Posted on 01/15/2006 8:59:46 AM PST by Dog Gone
Maybe if you learned to read? Did you miss this one?
"This will certainly be attended with great inconvenience, as the several States are bound not to make laws contradictory thereto, and all officers are sworn to support it, without knowing precisely what it is."This Post. Or maybe this one?
"Mr. LAWRENCE. Only a few words will be necessary to convince us that Congress have this power. It is declared by the Constitution, that its ordinances shall be the supreme law of the land. If the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, every part of it must partake of this supremacy; consequently, every general declaration it contains is the supreme law. But then these general declarations cannot be carried into effect without particular regulations adapted to the circumstances: these particular regulations are to be made by Congress, who, by the Constitution, have power to make all laws necessary or proper to carry the declarations of the Constitution into effect. The Constitution likewise declares that the members of the state legislatures, and all officers, executive and judicial, shall take an oath to support the Constitution. This declaration is general, and it lies with the supreme legislature to detail and regulate it."
From Elliots Debates, Constitutional Convention Vol 4
No. Of course you didn't miss them. They just don't support your argument and blow the whole thing up in your face. So you ignore them. Next, you will find something else to take out of context and twist to try and fit your side of the debate. No need for that over here, all I gotta do is copy and paste.
We established however some, although not all its [self-government] important principles . The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved,) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed;
---Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. Memorial Edition 16:45, Lipscomb and Bergh, editors.
[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation...(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
---James Madison,The Federalist Papers, No. 46.
Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man gainst his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.
---Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.
What do you have? Quotes from justices trying to keep guns out of the hands of Negroes? Nice going Ace...
It helps if you take a reading comprehension class. I notice you are still taking quotes from what later people say the Founders said, instead of the words of the Founders themselves.
How quaint. Stupid, but quaint.
Sorry, but I take the viewpoint that words have meaning. If the founders truly wanted the 2nd to only apply to the feds, they should have written it like the first, with a lead in that clearly indicates it was only meant as a constraint on federal power.
Your way is similar to that of the current SCOTUS majority, who give words whatever meaning they want them to.
I am an originalist in that I believe in returning to the meaning of words in the Constitution. Trying to devine the intent of the Founders allows words and meaning not existant in the clear words of the Constitution to be found there. "Shall not be infringed" is as concrete as language gets. Since I don't see "by Congress" after that phrase, I will continue to assert that any clear reading of the 2nd is a constraint on all governments to restrict the right to bear arms.
This court has ruled that consistently with those amendments trial by jury may be modified by a state or abolished altogether.
Tarkin "absolutely" agrees:
You're absolutely right of course. But some people don't like facts to get in their way.
The bold fact from the 6th :
"-- In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence. --"
Now you two may imagine that Courts can absolutely "abolish altogether"; our right to a jury trial in criminal cases, but that is NOT what the Constitutions 6th clearly says.
'Absolutists' find themselves in very odd positions. Why on earth would any rational person want to abolish jury trials?
Not one of your quotes even mentions the 2nd Amendment. Beggar.
Begging again. Sourcelessly, naturally.
Sounds like even those ratifying it in the State conventions KNEW that their State governments were merely subordinate to the FedGov within the scope of the Constitutions authority.
I state that as my opinion, dude. Never claimed otherwise.
I have quotes from the Founders....while they were debating the Second Amendment......
I have quotes from the Founders...which speak of the BOR as protecting the people from encroachments borne of the Constitution...
Your quotes are taken out of context, and as such, are invalid.
Wishing and wanting and throwing a tantrum will not make even one of the BOR applicable to the states, under original intent. IF any of the BOR were to be applicable to the states, why all the fuss over the intent behind the 14th amendment? Hmmm??
Ah yes....it's obvious he doesn't care to be confused with the facts....prefering instead to take quotes out of context in support of his argument.
Article VI is that proof. Read it, then try to refute what it says about State constitutions & laws "to the Contrary, notwithstanding"..
I've shown you multiple citations to the contrary......you've shown none. Wishing and wanting doesn't make it so.
Citations of opinions do not trump the clear words of Article VI..
And petulant piffles do not make your point.
Round and round you go. Where you stop, even you don't know.
Bullsh*t. They don't exist.
I also happened to quote James Madison himself who first proposed an Amendment to apply certain sections of the BoR to the states: "No State shall violate the equal right of conscience, freedom of the press, or trial by jury in criminal cases" and later when it was rejected lamented that "the lack of oversight on the state's ability to pass unjust laws that limit the rights of the individual was the most fatal flaw in the Constitution". I guess that even Madison who framed the BoR failed to understand its meaning (unlike you of course).
