Posted on 02/15/2003 6:31:11 AM PST by TLBSHOW
The Senate, the President, and Judges
The Seventeenth Amendment in giving Senators the power to by- pass state interests and pander to citizen constituency interests only heightens and hastens the march to socialism. Our nation has different interests as has been explained previously and to remain a republic we must have separate powers looking after those interests.
Essentially our type of rule is three governments in one consisting of three branches, Executive, Legislative, and Judicial, each with different responsibilities. To suppose equality between them, each having the same equal powers is no truer than the so-called equality of people working together in the pursuit of some goal. The only equality is the right to pursue the goal; and in that pursuit each will be required to do different things; and each will have different responsibilities. So it is with the three branches of government.
The president is the representative all the people (regardless of politics or other belief) of the whole nation. Each House member represents the people of a given district in a state. Next the Supreme Court is the representative of the law and the Constitution. And the senators represent the state interests as was stated in a previous essay. Though each one has different duties, the responsibility and the goal is to ensure freedom and liberty by protecting the people from excess by any one or two of the three. When none of the three protect us from the excesses of government, we then have severe problems with maintaining our republic. That brings us back to the Senate and direct election.
Elbridge Gerry, 213 years ago argued during the Constitutional Convention against the direct election of U.S. senators by the people and warned, "The people have two great interests, the landed interest, and the commercial, including the stockholders. To draw both branches from the people will leave no security to the latter interest; the people being chiefly composed of the landed interest, and erroneously supposing that the other interests are adverse to it [that is, that they tend to embrace the Marxist notion that the rich despise and exploit them]." The Senate is to protect the interest of the wealthy and the rich which may leave many with their mouths hanging open as they read this. When Senators excoriate the rich and wealthy for being rich and wealthy they are guilty of nonfeasance (failure to do what duty requires to be done i.e. not looking after the interests of their respective states.) Party affiliation makes no difference and that then includes nearly all of the so-called wise ones making them guilty as charged.
James Madison recognized the dangers in exposing the system to an equal but separate type of power for everyone (direct election). He said, "No agrarian [socialist] attempts have yet been made in this country; but symptoms of a leveling spirit ... have sufficiently appeared in a certain quarter to give notice of the future danger. The direct election has created an equality of power situation, if not a wedding of two of the three powers to the detriment of the nation. Those powers are the Supreme Court and the Senate.
The Constitution in Article II, Section 2, clause 2, reads, He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. The advice and consent on judges of the Supreme court is the issue at hand and provides the wedding of the Senate and the Court, brought about by the XVII Amendment as will be seen in the next week’s article.
The Senate members in all of their supposed wisdom do not understand their duties, much less the entire Constitution. That is painfully obvious when they speak and write. Their duties are advice and consent with nothing more and nothing less. The word advice causes a bit of a problem but the definition of it is to give opinion and on that they fall short of understanding. They think their duty is to dictate to the President what person is sent or who is not sent for consent. The duty they have is part of the balance to protect the Constitution, not an exercise in choosing those with the proper socialist ideology, which they favor.
Every President takes an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. It is his sworn duty to send to the Senate nominees for the Supreme Court who are well grounded and well versed in the United States Constitution in all respects. Those nominated are not to have an agenda other than ruling by the words contained in the document to stop or prevent unconstitutional acts by the other two branches or states when called upon to do so. Conversely, if the President does not send qualified nominees, the Senate is within its power to give advice and refuse their consent. That happened when FDR tied to pack the court with his cronies so that his socialist agenda would have legal backing. (Being shut off from a scheme to regulate farm products during the depression, FDR tried to load the court with cronies to make an end run against the Constitution. That would have forged an unholy alliance destructive to every freedom we have.)
Now what is advice? It is simply a message to the President to send those who understand the Constitution and will follow it; then and only then can they give consent. Advice and consent is one of the checks on presidential power that would become too great if not reigned in by the refusal to give consent. The Senate stopped FDR with Article II as they were supposed to do.
With the power usurpation by the Senate, the nation is now hostage to a despotic rule that the founders never intended but knew could happen. That is obvious when the federal papers James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay and now the worst fears of the founders have crawled out of the closet. With direct election of Senators the power of the President has been diminished and the power of both the Supreme Court and Senate enhanced unbalancing the powers and destroying separation.
I'm not as concerned about the House, as there are 435 of them, their constituencies are pretty small, and they are up for re-election every two years, but there are only 100 Senators, they're there for six years at a time, and they have a HUGE impact on things.
-PJ
I know there are strong GOP Senators, but IMO, the whole body is corrupted. It's time to start over with fresh blood.
-PJ
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