Supreme Ignorance: ACLU’s Empty Establishment Claims (This is a serious hit piece)

The American Civil Liberties Union again is suing under the twisted rational the fourteenth amendment somehow disables local government from displaying anything remotely religious in nature. The latest victim targeted by the ACLU is the rural Florida county of Dixie, which has a Ten Commandments monument at the steps of its courthouse.

The lawsuit says the monument violates the First and 14th Amendments because it is not part of a historical display and because the uniquely Christian message of the Ten Commandments on a government building could intimidate people with different religious beliefs.

Well I’d say if anyone finds any community supported display in the United States of America “intimidating,” then they better cover their eyes and return to wherever it was they came from as quickly as possible. The Colonies did not fight a war for the right to be independent and to govern their own internal affairs as they deem fit, to only later be bullied by either a national government clothed in limited authority, or fascist groups alleging creative prohibitions upon their right to do so.

ACLU attorney Glenn Katon thinks "Dixie County is, in effect, thumbing its nose at the Constitution by putting up this display."

I will argue here that in fact its the ACLU who is “thumbing its nose at the Constitution,” made possible by a very misguided United States Supreme Court that seems unable to separate facts from fiction. The result of this inability of the court to comprehend the language and history behind the amendment is that organizations, such as the ACLU, can terrorize municipal governments at will through fictional claims and arguments that can be said to only be founded upon hogwash.

The adoption of the fourteenth amendment changed nothing as far as local government is concerned, and the States surrendered nothing to the national government in regards to rights retained since the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. Soon after its adoption of the fourteenth amendment, the framers of the fourteenth established legislative precedent over its meaning and application, something the Supreme Court and the ACLU must ignore at all costs in order for their bogus incorporation theory to be remotely seen has having any semblance of validity.

Both the House and Senate established legislative precedent for fourteenth amendment construction, which in turn the court in Slaughterhouse would later confirm. We can thank both Susan B. Anthony and Mrs. Woodhull for the precedent established by the very framers of the fourteenth amendment themselves, including John Bingham.

Responding to Mrs. Woodhull’s memorial, the House judiciary committee released the following report:

The clause of the fourteenth amendment, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States," does not, in the opinion of the committee, refer to privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States other than those privileges and immunities embraced in the original text of the Constitution, article two section four. The fourteenth amendment, it is believed, did not add to the privileges or immunities before mentioned, but was deemed necessary for the enforcement as an express limitation upon the powers of the States. It had been judicially determined that the first eight amendments of the Constitution were not limitations on the power of the States, and it was apprehended that the same might be held of the provision of the second section, fourth article.

The committee report further added: “The words ‘citizens of the United States,’ and ‘citizens of the States,’ as employed in the fourteenth amendment, did not change or modify the relations of citizens of the State and the nation as they existed under the original Constitution.”

The Senate judiciary unanimously adopted the same opinion as the House judiciary in response to the memorial by Susan B. Anthony.

Both the House and Senate judiciary shoots down the silliness that has prevailed for too under phony fourteenth amendment jurisprudence that claims the amendment magically “incorporates ” the establishment clause against the individual States. This in return, as the broken theory goes, makes municipal government equally restricted by the first amendment’s establishment clause.

If the fourteenth amendment can be said to incorporate anything, it would in fact be article four, section two – which should come to no surprise to anyone because of the identical language.

After the civil war, the eleven states in rebellion were required to submit new Constitutions that conformed to the provisions of the fourteenth amendment in order to have their representation in Congress restored. Not one State Constitution that was found conforming to the fourteenth amendment contained anything remotely as disabling either the State legislature or, municipal government, from having anything to do with respecting an establishment of religion.

If it really was the purpose of the fourteenth amendment to make the entire Bill of Rights found in the first eight amendments of the United States Constitution, an equal restriction against each State, than members of the 39th Congress would had insisted upon every rebel Constitution to include a provision against respecting an establishment of religion prior to approval. It is a fact that the establishment clause never once was discussed during the entire debates approving the fourteenth amendment.

John A Bingham, the fourteenth’s first section co-author and its acting floor manager in the House, responded to allegations the amendment intended to do more then secure individual protections against abusive State legislation in the administration of justice:

[I] repel the suggestion made here in the heat of debate, that the committee or any of its members who favor this proposition seek in any form to mar the Constitution of the country, or take away from any State the right that belongs to it, or from any citizen of any State any right that belongs to him under that Constitution.

It is one thing to not desire either the federal or the State legislatures from respecting any single religious sect by law or, publicly support any one religious doctrine with tax dollars, but it is another matter entirely to disable local communities from recognizing religious teachings or symbols within their respective communities. Not only would such an act mar the U.S. Constitution, it would destroy citizens’ privilege or immunity to collectively respect religious principles or traditions within their own communities under the tenth amendment.

There is no way in the world the establishment clause can be judicially made a limitation against municipal governments through the fourteenth amendment without one "thumbing their nose" at both the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Because of the framers own established legislative precedent, and the purpose for which the fourteenth was adopted to serve, leaves the ACLU owing Dixie County an apology.

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