Alan Keyes: On the establishment of religion: What the Constitution really says

When he ordered the removal of the Ten Commandments monument from the Supreme Court building in Alabama, federal judge Myron Thompson stated that the issue at stake involved the question of whether or not the state has the right to acknowledge God.

Actually, this formulation is a distraction from the real issue, which is whether or not Myron Thompson or any other federal judge has the right to interfere with state actions that may or may not constitute an establishment of religion.

Someone who simply reads the text of the Constitution of the United States would be thoroughly surprised to learn that a federal judge claimed the right to act in this manner. The First Amendment to the Constitution plainly states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ..." Since there can be no federal law on the subject, there appears to be no lawful basis for any element of the federal government – including the courts – to act in this area.

Moreover, the 10th Amendment to the Constitution plainly states that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." This means that the power to make laws respecting an establishment of religion, having been explicitly withheld from the United States, is reserved to the states or to the people.

Taken together, therefore, the First and 10th Amendments reserve the power to address issues of religious establishment to the different states and their people.

Now, Judge Thompson – like many federal judges and justices before him – claims the unlimited prerogative of dictating to the states what they may or may not do with respect to matters of religious expression. Applying this supposed prerogative, he has declared the erection of the Ten Commandments monument by the chief justice of the Supreme Court of the state of Alabama to be an unlawful establishment of religion.

This he has done despite the clear impossibility of any basis for his action in federal law or statute. He relies on the erroneous doctrine, repeatedly affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States, that the First Amendment forbids an establishment of religion, and that the 14th Amendment applies this prohibition to the states. Based on this assertion, he and other federal judges and justices now claim an unlimited right to dictate to the states in these matters.

We have already seen that the actual language of the Constitution does not forbid an establishment of religion. Rather, it forbids Congress to legislate on the subject at all, reserving it entirely to the states. No language in the 14th Amendment deals with this power of government.

Portions of that amendment do indeed restrict the legislative powers of the states, but they refer only to actions that affect the privileges, immunities, legal rights and equal legal status of individual citizens and persons. The first clause of the First Amendment in no way deals with persons, however, but rather – in concert with the 10th Amendment – secures the right of the states and the people to be free from the dictates of federal law respecting an establishment of religion.

A right of the people as a whole – not an individual right – is the protected object of the first clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Even if one accepts the doctrine that the Bill of Rights must be taken as the basis for understanding the privileges and immunities of citizenship, the first clause of the First Amendment simply secures this right of the people, giving clear constitutional effect to their immunity from federal dictation in matters of religion.

The practical foundation of all the rights and privileges of the individual citizen is the rights that inhere in the citizen body as a whole, the rights of the people and of the state governments. The latter effectively embody their ability to resist abuses of national power. Such rights include the right to elect representatives, and to be governed by laws made and enforced through them. (The right to vote is an individual right. The right to elect is a right of the people as a whole.) Without these corporate and collective rights, there would be no mechanisms for the concerted action of the people, no institutions for their united defense and, therefore, no materially effective security for their individual persons, property and rights against the organized forces of an abusive national power.

The establishment clause of the First Amendment secures a right of the people. Until now, though, many have treated the first two clauses of the amendment as if they are one ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ..."). This practice ignores both the linguistic and the logical contrast between the two clauses. Where the first clause deals with a right of the people (that is, a power of government reserved to the states and to the people), the second clause deals with an action or set of actions (the free exercise of religion) that cannot be free unless they originate in individual choice. The first clause forbids Congress to address a subject at all. The second allows for federal action, but restricts the character of such action.

By virtue of the first clause, the states and the people as such are protected from federal domination; by the second, individuals are protected from coercion in their religious conduct. The first clause allows the states and the people as such to follow their will in matters of religion; the second guarantees the same liberty to individuals and the corporate persons they voluntarily compose. The first has as its object matters that are decided by the will of the people (i.e., by the will of the constitutionally determined majority in the different states). The second involves matters decided by the will of each individual.

The failure to observe this distinction leads to the absurd presumption that all government action in matters of religion is somehow inherently a contravention of individual freedom. This can be no more or less true in matters of religion than it is in any other area in which both individuals and governments are capable of action and decision.

The government's power to arm soldiers for the community's defense does not inherently contravene the individual's right to arm himself against personal attack. The government's power to establish institutions of higher learning does not inherently contradict the individual's right to educate his young or join with others to start a school. The government's power to engage in economic enterprises (such as the postal service or electric power generation) does not inherently contradict the individual's right to private enterprise. It is possible for government coercively to inhibit or repress any of these individual activities, but it is obvious that government action does not in and of itself constitute such coercion.

As the U.S. Constitution is written, matters of religion fall into this category of parallel individual and governmental possibilities. Federal and state governments, in matters of religion, are forbidden to coerce or prohibit individual choice and action. Within the states, the people are free to decide by constitutional majority the nature and extent of the state's expression of religious belief.

This leaves individuals free to make their own choices with respect to religion, but it also secures the right of the people of the states to live under a government that reflects their religious inclination. As in all matters subject to the decision of the people, the choice of the people is not the choice of all, but of the majority, as constitutionally determined, in conformity with the principles of republican government (which the U.S. Constitution requires the people of each state to respect).

The Constitution reflects the view that the choice with respect to governmental expressions of religious belief must respect the will of the majority. Unless, in matters that should be determined by the people, the will of the majority be consulted, there is no consent and therefore no legitimacy, in government.

Though it may be argued that matters of religion ought to be left entirely to individuals for decision, this has the effect of establishing in the public realm a regime of indifference to religion. Thus, a choice of establishment is inevitable, and the only question is whether the choice will be made by the will of the people or not. The U.S. Constitution, being wholly republican, decides this question in favor of the people, but in light of the pluralism of religious opinions among the people, forbids any attempt to discern the will of the people in the nation as a whole.

By leaving the decision to the people in their states, and by permitting a complete freedom of movement and migration among the states, the U.S. Constitution offers scope for the geographic expression of this pluralism while assuring that the absence of a formal and legal expression of religious reverence on a national scale does not inadvertently result in the establishment of a national regime of indifference to religion.

When, by their careless and contradictory abuse of the 14th Amendment, the federal judges and justices arrogate to themselves the power which, by the First and 10th Amendments, the Constitution reserves to the states, they deprive the nation of this prudent and logically balanced approach to the issue of religious establishment.

Whether through carelessness or an artful effort to deceive, they ignore the distinction between the individual right to free exercise of religion and the right of the people to decide their government's religious stance. They have, in consequence, usurped this right of the people, substituting for the republican approach adopted by the Constitution an oligarchic approach that reserves to a handful of un-elected individuals the power to impose on the entire nation a uniform stance on religion at every level of government.

The right to decide the issue of establishment is a fundamental right of the people. It is also among the most likely to cause bitter and passionate dissension when the religious conscience of the people is violated or suppressed. That may explain why it is the very first right secured from federal violation in the Bill of Rights.

When they take this right from the people, the federal judges and justices depart from the republican form of government. They impose, in religious matters, an oligarchic regime upon the states. They therefore violate, in letter and spirit, Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution. This section declares that "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government ..."

In addition to these abuses and violations of the U.S. Constitution, the purblind insistence by these judges and justices on treating religious freedom as a strictly individual right has produced the very consequence that the Constitution's more prudent approach seeks to avoid. They have insisted that government adopt a stance of strict agnosticism, which in effect drives from the public realm all things that smack of religious belief.

This establishes, in the literal sense, a uniform regime of atheism in government affairs. (In the literal sense, atheism simply means the absence of God, and this, in the public realm, is what the federal judges and justices insist upon.) Since, however unjustifiably, they claim for their opinions the force of law, it necessarily follows that they mean to impose this regime by force – that is, by coercion. Thus, in the guise of a judicial effort to protect religious freedom, they destroy it – not for this or that individual, but for the people as a whole.

Naturally, this destruction has aroused anxiety and opposition among the people, who feel and fear the effects of this wholesale suppression of public religious conscience and belief. With each new manifestation of the nature and intent of the federal judiciary's usurpation of their right, the people grow more resistant. Their acts of resistance against this judicial despotism reach higher and more organized levels until they are undertaken in and through the institutions of the state governments.

