Prophetic Words, Indeed
As our regular readers know, I fancy myself as a bit of an "expert" when it comes to the Constitution: What it means, what it’s original meaning was, and the damage being done to it today. On this site, I’m the one that addresses Constitutional issues first, including those dealing with the Supreme Court, and I do it quite well. From time to time, I like to cite historical documents from this nation’s founding. My favorite one to look to is the Federalist Papers. But, as I was researching the judiciary recently, I remembered another book that I own, and have read. That would be the Anti-Federalist Papers. The Anti-Federalist Papers were an answer to the authors of the Federalist Papers, and the people pushing for a Constitution.
I bring this work up today because of Robert Yates. Yates was a New York judge at the time, and many scholars believe that he penned the Anti-Federalist Papers under the pseudonym of "Brutus"; this in direct opposition of "Publius" who are better known as Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. Yates wrote a total of thirteen essays on the opposition to the new, proposed Constitution.
One of the things that plagues Yates’ conscience was how lax the Framers were in regard to the federal judiciary. Below are excerpts from his famous Essay XI. And as hindsight is always nice to have, I wonder if he truly understood what sort of a problem judges would ultimately be.
(For all those that will criticize any punctuation, grammar, or spelling, this is how it’s written in the original text. Don’t comment on this.)
The real effect of this system of government, will therefore be brought home to the feelings of the people, through the medium of the judicial power. It is, moreover, of great importance, to examine with care the nature and extent of the judicial power, because those who are to be vested with it, are to be placed in a situation altogether unprecedented in a free country. They are to be rendered totally independent, both of the people and the legislature, both with respect to their offices and salaries. No errors they may commit can be corrected by any power above them, if any such power there be, nor can they be removed from office for making ever so many erroneous adjudications.
The only causes for which they can be displaced, is, conviction of treason, bribery, and high crimes and misdemeanors.
This part of the plan is so modelled, as to authorise the courts, not only to carry into execution the powers expressly given, but where these are wanting or ambiguously expressed, to supply what is wanting by their own decisions.
They will give the sense of every article of the constitution, that may from time to time come before them. And in their decisions they will not confine themselves to any fixed or established rules, but will determine, according to what appears to them, the reason and spirit of the constitution. The opinions of the supreme court, whatever they may be, will have the force of law; because there is no power provided in the constitution, that can correct their errors, or controul their adjudications. From this court there is no appeal.
When the courts will have a precedent before them of a court which extends its jurisdiction in opposition to an act of the legislature, it is not to be expected that they will extend theirs, especially when there is nothing in the constitution expressly against it? And they are authorised to construe its meaning, and are not under any controul?
This power in the judicial, will enable them to mould the government, into almost any shape they please.
Perhaps nothing could have been better conceived to facilitate the abolition of the state governments than the constitution of the judicial. They will be able to extend the limits of the general government gradually, and by insensible degrees, and to accommodate themselves to the temper of the people. Their decisions on the meaning of the constitution will commonly take place in cases which arise between individuals, with which the public will not be generally acquainted; one adjudication will form a precedent to the next, and this to a following one.
Granted, much of what was proposed was mucked up by Congress, starting with the Judiciary Act of 1801, but Yates, in my opinion, was very prophetic. He foresaw the problems that were going to arise. I know that I’m in the minority on this point, but Marbury v. Madison (1803) should have never been allowed to occur. With the power of "judicial review" came the powers the Supreme Court has continued to usurp from the other branches.
Think about the decisions they’ve made that drive you nuts. The new property non-rights we have, made last Thursday. We have the right to abort our children. We have the right to privacy, though there technically isn’t one. We have the right to own and use contraceptives. We even have the right to use a religious text in a display...as long as it’s not overly religious in nature. We have a freedom from prayer at schools for football games and high school commencements. We cannot kill a sixteen year old because he committed a murder, and we can barely kill those over sixteen, now. And the list goes on, and on, and on.
