Posted on 05/21/2002 11:54:40 AM PDT by tpaine
"My study of the historical events that culminated in the Fourteenth Amendment, and the expressions of those who sponsored and favored, as well as those who opposed its submission and passage, persuades me that one of the chief objects that the provisions of the Amendment's first section, separately, and as a whole, were intended to accomplish was to make the Bill of Rights, applicable to the states.
With full knowledge of the import of the Barron decision, the framers and backers of the Fourteenth Amendment proclaimed its purpose to be to overturn the constitutional rule that case had announced.
This historical purpose has never received full consideration or exposition in any opinion of this Court interpreting the Amendment."
And that still leaves me with my question: why, then, didn't these framers simply come right out and say it in the amendment itself? It wouldn't have been very difficult for them to do. Why all the beating around the bush?
I would bet your problem with the 14th is what it says, -- more than how its said. - True?
Actually, I agree, because I don't believe that the 14th amendment incorporates the BOR. It's only if one does believe that, that it would very much appear that they were beating around the bush. If the framers intended for that to be the case, they could have very easily said so.
I would bet your problem with the 14th is what it says, -- more than how its said. - True?
I'll admit, if I had my druthers, it wouldn't be a part of the Constitution. It's a rather prolific source of mischief for the federal judiciary. But my biggest problem isn't with the actual provisions of the amendment, but with the way it gets glaringly misapplied.
But in any case, I'd like to hear your (or Judge Black's) explanation of why its authors didn't feel the need to say what they meant, if they truly meant to incorporate the Bill of Rights.
Zealots hate facts.
- If you don't believe Black, read the ratification debates themselves. They're on the web.
No support there. Cheap bluff.
"We have held from the beginning and uniformly that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not apply to the States any of the provisions of the first eight amendments as such. The relevant historical materials have been canvassed by this Court and by legal scholars. These materials demonstrate conclusively that Congress and the members of the legislatures of the ratifying States did not contemplate that the Fourteenth Amendment was a short-hand incorporation of the first eight amendments making them applicable as explicit restrictions upon the States." -- U.S. Supreme Court BARTKUS v. ILLINOIS, 359 U.S. 121 (1959)
"My study of the historical events that culminated in the Fourteenth Amendment, and the expressions of those who sponsored and favored, as well as those who opposed its submission and passage, persuades me that one of the chief objects that the provisions of the Amendment's first section, separately, and as a whole, were intended to accomplish was to make the Bill of Rights, applicable to the states.
With full knowledge of the import of the Barron decision, the framers and backers of the Fourteenth Amendment proclaimed its purpose to be to overturn the constitutional rule that case had announced. This historical purpose has never received full consideration or exposition in any opinion of this Court interpreting the Amendment."
It might seem inappropriate to you that people have interpreted the due process clause in somewhat different ways, but how are any of those different interpretations less defensible than an interpretation which would hold that it added nothing to the Constitution?
Those who would limit our rights insist that we must list them.
- The opposite is true. - Laws list limits. Freedom is limitless, and need not be listed.
"We have held from the beginning and uniformly that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not apply to the States any of the provisions of the first eight amendments as such. The relevant historical materials have been canvassed by this Court and by legal scholars. These materials demonstrate conclusively that Congress and the members of the legislatures of the ratifying States did not contemplate that the Fourteenth Amendment was a short-hand incorporation of the first eight amendments making them applicable as explicit restrictions upon the States." -- U.S. Supreme Court BARTKUS v. ILLINOIS, 359 U.S. 121 (1959)
I answered that when I said that the BOR wasn't applied to the states by the 14th. Last time I checked, the 9th amendment was part of the BOR.
Those who would limit our rights insist that we must list them. - The opposite is true. - Laws list limits. Freedom is limitless, and need not be listed.
Philosophical argument. Not a legal one.
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