Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: highball

I follow the words in the Constitution. It's nice to be able to seek out the authors intent behind those words when so many today seek to warp those words into something other than intended.

In matters -such as the so called Wall- all we can do is attempt to ascertain intent since there is no official document defining such a thing.

For what it's worth, the conclusion you're reaching is also the opposite of the amendment author's.........


280 posted on 11/04/2005 1:23:23 PM PST by moehoward
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 276 | View Replies ]


To: moehoward

"I follow the words in the Constitution. It's nice to be able to seek out the authors intent behind those words when so many today seek to warp those words into something other than intended."

This is a respectable position. I notice that you haven't taken up the charge that Marbury v. Madison was not a "usurpation", which is good and consistent with your originalist position on the 14th Amendment.

With Marbury and judicial review of acts for constitutionality, we know what the Founders intended, because the same Founders who wrote the Constitution and ratified it sat on the Supreme Court and in Congress and the White House, and handed down and acquiesced to Marbury.
This fits the discussion of the role of the judiciary as referee spoken of by Madison, especially, in The Federalist.

Is baby anchoring the original intent of the 14th Amendment?
No. Its intent was to make sure that freed blacks were citizens of the US and the States, and could be deprived of rights by neither federal nor state law.
We know that from the ratification discussion of Sen. Howard among others.

Is judicial review the original intent of the judiciary power?
Yes. We know that because Hamilton and Madison alluded to it in The Federalist, before the Constitution was ratified, and we know it because the same Founders who fought the Revolution and ratified the Constitution handed down Marbury and acquiesced to it.

Of the two principles, judicial constitutional review is the more important, and it is because of that review that a law that seeks to say that babies born in the US aren't Americans is very likely to be struck down by the Supreme Court.

If you want to take away birthright, you've got to do that by constitutional amendment.


285 posted on 11/04/2005 1:43:28 PM PST by Vicomte13 (Et alors?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 280 | View Replies ]

To: moehoward
I follow the words in the Constitution.

As do I. If he meant "citizens," he should have written "citizens." It's not like the word's a recent invention.

He didn't specify, so we get an interpretation that varies from what he apparently intended. Oh, well - we go by what's actually written.

287 posted on 11/04/2005 1:57:19 PM PST by highball ("I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." -- Thomas Jefferson)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 280 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson