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To: woodpusher
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Do you believe that when the 1st Congress passed the proposed 2nd amendment language "necessary to the security of a free state," that they were NOT talking literally about the several states fear of invasion from stronger states as discussed in Federalist #8, or from an invading army as discussed in Federalist #29, or from federal overreach as discussed in Federalist #46?

-PJ

63 posted on 05/17/2024 9:27:34 PM PDT by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
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To: Political Junkie Too
Do you believe that when the 1st Congress passed the proposed 2nd amendment language "necessary to the security of a free state," that they were NOT talking literally about the several states fear of invasion from stronger states as discussed in Federalist #8, or from an invading army as discussed in Federalist #29, or from federal overreach as discussed in Federalist #46?

Neither the first congress, nor any other congress, has ever given effect to any words of any Amendment to the Constitution. Those are acts of the people of the States, voting upon the black letter text of the proposed Amendment. The good or bad intentions are not voted upon and they do not become part of the Constitution.

For the history of the 2nd Amendment, I recommend reading the Opinion of the Court by Justice Antonin Scalia in Heller. One short excerpt:

c. Meaning of the Operative Clause. Putting all of these textual elements together, we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed the historical background of the Second Amendment. We look to this because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it “shall not be infringed.” As we said in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 553 (1876), “[t]his is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed....”

In proposing the 16th Amendment, did the Congress state an intent to create the Income Tax we now have? The stated intent was to tax the rich.

When they proposed a first income tax, less than 4% of the people were projected to be affected. In 1895, Chief Justice White wrote of the enacted tax, that tax-payers might believe the tax "to be wanting in wisdom" but it was not for the courts to correct "mistaken or unwise exertions" by Congress.

Amendment XVI

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

That's what was ratified. The power to lay and collect taxes on income was not subjected to any limitations regarding who must pay, or how much, whether it was peacetime an emergency. Madison Avenue marketing statements of intent are not in the words of the Amendment. The stated intent to tax the rich is not in the Amendment. It matters not one wit what anybody's stated intent was. The actual text is what matters.

And so, I will not be indulging your attempt to psychoanalyze Congress to divine their stated intention, or their attempts at Madison Avenue marketing.

Scalia of Tribe:

He is correct that we both regard as irrelevant the intentions of the drafters....

Scalia:

I should concur in this result more readily if the Court could reach it by analysis of the statute instead of by psychoanalysis of Congress. When we decide from legislative history, including statements of witnesses at hearings, what Congress probably had in mind, we must put ourselves in the place of a majority of Congressmen and act according to the impression we think this history should have made on them. Never having been a Congressman, I am handicapped in that weird endeavor. That process seems to me not interpretation of a statute but creation of a statute.

Conroy v. Aniskoff, 507 US 511, 519 (1993), Scalia, J., concurring

The greatest defect of legislative history is its illegitimacy.

We are governed by laws, not by the intentions of legislators. As the Court said in 1844: "The law as it passed is the will of the majority of both houses, and the only mode in which that will is spoken is in the act itself...." Aldridge v. Williams, 3 How. 9, 24 (emphasis added). But not the least of the defects of legislative history is its indeterminacy. If one were to search for an interpretive technique that, on the whole, was more likely to confuse than to clarify, one could hardly find a more promising candidate than legislative history. And the present case nicely proves that point.

Judge Harold Leventhal used to describe the use of legislative history as the equivalent of entering a crowded cocktail party and looking over the heads of the guests for one's friends.


64 posted on 05/18/2024 2:23:19 PM PDT by woodpusher
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