Posted on 12/21/2009 10:05:52 AM PST by NewJerseyJoe
As long as we have a chance of electing Sarah in 2012, it’s no time.
If you still believe changing the figurehead will change anything..
WEPIN Store.com is still in business? Amazing. I remember downloading the complete site back around 97 or so.
Claire has moderated quite a bit lately. Become more of a community oriented activist than an outright revolutionary.
I remember I was deeply honored when she published one of my pieces on her website.
You either don't know or reject the purpose of government as espoused by the Founders. You are pure bluster. I enjoy toying with you at this forum.
I think Masison was worried about the young Republics survival on a financial and organizational basis. I have read about the post revolutionary debt turmoil leading to Shay’s rebellion and similar incidents. The states were only looking after their own interests and letting the larger republic flounder.
Many felt we would soon fall apart and be devoured piece meal.
I often wonder what might have been different if his friend Thomas Jefferson had been in the country for the framing--if he'd been there. Jefferson surely demonstrated a greater mistrust of government than Madison. TJ trusted Madison, and seems to have somehow been a bit of a centrist on the issue of the Constitution, but I wonder if he'd have had a different view if he'd been there. I even wonder if it was an accident or not that he was out of the country at the time.
The state Constitutions were a prelude to the federal Constitution. There is hardly a single idea or article contained in the federal Constitution that was not proposed or essayed in a state Constitution.
Are you saying that Jefferson would have demanded staying with the Article? Since you despise the Constitution and admire the Articles, how can you support someone who supported the Constitution?
A sensible person might say that such a government would have too much power. They might say that such a government is too large, its officeholders too far removed from the people to be just and fair. They might say that given the tendency of governments to accrue power, they might construe their power in such a way as to obliterate the powers, rights, and sovereignty of the nations under it. They might say that a republican form cannot properly function over so vast a territory, over a population with such varied and disparate interests. They might say that centralized power is mortally dangerous, and that once it grabs hold of power, it is extremely difficult to overcome. They might say that small, state-governments, representing small, parochial territories, and more likely to be just, and less likely to expand their power beyond all bounds. They might say that numerous smaller republics provide a safeguard against tyranny, whereas under one unified supreme system, there is nowhere to turn. They just might say these things.
Liberty is the objective. Not republicanism. Liberty is the end. Republicanism is the supposed means to secure that end. And as we have seen, republicanism, when improperly employed, can become an instrument of tyranny.
I'm saying that my impression of TJ is that he had a much fiercer, more pronounced mistrust of government generally than his friend Madison did, and that his presence might have made some bit of difference.
It's not a question of "support." You continually revert to this sort of emotionalism, as if the choices are blind loyalty or ad hominem. I'm talking about the ideas they espoused, the documents they produced, the arguments they made. It's not personal. But with you, nothing short of reverence will do. They were men, not gods. Their ideas were written on paper, not etched in stone beside a burning bush.
You're entitled. Personally, I wish you would bring something substantive and challenging to the discussion, rather than just sappy emotionalism and petty needling. I truly enjoy real debate and discussion and always learn from it. It is the fire that forges one's ideas. You offer none of that. But if you like being a source of white noise, I can't stop you.
You still don’t know the purpose of government.
So you don’t think the US government should include a judiciary?
You are pure emotionalism. Constitution = bad, therefore those who supported it were “bad.” Madison, Washington, Hamilton, Jay, Jefferson = bad.
Confederacy = good, Henry = good.
You do not provide evidence of the superiority of confederacies because their benefits are grossly outweighed by their deficiencies. You only criticize and demean the remarkable work of brilliant men. It must be horrible to be you, to despise your country.
From the article:
In 1996 I scrawled a pair of sentences that resonated with a lot of freedom activists.
Four years have passed since I flippantly said it’s too early.
[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what are not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch."
And who was it that wrote the opinion? Framer and signer of the Constitution, John Marshall. Here we see Jefferson, like his pal Madison, seemingly non-plussed by the utterly predictable and logical application of the Constitution.
He had been out of the country, so I guess he hadn't had the chance to read Antifederalist 80:
They [the courts] 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 control their adjudications. From this court there is no appeal. And I conceive the legislature themselves, cannot set aside a judgment of this court, because they are authorised by the constitution to decide in the last resort. The legislature must be controlled by the constitution, and not the constitution by them. They have therefore no more right to set aside any judgment pronounced upon the construction of the constitution, than they have to take from the president, the chief command of the army and navy, and commit it to some other person. The reason is plain; the judicial and executive derive their authority from the same source, that the legislature do theirs; and therefore in all cases, where the constitution does not make the one responsible to, or controllable by the other, they are altogether independent of each other. The judicial power will operate to effect, in the most certain, but yet silent and imperceptible manner, what is evidently the tendency of the constitution: I mean, an entire subversion of the legislative, executive and judicial powers of the individual states. Every adjudication of the supreme court, on any question that may arise upon the nature and extent of the general government, will affect the limits of the state jurisdiction. In proportion as the former enlarge the exercise of their powers, will that of the latter be restricted.
Or Antifederalist 82:
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. These cases will immediately affect individuals only, so that a series of determinations will probably take place before even the people will be informed of them. In the meantime all the art and address of those who wish for the change will be employed to make converts to their opinion.
Or maybe he simply trusted the arguments set forth by his dear friend Mr. Madison. Fitting, in a way, that Madison should have been a party to the case that officially announced the death knell of his ideas.
What remains for us, those living under the system, is to figure out how to correct the problem. Jefferson himself had no answer. He tried to form one, with his Kentucky Resolutions, but that was improvised, and didn't work. Elsewhere he suggests that judges should be impeached, but that doesn't work either, for the power of impeachment lies within the same national government, and the branches usually are in agreement when power is expanded. He suggested the legislature should be the final decider of the Constitutionality of the laws it passes, but that ignores the power inherent in the other branches. The SCOTUS, as the last resort, trumps all. Some have suggested occasional conventions of the people to decide such questions. Others believe the SCOTUS should have a jury.
There has to be some form of federal judiciary, to decide strictly federal questions. In the old confederacy, judges were temporarily appointed by the Congress for that purpose, and their jurisdiction was quite limited. I think if it were truly a federal system---a confederacy---you could let the Congress decide for itself on questions of "constitutional" meaning. What rules one might want to govern such decisions, I'm not sure. Unanimous consent? Majority? Super-majority? Maybe first the Congress, then the state legislatures? It's an interesting question. What is clear is that what we have is, as Jefferson described it, despotic. Pity he and his friends didn't see it coming.
So how would you have modified the Articles?
Not at all. It shows that he had a keen perception of what was happening, and didn't want his name and reputation co-opted by the nationalists.
At the time, the correct thing to do was to make only those changes that they had been asked to make.
What should they have done?
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