Of course they don't. Nobody claims to trump the clear words of Article VI. But it has nothing to do with fact that the general language (as understood by Madison himself) applies to the general government. The states don't need to follow the rules which don't apply to them, just as you don't need to follow the rules which don't apply to you. If even the framer of the BoR understood that its provisions apply only to the feds (and therefore proposed another Amendment which would apply some parts of the BoR to the states) then why can't you???
You bald faced liar you. The first part of your misquote from Madison was his lamenting the lack of a BoR in the Constitution. Which was later added. In fact, several States registered their opposition to the Constitution UNLESS the BoR was added as it was generally understood that the US FedCon would supercede their own State Constitutions.
Don't you think that if EVERY single Justice (starting with liberals like William O. Douglas or Frank Murphy, and ending with conservatives like James McReynolds or Clarence Thomas) has a different opinion than you should look again at your reasoning? Your continuous ranting about Article VI doesn't make any sense if you are incapable of understanding the distinction between provisions that apply to the states and the provisions that apply to feds.
Yet you cannot deny, Barron was 'corrected' immediately after the war by the 14th. Or do you?
That (unlike the first question - that is whether the BoR directly applied to the states) is debatable. I definitely do not accept "total incorporation". I tend to lean towards the views presented by Justice Thomas, that is that the Fourteenth Amendment (through the "immunities and privileges clause") applied only "immunities and privileges" of the citizens of the United States to the several states (according to this view f.ex. the Establishment Clause does not apply to the states because it's neither a privilige nor an immunity). That is of course disputable, and the majority of the Justices tends to use substantive due process rather than the immunities and privileges clause mainly because of the Slaughterhouse Cases. But that is a matter for an entirely different discussion.
You're simply ignoring the fact that Article VI makes that addition unnecessary.
Well then it seems that James Madison was an ignorant when he proposed the Bill of Rights. The framers of the original Constitution were probably also ignorants when they clearly distinguished prohibitions on state power and federal power.
Why? Because Madison wanted to clarify the issue.
Nope. If you bother to read the Introduction to the BoR written by Madison you'll clearly see that he distinguished restrictions on the general government and restrictions on the several states. For example:
"I should therefore wish to extend this interdiction, and add, as I have stated in the 5th resolution, that no State shall violate the equal right of conscience, freedom of the press, or trial by jury in criminal cases; because it is proper that every Government should be disarmed of powers which trench upon those particular rights."
Upon THOSE particular rights. Which means that Madison believed that EVERY government (which means the feds and the States) should be disarmed of power to restrict equal right of consience, freedom of the press and trial by jury (but he only mentions these rights). I think it is therefore logical that because he only mentioned these particular rights as the ones which should apply to the states (and he therefore proposed a specific amendments which would apply them to the states) the others weren't supposed to apply to the states. Or maybe Madison was also an ignorant and was incapable of understanding Article VI?
Because there was opposition to the BOR's from the 'states rights' contingent; -- and seeing that the issue was already covered by Article VI, there was no need to be more specific.
Absurd, if article VI covers everything than there was no need for the additional restrictions on the states in Section 10 and there would be no need for the additional amendment proposed by Madison.
You just above claimed they never questioned Barron; -- which way would you have it?
If you bother to read the entire post you'll see that they wanted to apply the entire BoR to the states but THROUGH the Fourteenth Amendment never directly.
Article VI proves my point. -- And ignoring it as you do is becoming very amusing.
Well you are very amusing by claiming that the entire world, all SCOTUS Justices, James Madison and constitutional scholars are wrong and only you know the truth.
"all constitutional scholars"
Well OK, that's a hyperbole. There will always be a meaningless, lunatic fringe of scholars that will ignore the facts.
True. But they both apply to the federal government. Look at the Sixth Amendment which provides with unmistakable clarity:
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury (...)" The language is as general as it gets - "In all". According to your reasoning such language should apply to both the United States and the several states. Yet Madison proposed an additional (eventually rejected) amendment which would provide:
"No State shall violate the equal right of conscience, freedom of the press, or trial by jury in criminal cases"
If the Sixth Amendment applied to both the United States and the several states than why did he propose an additional amendment which would restrict the states? Did he like repeating himself? Or was he incapable of understanding the true meaning of the BoR? Surely such distinction must mean something...
You may be right about the second part. I found this quote on the Internet and it was implied that Madison wrote this in a letter to Jefferson after the adoption of the BoR. He may have written it before (after all you shouldn't believe everything you read on the net) and if that's the case then I'm sorry (no lie was intended).
As to the first part regarding the proposed amendment it is a quote from his own Introduction to the BoR in which he presented the new proposed amendments and among them a specific amendment which would apply certain restrictions to the states. For me it is clear that an additional amendment wouldn't be necessary if Madison believed that the BoR would directly apply to the states.
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