Yates was right. Without having further checks and balances installed to protect against the oligarchical rule they seem to have now, our freedoms are at risk. The old line that "Everyone’s safe, Congress is in recess" doesn’t apply any longer. No one is safe from the ever-reaching power the courts seem to have; most especially in the Supreme Court. When the Court rules, as we clearly saw in the Kelo case, we’re the ones who ultimately suffer. Our rights are being stripped away, and Congress fiddles while Rome burns. I truly wish that we could dispense with the brain-dead monkeys within the federal judiciary through an article of impeachment, but DC is too entrenched right now with people who could care less about us.
It’s time for a change. A change or a revolution, one of the two. I don’t advocate violence, and I’m nowhere near calling the people to arms. But, there’s a reason we have the freedoms we do—especially the right to bear arms.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
Publius II
As our regular readers know, I fancy myself as a bit of an "expert" when it comes to the Constitution: What it means, what it’s original meaning was, and the damage being done to it today. On this site, I’m the one that addresses Constitutional issues first, including those dealing with the Supreme Court, and I do it quite well. From time to time, I like to cite historical documents from this nation’s founding. My favorite one to look to is the Federalist Papers. But, as I was researching the judiciary recently, I remembered another book that I own, and have read. That would be the Anti-Federalist Papers. The Anti-Federalist Papers were an answer to the authors of the Federalist Papers, and the people pushing for a Constitution.
I bring this work up today because of Robert Yates. Yates was a New York judge at the time, and many scholars believe that he penned the Anti-Federalist Papers under the pseudonym of "Brutus"; this in direct opposition of "Publius" who are better known as Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. Yates wrote a total of thirteen essays on the opposition to the new, proposed Constitution.
One of the things that plagues Yates’ conscience was how lax the Framers were in regard to the federal judiciary. Below are excerpts from his famous Essay XI. And as hindsight is always nice to have, I wonder if he truly understood what sort of a problem judges would ultimately be.
(For all those that will criticize any punctuation, grammar, or spelling, this is how it’s written in the original text. Don’t comment on this.)
The real effect of this system of government, will therefore be brought home to the feelings of the people, through the medium of the judicial power. It is, moreover, of great importance, to examine with care the nature and extent of the judicial power, because those who are to be vested with it, are to be placed in a situation altogether unprecedented in a free country. They are to be rendered totally independent, both of the people and the legislature, both with respect to their offices and salaries. No errors they may commit can be corrected by any power above them, if any such power there be, nor can they be removed from office for making ever so many erroneous adjudications.
The only causes for which they can be displaced, is, conviction of treason, bribery, and high crimes and misdemeanors.
This part of the plan is so modelled, as to authorise the courts, not only to carry into execution the powers expressly given, but where these are wanting or ambiguously expressed, to supply what is wanting by their own decisions.
They will give the sense of every article of the constitution, that may from time to time come before them. And in their decisions they will not confine themselves to any fixed or established rules, but will determine, according to what appears to them, the reason and spirit of the constitution. The opinions of the supreme court, whatever they may be, will have the force of law; because there is no power provided in the constitution, that can correct their errors, or controul their adjudications. From this court there is no appeal.
When the courts will have a precedent before them of a court which extends its jurisdiction in opposition to an act of the legislature, it is not to be expected that they will extend theirs, especially when there is nothing in the constitution expressly against it? And they are authorised to construe its meaning, and are not under any controul?
This power in the judicial, will enable them to mould the government, into almost any shape they please.
Perhaps nothing could have been better conceived to facilitate the abolition of the state governments than the constitution of the judicial. They will be able to extend the limits of the general government gradually, and by insensible degrees, and to accommodate themselves to the temper of the people. Their decisions on the meaning of the constitution will commonly take place in cases which arise between individuals, with which the public will not be generally acquainted; one adjudication will form a precedent to the next, and this to a following one.
Granted, much of what was proposed was mucked up by Congress, starting with the Judiciary Act of 1801, but Yates, in my opinion, was very prophetic. He foresaw the problems that were going to arise. I know that I’m in the minority on this point, but Marbury v. Madison (1803) should have never been allowed to occur. With the power of "judicial review" came the powers the Supreme Court has continued to usurp from the other branches.
