Posted on 08/13/2009 7:29:30 AM PDT by Loud Mime
You may have seen this quote; it is on many Internet sites - all conservative:
"Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government."
I could not find a context for the quote, nor a source. So I started asking the experts.
Sources at James Madison University and the University of Virginia (that specializes in the papers of James Madison) know nothing of this quote; and both are suspicious of the wording - they say it is not Madison-like. I must agree with them.
Unless someone comes up with something that the experts do not know, this quote is best referred to as a hoax.
LM
ping
Thanks!
I’ve taken things I’ve read here as gospel.
I am finding myself wrong or unable to back it up many times.
Never heard that one, actually.
I know there are a great many “quotes” that are floating around, which simply are not true. I think that most of them simply begin as someone’s flawed memory, then they get posted online and passed around, and soon everybody is using this “quote” that doesn’t really exist.
There’s probably going to be plenty of fake “slogans” floating around out there. I put nothing past those Communists in DC.
He certainly did.
That quotation is far too poorly written to have been crafted by Madison.
Take and claim it as your own then. It is still good.
Thanks for info, I think I used the quote before. Possibly should have been cautious about source.
Sounds like Obama to me, he might have even written it too
I concur - it’s a false-flag quote, made up by The Left to make us look stupid when we use it.
Sounds to me as though this quote was crafted to support a “living” Constitution - one that can easily be interpreted based on “historical background.” This illegitimate quote was no doubt written by a Democrat.
I heard that quote yesterday from a guest (don’t recall his name) on Neil Cavuto’s show. I liked the sentiment but found my brain thinking- nahhh..Madison didn’t really write that...
Interesting you bring it up today. And a timely reminder to check our sources - even or especially when we agree with the idea..
Sure doesn’t sound like the way people talked back then.
That phrase has meaning to me.
It means that the text should be interpreted as it was commonly understood at the time of its writing.
It is a refutation of “deconstructionism”, the belief that text has NO meaning until the contemporary reader assigns meaning to it.
| On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed. — Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), letter to Judge William Johnson, (from Monticello, June 12, 1823) |
| If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. — George Washington, , 1796 |
| Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government. — James Madison |
"Dissent is the greatest form of patriotism." -Thomas Jefferson
...except Jefferson never said that.
I've even seen it on bumper stickers. There's nothing like codifying your susceptibility to internet hoaxes by putting a fake quote on your car.
Yesterday I was chatting with one of those idiots who think that Bush went to Iraq over 9-11. Oh, they didn’t attack us....yadayada. I started questioning her about the facts of that time - she didn’t know about the authorization for military force, the CIA report that George Tenet delivered...in other words she could not remember the context of the time.
After I explained these things she said that Bush was stupid because the Iraqis had nothing to do with 911.
Her vote counts the same as mine.
I put my own quotes on my car:
Liberalism is a Socialist Disease
Murderous Tyrants are Not the Answer
FOOLS = with barastikas as the O’s.
Yep, it is in a lot of places. No year, no reference, no context.
What is the source?
***Unless someone comes up with something that the experts do not know, this quote is best referred to as a hoax. ***
Maybe it is a real quote by Jimmie Joe Madison of Podunkville Missouri. ;-)
Madison always felt that the text must be understood in the sense of how it was ratified at the time — not re-examined decade by decade by each new generation of politicians. It is in keeping with his thought, IMHO, but the wording is probably from later in life if it is accurate in its phrasing.
lets try this one on for size. How many halfwits on the DU would read this and beleve it?
“ Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life as long as you are out of your Mothers Womb wantonly; secondly to liberty unless that liberty infringes on the liberal agenda of the elected administration; thirdly to property unless it produces an undesirable carbon footprint; and last the right to government single payer healthcare.
Samuel Adams
“Dissent is the greatest form of patriotism.” -Thomas Jefferson
I think that was Roosevelt...at least that what I read on the internet...
In other words, this quote accurately reflects Madison’s beliefs, even if he never said it.
There would be other supporting material for this belief, I’m sure, in the federalist papers. This “quote” is, probably, a summary of thoughts that he actually did put to pen.
Besides, we know Madison did not text! ;)
Yes, it has meaning. But it’s anachronistic, and begs the question at issue.
The founders - least of all Madison - did not consider their arguments nor their Constitution so frail that they needed to resort to such specious methods. Instead they had firm confidence in what they were bequeathing to us, and would leave the future of this country in the hands of each generation, its destiny dependent on our character, wisdom and virtue, not on some clever, pre-emptive, “idiot-proofing” statement.
John O'Sullivan had some fun with it. He said: "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism. Treason is the highest form of dissent. Therefore treason is the highest form of patriotism."
Which is exactly what is destroying our country.
As was said also at the time - this Constitution is good for the governance of a moral and religious people, it is inadequate for any other.
I don’t think ‘bastardized’ was a word in Madison’s day. Somebody drag out your OED.
The whole quote has a modern feel, a lame modern internety feel. :-)
that is modern day writing and in it self a bastardization of both content and context.
It has a larger meaning having relationship to original thought or intent.
People who fall for craptastic statements like are unlearned and unskilled at comrehension.
This I say without even bothering to check for the integrity of the quote.
Unlike Obama, I am absolutely certain that quote is modern, not original to Madison, etc.
that is accurate at least
Looks like maybe it is old.
-ize
suffix forming verbs, M.E. -isen, from O.Fr. -iser, from L.L. -izare, from Gk. -izein. English picked up the Fr. form, but partially reverted to the correct Gk. -z- spelling from late 16c. In Britain, despite the opposition (at least formerly) of OED, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Times of London, and Fowler, -ise remains dominant. Fowler thinks this is to avoid the difficulty of remembering the short list of common words not from Greek (advertise, devise, surprise) which must be spelled with an -s-.
I sent them an email earlier this morning; my contact at the site was interested in what I would find.
It depends on what country you are backing.
LOL - a friend of mine has a last name of “Priest.” He’s had a lot of fun with it.
Which one?
Thank you sir.
I e-mailed the owner of the site to see if he has a documented source.
"Dissent is the highest form of pariotism"
is here...
Thanks. I had never heard this “quote” before, but now I’ll know that it’s not properly creditable to Madison (as of now, at any rate.)
Which is why I always try to quote a source. Preferably a direct source.
T.R.
John Kerry announced this week's John Kerry Iraq Policy of the Week the other day:
"Iraqi politicians should be told that they have until May 15 to deal with these intransigent issues and at last put together an effective unity government or we will immediately withdraw our military."
With a sulky pout perhaps? With hands on hips and a full flip of the hair?
Did he get that from Churchill? "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, at least until May 15, when I have a windsurfing engagement off Nantucket."
A good Steyn Piece!
Caution this might also be a fake:
“HOPE AND CHANGE”
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