3/08/06: Founders’ Keepers, Losers Weepers?
The Constitution is the buzz these days. The new Constitution, the one different from last week, and last month, and last year. Reading the news lately gives the impression that the Constitution is anything we want it to be.
The rule of law is what ultimately defines our civilization as different from those we are fighting abroad. Yet here at home there has been a plethora of activity which threatens basic Constitutional assumptions.
Take for instance South Dakota’s recent legislative initiative to disregard Court rulings regarding a women’s right to choose. Even if you agree with their intent, the means chosen is a direct affront to the rule of law.
Take for instance the President’s recent initiative to obtain the line-item veto. Executive intent to grab additional power and authority is not new to this Administration. The timing of this latest attempt seems almost laughable. This is particularly true when considering the Court, most recently in 1998, struck down a similar attempt.
Perhaps justice is the rule of the stronger. Help us!
There has been ample warning of such a danger:
Thomas Jefferson wrote:
“Our peculiar security is the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.”
John Marshall in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) wrote:
“We admit...that the powers of the government are limited, and that limits are not to be transcended...”
Scholar Ward Elliot has written:
“The Constitution is not a blank check to posterity. “
MMMM...
“The image of a free constitution was preserved with decent reverence. The Roman senate appeared to possess the sovereign authority, and devolved on the emperors all the executive powers of government.”
“[Of the Roman emperors] they surrounded their throne with darkness, concealed their irresistible strength, and humbly professed themselves the accountable ministers of the senate, whose supreme decrees they dictated and obeyed.”
And who wrote that you ask?
Edward Gibbon in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Sorry I asked.
Who will keep watch over our Constitutional balance of power today if those elected and/or appointed to do so are unwilling?
Count me in as I wipe away the tears.
posted by CitizenU @ 2:33 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
CitizenU: Would you rather have court packing?!?
Having states or citizens bring old issues before a newly comprised Court is nothing new. The Bush Administration (Line-item veto), South Dakota (abortion) and Vermont (campaign finance limits) are using the same strategy as the NAACP in the 1950s.
After years of bringing school segregation cases before the Court, the NAACP brought Brown v. Board of Ed. within a year of Earl Warren becoming Chief Justice.
I'd say the aforementioned parties are just following a logical legal path.
Brutus
On South Dakota... As it moves up and gets to the supreme court, no matter the desicion, it is going to be an interesting case to watch, especially with Alito.
"Roe v. Wade is decided law"--Roberts' said something very similar to this, if I'm correct.
I'm quite mad at South Dakota, but I would have to agree with Brutus: segregation was established law (a bad law, nonetheless) in many states. Should we have continued to keep things segregated, or should we have continued to bring them before the SC? Well, obviously the right thing to do was to attempt to end segregation as many times as it took.
While I'm quite pro-choice, I can't argue that just because abortion has been legal for over 30 years because of a SC decision that it shouldn't be challenged.
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