The state governments are the natural focus and vehicle through which the people organize and declare their opposition to unconstitutional assertions of federal power. Because the federal judiciary cloaks its usurpation in the usual forms and procedures of law, and because Americans are accustomed to taking those forms as evidence of substantive conformity with the law, these manifestations of resistance may be denounced as unlawful.

But in this case, the lack of lawful grounds for the federal judiciary's acts must, in the end, repel these denunciations. The federal judges and justices cannot be acting lawfully when their only claim of lawfulness rests upon the Constitution – since the Constitution's sole pronouncement on the matter of an establishment of religion precludes the possibility of any federal law as a basis for their jurisdiction.

Some may insist that regardless of anyone's opinion of the lawfulness of a court's action, all are duty-bound, in the interest of order and law enforcement, to obey every court order. This is certainly true of ordinary citizens in most circumstances. Even where ordinary citizens are concerned, however, it is not hard to imagine situations in which they would be morally obliged to refuse a plainly unlawful court order. If, for instance, a judge issues an order requiring that at random an innocent person be shot when entering the courtroom, no person, including any officers of the court, is required to obey this order. In fact, like military personnel, they are duty-bound to refuse.

What is imaginable for ordinary citizens is even more conceivable when dealing with high government officials who are sworn to uphold the constitutions and laws that establish self-government in the states, and that protect the liberties of individuals and of the people. If a federal judge orders the governor of a state to take actions that he conscientiously believes violate the rights of an individual or group of individuals, no one would deny that he is duty-bound to refuse such an order.

If, for example, a Nazi regime somehow came to power at the federal level, and by legislation or executive order initiated an effort to confine Jewish or black Americans to concentration camps, all state officials acting under state constitutions that protected individual rights would be oath-bound to refuse unlawful federal court orders that declared people to be of Jewish or black heritage and thereupon ordered their confinement.

What we clearly acknowledge to be possible and even morally obligatory in case of the violation of individual rights must be even more compelling when the case involves the violation of the rights of the whole people. Thus, when a federal judge issues an unlawful order that a state official conscientiously believes violates a fundamental and constitutionally protected right of the people of his state, that official must refuse the order that assaults their right just as he would refuse an order that violated the rights of individuals. It is of no consequence whether the unlawful order comes from one judge or many, from a lower court or the Supreme Court – it must be refused.

Note that the wording here implies an obligation, not a choice. This is important – since it makes clear that the court's unlawful order places the state official in a situation where his substantive duty to the law conflicts with his formal obligation to obey a court order. A regime in which slavish observance of the empty forms of law substitutes for substantive respect for the real terms and requirements of the law clearly represents the demise of law as such.

In the state of Alabama, Judge Roy Moore has refused the unlawful order of Judge Myron Thompson, since it represents a destructive violation of the right of the people of Alabama to decide how their government will or will not express their religious beliefs. This right of the people is the first one secured in the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights, and it cannot be compromised without surrendering the moral foundations of republican liberty. Judge Thompson's assault upon this right, and that of the entire federal judiciary for the last several decades, is not, therefore, a trivial threat to the liberty of the people. Judge Moore cannot obey the court's order without surrendering that liberty.

Now, the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as it applies the Bill of Rights to the states, lays an obligation upon state legislatures, officers and officials to refrain from actions that deprive the people of their rights. With respect to the First Amendment, therefore, it becomes their positive obligation to resist federal encroachments that take away the right of the people to decide how their state governments deal with matters of religion. This obviously has a direct bearing on the case of Chief Justice Roy Moore in his confrontation with the abusive order of Judge Myron Thompson.

His refusal of the order is not only consistent with his duty to the Alabama Constitution, it is his duty under the Constitution of the United States. Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor, the eight associate justices of the Alabama Supreme Court, and indeed any other state officials in Alabama who submit to the judge's order are, by contrast, in violation of the federal Constitution, as well as their duty to the constitution and people of Alabama.

As a class, therefore, the citizens of Alabama are justified in bringing suit against them for their dereliction, and in seeking reparation for the damage that has been done to their right under the U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately, since the federal judiciary is the perpetrator of the assault against this right, how can the people of Alabama hope for a fair and unbiased judgment from any of the federal courts, including the Supreme Court?

