Free Republic

No, it is because I have zero tolerance and no respect for dishonesty.

If you can’t understand why the contemporaneous, collective interpretation of the president and congress embodied in an official action such as legislation is for purposes of constitutional jurisprudence considered far better evidence of intent than some particular individual’s statement in a journal or a letter, then you are going to have a problem with constitutional jurisprudence.

I am arguing the exact OPPOSITE of the “living document” theory.

My position is pure “originalist” theory.

My sole criterion is “what did the founders intend Article III to mean in 1789.” That is called “originalist” doctrine.

And unlike some other cases of constitutional jurisprudence, where people have to argue from what person X said in a letter, or what person Y stated in a newspaper, in this question we are fortunate because we know for a fact what the collective view of this group of men, the first president and the first congress, who to a large extent were responsible for actually writing the constitution, was on this very issue in 1789.

Let me add one more thing.

I am beginning to get a whiff here that you or others here may believe the “exclusive” interpretation is somehow more of a “Christian” position than the “non-exclusive” interpretation. I hope I am completely wrong about that.

Because if you are holding yourself out not only as a superior Constitutional interpreter than the men who passed the 1789 Judiciary Act, but also as a superior Christian to those men or anyone else who adheres to the “non-exclusive” interpretation, then I will just say this.

If you are without sin, then cast all the stones you want. Otherwise, I would advise you to be very careful, brother.

I am going to go through this one more time, not for your benefit, but for anyone reading this who wants an honest understanding of the issue.

The issue is very simple:

In 1789 the United States Constitution became effective. It included the following sentence:

“In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction.”

The question before us is, is the original jurisdiction in this sentence exclusive, or non-exclusive? Because the Constitution gave broad power to Congress also to vest the judicial power in inferior courts.

Well, it doesn’t SAY it is exclusive. Did the founders nevertheless intend to IMPLY that it is exclusive?

So what was the intent of the founders? Well, we don’t have to guess.

Because in 1789 the President and the first Congress through the Judiciary Act of 1789 gave part of the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in the sentence I quoted ALSO to the district courts.

So we know for a FACT that the collective understanding of the first President and the first Congress, many of whom were closely involved in framing the Constitution, was that it was NON-EXCLUSIVE.

You cite one founder, Alexander “National Bank” Hamilton, ironically arguably the only one of them who could be considered anything close to a “progressive” (none of them in fact were) for the notion that it is exclusive. Well, be that as it may, the fact of the matter is that as evidence goes, his one view simply is not very significant compared to the collective understanding of the first president and the first congress as embodied in actual legislation.

And you cite John Marshall. But Marshall is the furthest thing from an objective, dispassionate observer. His agenda was to establish as much power as possible in the hands of the Supreme Court. In some ways he succeeded, in others he did not. In this attempt, he ultimately did not.

And that is the sum of the issue. It’s not complicated.

The other nonsense, such as your trying to smear those who adhere to the 1789 state of facts as “progressives,” is just trying to throw dirt in the eyes of people.

And how ironic. Most of us who are strong supporters of RKBA insist that it must be interpreted based on the intent of the founders in 1789 when the Constitution became effective.

And here you are smearing those who interpret Article III in light of the 1789 understanding of that provision, which has been long established, as “progressives.” I suppose there really is nothing that is beneath you.

George Washington signed the Judiciary Act of 1789 into law.

By your definition, that makes him a “progressive.”

It takes a rare combination of arrogance and stupidity to define George Washington as a “progressive.”

On that score, you certainly do win!

So with no legal basis for your "argument" you now try to SMEAR those you disagree with as a "progressive"?

What a pathetic a-wipe you are.

You want to know what is aggravating? I'll tell you what is aggravating.

Through umpteen posts on the thread you ignored the point I made about the 1789 Judiciary Act and jurisdiction of cases brought by ambassadors, or pretended not to understand the significance of it. And the point is not hard to grasp.

That is intellectual dishonesty.

THAT is what is aggravating.

The points you made about Hamilton’s statement and Marshall’s statement are not illegimitate. The cold, hard fact is they are not nearly as significant, in terms of evidence of what the founders collectively intended as to “exclusivity” in the Constitution, as the official action of the first president and the first congress reflecting a collective, contemporaneous understanding of these men who were to a large extent involved in writing the Constitution.

But your approach was not to respond to the fact of it, but rather to ignore it or pretend not to understand it, throughout most of the discussion. And even now you pretend not to grasp the larger principle that if the grant of original jurisdiction as to ambassadors was not exclusive, then neither was any other type of case enumerated in the same sentence of the Constitution. Or else you are claiming that Washington and the first Congress did not understand their own Constitution as well as YOU do now.

Your argument for the most part merely consists of repeating the phrase “the Constitution is clear” and ignoring contemporaneous evidence of the founders’ intention.

It is not possible to have a reasonable discussion about a topic where one party displays a lack of integrity.

In post 38 you actually cited the text of the 1789 Judiciary Act as if it were a good, current authority as to which types of cases the Supreme Court now has exclusive original jurisdiction as opposed to concurrent original jurisdiction. Of course it is not, and any lawyer or even any informed person on this topic would know that.

But that’s not my point. My point is, if you don’t know what you are talking about, why are expressing such strong opinions?

I expect that from liberals, but it is always disappointing to see that on Free Republic.

Your general approach seems to be that anyone without any particular knowledge of its subject matter can simply read the text of the Constitution and come to a definitive understanding of it.

That proposition is patently absurd.

For example, an average person reading the phrase “a well regulated militia, being necessary...” is unlikely to come to a proper understanding of what it means without knowing quite a lot about the legal and historical background of these terms and their use in other contexts. In fact, that person is unlikely to properly understand even the one word “regulated.” But I know that hasn’t stopped many ignorant people from expressing strong opinions about it.

