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To: EternalVigilance

If you think the Constitution doesn’t effectively address this issue, the remedy is to amend it, not violate it.

You have no Constitutional authority for your bizarre position.

As I stated above, in the entire history of the United States from 1787 when the Constitution was ratified until today, there is not one single instance when the President declared that he would not follow a decision rendered by the Supreme Court. The obvious reason: Because he has no Constitutional authority to do so.


138 posted on 08/04/2007 2:19:53 AM PDT by ComeUpHigher
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To: ComeUpHigher
As I stated above, in the entire history of the United States from 1787 when the Constitution was ratified until today, there is not one single instance when the President declared that he would not follow a decision rendered by the Supreme Court. The obvious reason: Because he has no Constitutional authority to do so.

The Emancipation Proclamation

Proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War, declaring all “slaves within any State, or designated part of a State ... then ... in rebellion, ... shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” The states affected were enumerated in the proclamation; specifically exempted were slaves in parts of the South then held by Union armies. Lincoln's issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation marked a radical change in his policy; historians regard it as one of the great state documents of the United States.

After the outbreak of the Civil War, the slavery issue was made acute by the flight to Union lines of large numbers of slaves who volunteered to fight for their freedom and that of their fellow slaves. In these circumstances, a strict application of established policy would have required return of fugitive slaves to their Confederate masters and would have alienated the staunchest supporters of the Union cause in the North and abroad.

Abolitionists had long been urging Lincoln to free all slaves, and public opinion seemed to support this view. Lincoln moved slowly and cautiously nonetheless; on March 13, 1862, the federal government forbade all Union army officers to return fugitive slaves, thus annulling in effect the fugitive slave laws. On April 10, on Lincoln's initiative, Congress declared the federal government would compensate slave owners who freed their slaves. All slaves in the District of Columbia were freed in this way on April 16, 1862. On June 19, 1862, Congress enacted a measure prohibiting slavery in United States territories, thus defying the Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott case, which ruled that Congress was powerless to regulate slavery in the territories.

Finally, after the Union victory in the Battle of Antietam (September 17, 1862), Lincoln issued a preliminary proclamation on September 22, declaring his intention of promulgating another proclamation in 100 days, freeing the slaves in the states deemed in rebellion at that time. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, conferring liberty on about 3,120,000 slaves. With the enactment of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in effect in 1865, slavery was completely abolished.

(You will note, I'm sure, that President Lincoln, and the Congress, took all of these actions in defiance of the Supreme Court, and before the passage of the 13th Amendment. Together, they checked the judiciary.)

143 posted on 08/04/2007 2:36:32 AM PDT by EternalVigilance (With Republicans like these, who needs Democrats??)
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