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To: ROLF of the HILL COUNTRY
Contrary to your misunderstanding, the Declaration IS included in the US Code. Not as an legislative act, but as a preamble and statement of the philosophy underpinning all other acts contained therein

Where?

125 posted on 06/23/2010 1:51:49 PM PDT by Non-Sequitur
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To: Non-Sequitur; Sola Veritas; All
From Answers.com (the first hit from a Google search):

“The constitutional and legal status of the Declaration of Independence is curiously ambiguous. John Hancock (in his capacity as president of the Second Continental Congress) and James Madison both considered it to be, in Madison's words, “the fundamental Act of Union of these States.” Reflecting that view, congress has placed it at THE HEAD OF THE UNITED STATES CODE, UNDER THE CAPTION, “THE ORGANIC LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.”

The Supreme Court has infrequently accorded it binding legal force, for example, in resolving questions of alienage (Inglis v. Trustees of Sailor's Snug Harbour, 1830). Yet lawyers generally, and the Supreme Court in particular, have been reluctant to treat the Declaration as part of American organic law, or even to accord it the restricted status of the Preamble to the Constitution. Conservatives like Daniel Webster denied that there is a constitutionally recognized right of revolution, and those state supreme courts that have addressed the issue in the twentieth century have adopted Webster's view. Reformers, such as antebellum abolitionists, insisted that the Declaration was part of the constitutional order, while their opponents, including John C. Calhoun, denigrated its authority and validity. The adoption of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments allayed the urgency of that question by incorporating concepts of equality, freedom, and citizenship into the operative constitutional text.

Nevertheless, the Declaration of Independence endures as the basic statement of the principles of American government. Abraham Lincoln invoked its authority in the supreme crisis of the union, and it remains today the foundation of our constitutional order.”
(end quote)

In 1897, the SCOTUS declared:

“The latter [Constitution] is but the body and letter of which the former [Declaration of Independence] is the thought and spirit, and it is always safe to read the letter of the Constitution in the spirit of the Declaration of independence.”

I hope you are satisfied with this, NS. If not, sorry; I will not play the nitpicking games you like to engage in on this forum.

126 posted on 06/23/2010 2:31:29 PM PDT by ROLF of the HILL COUNTRY (It's the spending, Stupid!)
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