Lawyers will doubtless object on the grounds that the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed the jurisdiction of the federal courts in this regard. Their partisan reverence for the Supreme Court's opinions on this matter is wholly understandable, since a seat upon the court, or upon the bench of one of the inferior federal courts, usually represents the highest point toward which their ambition aspires. It is quite natural that they should support claims to a power that they may hope someday to wield.

However, lawyers' insistence that others show the same reverence is repugnant to reason and common sense. In the matter of their constitutional jurisdiction, as against the state courts or the other branches of the federal government, the federal courts – including the Supreme Court – have a strong and direct interest. If judgment in these matters is left to them absolutely, it must always lead to a situation in which the judges and justices sit in judgment of their own cause.

Our common sense joins the admonitions of the Founders of our republic in warning us not to rely on such intrinsically biased judgments. The prospect of expanding their power may distract the federal judges from the facts and merits of the case. This is, and ever has been, a weakness of our humanity.

This is why the U.S. Constitution, after enumerating certain cases over which the federal judiciary would have original jurisdiction, gave it appellate jurisdiction "with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." Therefore, the federal courts are not the ultimate judges of the boundaries of their own power. Final responsibility in this respect rests with the Congress.

Once we take note of this fact, it also becomes clear that thinking about matters of jurisdiction at the constitutional level cannot be considered the exclusive province of lawyers and judges. Though Congress has in some historical periods been composed of a plurality, or even a majority of lawyers, lawyers could never have an exclusionary claim to membership in its ranks. The people can send to Congress whom they choose, including people from walks of life in no way related to the legal profession. It follows, therefore, that the Constitution assumes that people who are not lawyers will have to reason and make judgments about the proper scope and limits to be imposed upon the appellate jurisdiction of the federal courts.

The fact that the Supreme Court affirms the federal judiciary's claim to jurisdiction over the state governments in matters pertaining to an establishment of religion does not, therefore, settle the issue. The Congress must review and oversee such a claim. Since the people choose the members of Congress, people at large, as they consider their election, are required to consider this claim as well.

Our analysis thus far demonstrates that the Supreme Court's affirmation of this claim of jurisdiction is contrary to the plain text of the Constitution: It usurps the right of the people in their respective states to decide their government's stance on religion; it violates Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution by subverting the republican form of government with respect to this right; and by aiming coercively to establish an agnostic regime of atheism at all levels of government, it destroys religious freedom for the people as a whole and dangerously subverts the Constitution's prudent handling of matters pertaining to religion.

The text of the Constitution easily allows us to see and understand the federal judiciary's abuse of power and its usurpation of the right of the people in religious matters. It also provides a remedy for this abuse. The Congress must pass legislation that, in order to assure proper respect for the first clause of the First Amendment, excepts from the appellate jurisdiction of the federal courts those matters which, by the conjoint effect of the First and 10th Amendments, the Constitution reserves to the states respectively and to the people. (This language avoids a semantic difficulty, since congressional legislation that explicitly mentioned matters pertaining to an establishment of religion would serve the intention but violate the terms of the first clause of the First Amendment.)

This legislation would restore observance of the Constitution by preventing the federal courts from addressing any issues related to religious establishment (as the First Amendment requires), while leaving them free to deal with cases involving the free exercise of religion by individuals, since these do not fall under constitutional ban on federal legislation. In this regard, the only state actions that come under federal jurisdiction are those involving coercive interference with individual choice in matters of religion. State action that involves no such individual coercion (such as the placement of a Ten Commandments monument in the rotunda of a state Supreme Court building) is outside the purview of the federal courts.

The consequences of congressional failure to act urgently upon this matter are almost too grave for contemplation. State officials will be continually beset by federal court judgments that demand action the U.S. Constitution forbids. Errors of judgment by federal officials seeking to enforce such orders might lead to confrontations between federal officers determined to do what federal judges order and state officers determined to do what the U.S. Constitution requires.

On one side and the other, claims of lawful justification would contribute to intransigence. Problems like this, left for very long without solution, raise the sombre spectre of national dissolution. This, the Congress has the constitutional means and duty to avoid. They should move to do so without delay.

this book was use in America schools until 1903 New England Primer { The Real Education Book that America needs to get Back too}
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b0c849d088d.htm

http://my.voyager.net/~jayjo/primer.htm

excerpt from the New England Primer...

