 “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes”) as an excuse to pass innumerable laws affecting the States and the citizens.
I’m still trying to find the excuse used to establish the plethora of federal laws and Federal Law Enforcement Agencies. Article II Section 2 enumerates the powers of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government – “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States… He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties… The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate…”
Our Executive Branch is actually rather limited in power. Nothing about heading up a law enforcement branch that is larger and better armed than most countries.
On May 29, 2001, seven justices of the Supreme Court of the United States [Stevens, J., Rehnquist, C.J., OConnor, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ.], in delivering their ruling in the case PGA Tour, Inc., v. Martin, violated their oath to support the Constitution of the United States; engaged in a flagrant act of subjugation; ignored the intent with which the People adopted the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America; and, as Justice Scalia and Thomas noted in their dissenting opinion, “exercised a benevolent compassion”--- something which is not within the authorized duties of the Supreme Court.
In this case, the above mentioned Justices ruled that the ADA requires the PGA Tour to allow Casey Martin, a professional golfer, to ride in a golf cart between shots at tour events. Keep in mind, if the ADA does require what these Justices have stated, then the Fourteenth Amendment would have to have been intended to not only prohibit state sponsored discrimination based upon race, color or previous condition of slavery, but physical impairment as well, which simply is not the case.
The People, when adopting the 14th Amendment, intended to prohibit state sponsored discrimination, “black code laws“, [discriminatory law based upon “race, color, or former condition of slavery] and insure that all people, regardless of race, color, or former condition of slavery, would enjoy a constitutional guarantee to make and enforce contracts, to sue, to inherit and purchase property, etc., as was then enjoyed by white citizens. This was the narrow intent of the majority who supported the Fourteenth Amendment.
A research of the House and Senate debates which framed both the 1st Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment, which was intended to incorporate the objectives of the Civil Rights Act into the Constitution ---thereby making the first Civil Rights Act constitutional --- contains not one shred of evidence the amendment was intended to prohibit discrimination based upon one’s disabilities, and allow Congress to enforce this prohibition by federal legislation. As a matter of fact, there is an abundance of documented evidence the amendment was specifically intended to apply in a very narrow area…to prohibit state authorized discrimination, unequal law, based upon “race, color, or previous condition of slavery…” As Rep. Shallabarger, a primary supporter of the Fourteenth Amendment when it was being debated elaborated:
“Its whole effect is not to confer or regulate rights, but to require that whatever of these enumerated rights and obligations are imposed by State laws shall be for and upon all citizens alike without distinctions based on race or former condition of slavery…It permits the States to say that the wife may not testify, sue or contract. It makes no law as to this. Its whole effect is to require that whatever rights as to each of the enumerated civil (not political) matters the States may confer upon one race or color of the citizens shall be held by all races in equality…It does not prohibit you from discriminating between citizens of the same race, or of different races, as to what their rights to testify, to inherit &c. shall be. But if you do discriminate, it must not be on account of race, color or former conditions of slavery. That is all. If you permit a white man who is an infidel to testify, so you must a colored infidel. Self-evidently this is the whole effect of this first section. It secures-not to all citizens, but to all races as races who are citizens- equality of protection in those enumerated civil rights which the States may deem proper to confer upon any race.” see Rep. Shallabarger, Congressional Globe, 1866, page 1293
The argument that the wording in the 14th Amendment: (a)“all persons”, (b)"No State shall make any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of United States.", (c) "[N]or deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws", as being evidence the 14th Amendment was intended to be a universal rule to bar every imaginable type of discrimination, including discrimination based upon sex or physical disabilities falls flat on its face when reading the words of next Amendment to the Constitution! This Amendment (the 15th) prohibits a new type of discrimination which is prima facie evidence the Fourteenth Amendment is not a universal rule to bar every imaginable type of discrimination. The Fifteenth Amendment prohibits discrimination at the voting booth on account of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The intent of the 15th Amendment was unmistakably adopted to enlarge the prohibition on state sponsored discrimination mentioned in the 14th, and extend it to include a new subject matter, but only to the extent that the prohibited discrimination is based upon “race, color or previous condition of servitude”…the People not yet willing to provide the same federally enforceable guarantee to the female gender!
The assertion that the 14th Amendment prohibits a wide variety of discrimination such as discrimination based upon sex, [see Justice Ginsburg’s opinion in the VMI Case], is totally refuted when reading the 19th Amendment which was adopted by the people to specifically forbid yet a new kind of discrimination, discrimination at the voting both based upon sex. Why adopt the 19th Amendment forbidding the right to vote to be “denied or abridged” on account of “SEX.” if the Fourteenth Amendment already prohibited sex discrimination as claimed by Justice Ginsburg?
And finally, why would there have been a proposed so-call “equal rights amendment” offered in the 1980’s for adoption to the Constitution of the United States authorizing Congress to prohibit sex discrimination by legislative acts [which was voted down by the People] if the 14th amendment already granted such power to Congress as Ginsburg asserts?
The truth is, the Supreme Court is working in concert with those who are subjugating our Constitution and supplanting their personal whims and fancies as law in spite of the Constitution forbidding such law ---, such action being a blatant rebellion against our Constitution, and meeting the definition of tyranny!
Regards,
JWK
ACRS