Perhaps it was the disagreeable tone of my posts that provoked you into irrationality. If so, you allowed your pride to cloud your judgment.

Marshall’s view was later repudiated by the Supreme Court, as you ought to know.

You still FAIL to deal with the FACT that the Constitution DID NOT SAY that the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction was EXCLUSIVE and that collectively the framers did NOT BELIEVE it was exclusive, as demonstrated by what the first Congress did in 1789.

I am not going to continue to argue with a dishonest fool.

Done.

They allowed lower courts to adjudicate suits brought by ambassadors!

The power to adjudicate suits involving ambassadors was given to the Supreme Court in THE VERY SAME clause as the power to adjudicate suits involving a state!!

Here is the text of the Constitution:

"In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction."

If Congress can give concurrent jurisdiction to the district courts involving cases brought by ambassadors, then by the same power it can give concurrent jurisdiction to the district courts in cases involving a state!

If you pretend to continue not to see the FACT that in 1789 President Washington and the first Congress took some of the Supreme Court’s “original jurisdiction” granted in the Constitution and gave concurrent jurisdiction to the District Courts, then you are being dishonest.

If your position is that YOU have a better understanding of the Constitution than President Washington and the first Congress, a document they WROTE, then you are a fool.

As the Supreme Court itself has observed about this first Congress:

“[The Judiciary Act of 1789] was passed by the first Congress assembled under the Constitution, many of whose members had taken part in framing that instrument, and is contemporaneous and weighty evidence of its true meaning.” Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., 127 U. S. 265 at 297 (1888).

So which is it, are you dishonest or a fool?

The significance of what was done in the Judiciary Act of 1789 is not hard to understand regarding the question of exclusivity.

That was done COLLECTIVELY by President Washington and the Congress.

That COLLECTIVE UNDERSTANDING is far more telling than a statement by any individual.

You still have FAILED to address the matter of the FACT that in 1789 Congress took a matter of original jurisdiction to the Supreme Court in the Constitution and gave concurrent jurisdiction to the District Courts.

Are you saying that what they did in 1789 was unconstitutional?

President Washington and the first Congress, a group consisting largely of the men who wrote the Constitution, in your opinion did not understand the very document they wrote and did something UNCONSTITUTIONAL in 1789?

Hmmmmmm??

Or are you just going to continue to IGNORE that?

Is your dishonesty really worth trying to win an argument?

I mean to say in the previous post:

The statement that the founders intended the Article III original jurisdiction matters given to the Supreme Court to be EXCLUSIVE is a FALSEHOOD.

It was “clearly” NOT the “intention of the founders” that the original jurisdiction given to the Supreme Court in Article III be EXCLUSIVE.

We KNOW this for a FACT.

We know this because President Washington and the first Congress, largely the SAME group of people who wrote the Constitution, took matters that were given to the ORIGINAL jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in the Constitution (in my example, cases brought by Ambassadors) and gave CONCURRENT jurisdiction over those matters to the District Courts in 1789.

This is NOT a matter open for SPECULATION.

Article III does not SAY that the matters given to the Supreme Court as original jurisdiction were EXCLUSIVE.

And it is a PROVABLE FACT that the founders did not consider this to be exclusive.

If they believed it to be exclusive, they COULD NOT have taken the matter as to ambassadors and given it also to the concurrent jurisdiction of the District Courts in 1789.

The statement that the founders intended the Article III original jurisdiction matters given to the Supreme Court is a FALSEHOOD.

I don’t know if it is because you can’t grasp the point I am making, or if you are being intentionally dishonest.

If the truth is not in you, that is sad indeed.

I think this is important and worth noting.

If you read the entire file of documents to understand how they were going about things, one would conclude that most likely the information in this memo was obtained by calling Ann and asking her, and then looking at the INA statute and typing out the memo to file.

There is no reason to think anyone contacted the State of Hawaii vital statistics department to actually see any original documents.

And doing that would have been beyond the scope of what they were trying to figure out. They were trying to determine whether Lolo should be granted a waiver or extension of his visa. Part of that is trying to understand his family situation.

As one can see in the file, most of the relevant information they got from talking to Lolo or to Ann or communicating with the people at the center running the foreign exchange student program.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2563606/posts

We have been debating this already. I use the term “debate” loosely.

Now you are being intentionally obtuse.

Have a nice day.

You are pretending that the word “exclusive” is in the grant of original jurisdiction to the Supreme Court. They certainly didn’t pretend it was in there in 1789.

You clearly know how the amendment procedure works.

If you want to change the Constitution to provide that this grant is exclusive, then go get an amendment done.

You can’t just read make-believe words into the Constitution because you don’t think it works right.

There has been far too much of that already, thank you very much.

No, actually you are reading into it language that is not there.

You are pretending that the word "exclusive" is in the grant of jurisdiction to the Supreme Court.

It is not.

And it has been understood that way all the way back to 1789, by the very people who wrote the Constitution.

Sorry, I will take their understanding of the actual language they wrote over yours.

Obama has been hard at work raising the atmosphere of racial divisiveness as much as possible and the chickens are coming home to roost.

This is correct. Arizona could file tomorrow with the Supreme Court a motion for leave to remove the case directly to the Supreme Court, but there is no doubt that the Supreme Court would deny the motion or hold it in abeyance until after the Ninth Circuit had issued its opinion.

Huh? He seems to believe that the Judiciary Act of 1789 is still in force.

Now maybe he is walking around in a long-tailed coat lined with buttons and wearing a tricorner hat.

For the rest of us, current law is 28 USC 1251.