Q. 40. What did God at first reveal to man for the rule of his obedience ?
A. The rule which God at first revealed to man for his obedience was the moral law.

Q. 41. Where is the moral law summarily comprehended ?
A. The moral law is summarily comprehended in the ten commandments.

Q. 42. What is the sum of the ten commandments ?
A. The sum of the ten commandments is, to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind, and our neighbour as ourselves.

Q. 43. What is the preface to the ten commandments ?
A. The preface to the ten commandments is in these words, I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage.

Q. 44. What doth the preface to the ten commandments teach us ?
A. The preface to the ten commandments teacheth us, that because God is the Lord, and our God and Redeemer, therefore we are bound to keep all his commandments.

Q. 45. Which is the first commandment ?
A. The first commandment is, Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.

Q. 46. What is required in the first commandment ?
A. The first commandment requireth us to know and acknowledge God, to be the only true God, and our God, and to worship and glorify him accordingly.

Q. 47. What is forbidden in the first commandment ?
A. The first commandment forbiddeth the denying or not worshipping and glorifying the true God, as God, and our God, and the giving that worship and glory to any other which is due to him alone.

Q. 48. What are we especially taught by these words (before me) in the first commandment ?
A. These words (before me) in the first commandment, teach us, that God who seeth all things, taketh notice of and is much displeased with the sin of having any other God.

Q. 49. Which is the second commandment ?
A. The second commandment is, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me & keep my commandments.

Q. 50. What is required in the second commandment ?
A. The second commandment requireth the receiving, observing, & keeping pure and entire all such religious worship and ordinances, as God hath appointed in his word.

Q. 51. What is forbidden in the second commandment ?
A. The second commandment forbiddeth the worshipping of God by images or any other way not appointed in his word.

Q. 52. What are the reasons annexed to the second commandment ?
A. The reasons annexed to the second commandment, are God's sovereignty over us, his propriety in us, and the zeal he hath to his own worship.

Q. 53. Which is the third commandment ?
A. The third commandment is, Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord wilt not hold him guiltless, that taketh his name in vain.

Q. 54. What is required in the third commandment ?
A. The third commandment requireth the holy and reverent use of God's names, titles, attributes, ordinances, word and works.

Q. 55. What is forbidden in the third commandment ?
A. The third commandment forbiddeth all profaning or abusing of any thing whereby God maketh himself known.

Q. 56. What is the reason annexed to the third commandment ?
A. The reason annexed to the third commandment is, That however the breakers of this commandment may escape judgment from men, yet the Lord our God will not suffer them to escape his righteous judgment.

Q. 57. Which is the Fourth commandment ?
A. The fourth commandment is, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God, in it thou shalt not do any work, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid servant, nor thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day, wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.

Q. 58. What is required in the fourth commandment ?
A. The fourth commandment requireth, the keeping holy to God such set times as he hath appointed in his word, expressly one whole day in seven to be an holy Sabbath to himself.

Q. 59. Which day of the seven hath God appointed to be the weekly sabbath ?
A. From the beginning of the world, to the resurrection of Christ, God appointed the seventh day of the week to be the weekly sabbath, and the first day of the week ever since to continue to the end of the world which is the Christian Sabbath.

Q. 60. How is the sabbath to be sanctified ?
A. The sabbath is to be sanctified by an holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on other days, and spending the whole time in public and private exercises of God's worship, except so much as is to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy.

Q. 61. What is forbidden in the fourth commandment ?
A. The fourth commandment forbiddeth, the omission or careless performance of the duties required, and the profaning the day by idleness or doing that which is in itself sinful, or any unnecessary thoughts, words or works, about worldly employments or recreations.

Q. 62. What are the reasons annexed to the fourth commandment ?
A . The reasons annexed to the fourth commandment, are God s allowing us six days of the week for our own employment, his challenging a special propriety in the seventh, his own example, & his blessing the sabbath day.