Think about the decisions they’ve made that drive you nuts. The new property non-rights we have, made last Thursday. We have the right to abort our children. We have the right to privacy, though there technically isn’t one. We have the right to own and use contraceptives. We even have the right to use a religious text in a display...as long as it’s not overly religious in nature. We have a freedom from prayer at schools for football games and high school commencements. We cannot kill a sixteen year old because he committed a murder, and we can barely kill those over sixteen, now. And the list goes on, and on, and on.
Yates was right. Without having further checks and balances installed to protect against the oligarchical rule they seem to have now, our freedoms are at risk. The old line that "Everyone’s safe, Congress is in recess" doesn’t apply any longer. No one is safe from the ever-reaching power the courts seem to have; most especially in the Supreme Court. When the Court rules, as we clearly saw in the Kelo case, we’re the ones who ultimately suffer. Our rights are being stripped away, and Congress fiddles while Rome burns. I truly wish that we could dispense with the brain-dead monkeys within the federal judiciary through an article of impeachment, but DC is too entrenched right now with people who could care less about us.
It’s time for a change. A change or a revolution, one of the two. I don’t advocate violence, and I’m nowhere near calling the people to arms. But, there’s a reason we have the freedoms we do—especially the right to bear arms.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
Publius II
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 5:56 PM
5 Comments:
Publius,
Excellent discertation of the words of those considered our Founding Fathers.
I would like to add a few words of Yates myself.
1st. They are authorised to determine all questions that may arise upon the meaning of the constitution in law. This article vests the courts with authority to give the constitution a legal construction, or to explain it according to the rules laid down for construing a law. -- These rules give a certain degree of latitude of explanation. According to this mode of construction, the courts are to give such meaning to the constitution as comports best with the common, and generally received acceptation of the words in which it is expressed, regarding their ordinary and popular use, rather than their grammatical propriety. Where words are dubious, they will be explained by the context. The end of the clause will be attended to, and the words will be understood, as having a view to it; and the words will not be so understood as to bear no meaning or a very absurd one.
2d. The judicial are not only to decide questions arising upon the meaning of the constitution in law, but also in equity.
By this they are empowered, to explain the constitution according to the reasoning spirit of it, without being confined to the words or letter.
Yates was, as you say, indeed prophetic.
Mistress Pundit
Mistress,
No offense, but we'd like you to contact us. Go to the back-up site that we will post up this coming weekend, get the SN from it, and E-mail us.
We'd like to talk to you. It's not anything bad, but we'd like to get to know those that post comments. You're an "enigma" to both of us.
Thomas
Publius,
You want to "talk" to me? Why? I thought I was just a random commenter on a blog, so, I have to ask why you want to talk to me?
Mistress Pundit
Mistress,
You've trusted us this far. Trust us now. We want to talk. Check out the posts ojn sunday, and read the comment posted up on one of them. Respond tot he E-mail address available at the "Link", and let's talk.
Both Marcie and I are curious as to your identity. Not a complete one, but we're both questioning your notice of our rather insignificant site.
We both visit many of the mainstrewam blog sites, and I venture off to the law-blogs. I haven't seen you comment on any of them. Hell, lady, I'm not even a lawyer, so I question why you even address my amatuerish approach to the Constitution. And in my opinion, it's exactly that.
So, yes, we'd like to talk with you, even if it's in E-mails. Pay attention this Sunday, and I pray you're as smart as you seem to be.
Thomas
I've often comment on the Constitution as having a soul. As intelligent as most of the founding fathers were, the document is awesome when you really think about and they had some form of guidance. Call it what you like. I use the word "inspired." I haven't discarded the many judicial systems the founding fathers had to draw from to create this document that encompasses the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. It was and is declared to be the great experiment wherein the power rests with the people and the individual is protected. I see the people rejecting a Supreme Court decision and the Kelo taking case could be it. The Court must look to the executive branch, the president, for enforcement. But what happens when the president refuses to commit the troops and what can they do if he did? Surround a piece of vacant property? I've not read anyone commenting on the enforcement of Supreme Court decisions. Rawriter
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