Q. 63. Which is the fifth commandment ?
A . The fifth commandment is, Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Q. 64. What is required in the fifth commandment ?
A. The fifth commandment requireth the preserving the honor, and performing the duties belonging to every one in their several places and relations, as superiors, inferiors, or equals.

Q. 65. What is forbidden in the fifth commandment ?
A. The fifth commandment forbiddeth the neglecting of, or doing any thing against the honour and duty which belongeth to every one in their several places and relations.

Q. 66. What is the reason annexed to the fifth commandment ?
A. The reason annexed to the fifth commandment is a promise of long life and prosperity, (as far as it shall serve for God's glory and their own good) to all such as keep this commandment.

Q. 67. Which is the sixth commandment ?
A. The sixth commandment is, Thou shalt not kill.

Q. 68. What is required in the sixth commadment?
A. The fixth commandment requireth all lawful endeavors to preserve our own life, and the life of others.

Q. 69. What is forbidden in the sixth commandment ?
A. The fixth commandment forbiddeth the taking away of our own life, or the life of our neighbour unjustly, and whatsoever tendeth thereunto.

Q. 70. Which is the seventh commandment ?
A. The seventh commandment is, Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Q. 71. What is required in the seventh commandment ?
A. The seventh commandment requireth the preservation of our own and our neighbor's chastity, in heart, speech & behaviour.

Q. 72. What is forbidden in the seventh commandment ?
A. The seventh commandment forbiddeth all unchaste thoughts, words and actions.

Q. 73. Which is the eighth commandment ?
A. The eighth commandment is, Thou shalt not steal.

Q. 74. What is required in the eighth commandment ?
A. The eighth commandment requireth the lawful procuring & furthering the wealth and outward estate of ourselves and others.

Q. 75. What is forbidden in the eighth commandment ?
A. The eighth commandlnent forbiddeth whatsoever doth, or may unjustly hinder our own or our neighbours wealth or outward estate.

Q. 76. Which is the ninth commandment?
A. The ninth commandment is, Thou Shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

Q. 77. What is required in the ninth commandment ?
A. The ninth commandment requireth the maintaining and promoting of truth between man & man, & of our own & our neighbor's good name, especially in witness bearing.

Q 78. What is forbidden in the ninth commandment ?
A. The ninth commandment forbiddeth whatsoever is prejudicial to truth, or injurious to our own or our neighbor's good name.

Q 79. Which is the tenth commandment ?
A. The tenth commandmelat is, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

Q . 80. What is required in the tenth commandment ?
A. The tenth commandment requireth full contentment with our own condition, with a right and charitable frame of spirit towards our neighbour, and all that is his.

Q. 81. What is forbidden in the tenth commandment ?
A. The tenth commandment forbiddeth all discontentment with our own estaxe, envying or grieving at the good of our neigbbour, and all inordinate motions and affections to any thing that is his.

Q. 82. Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God ?
A. No mere man since the fall is able in this Iife perfectly to keep the commandments of God, but daily doth break them in thought, word and deed.

So to say that they somehow unilaterally made some decision is incorrect.

I didn't mean to imply that; poor phrasing on my part. Indeed, Congress can do no more than pass a resolution proposing an amendment, which is what it did with the 14th; that's all I meant.

There are some here who state that the BOR originally was meant to be a restriction on the states.

Interestingly, that was actually the view of the guy who wrote section one of the 14th, Congressman John Bingham. In his opinion, the states were Constitutionally required--from the beginning--to abide by the restrictions in Bill of Rights. Problem was, the feds had no power to force the states to do what the Constitution demanded. Hence the 14th Amendment. Personally, I don't agree with Bingham. I think that Barron v. Baltimore was rightly decided and reflected the original intent of the founders. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Bingham's intent when introducing the 14th in Congress was Bill of Rights Enforcement.

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 any right that belongs to it, or from any citizen of any State any right that belongs to him under that Constitution. The proposition pending before the House is simply a proposition to arm the Congress of the United States, by the the consent of the people of the United States, with the power to enforce the bill of rights as it stands in the Constitution today. It "hath that extent--no more."
--John Bingham. CONG. GLOBE, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. 1088 (February 28, 1866)

you obviously are knowledgeable and aware of the law

Hardly. I'm just a layman muddling through.

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