We need to keep our focus on marriage, and rebuke the SCOTUS with an Amendment to the Constitution.
Posted on 07/03/2003 12:09:27 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
Thm. Jefferson, while president, tried this very thing with Justic Samuel Chase of the Supreme Court, with Chief Justice John Marshall clearly in the cross hairs. Thank God Jefferson failed...to his towering fury, I might add.
Jefferson and the rest of the Republican/Jeffersonians felt that the SC had no business deciding on and/or over turning laws passed by the (Republican/Jeffersonian) congress who claimed they spoke for "the People".
The role of the SC was to be, in their view, essentially to serve at the pleasure, and for the purpose, of the party in power- namely the Republican/Jeffersonians who felt that with the manipulation(s) of the SC they would maintain a lock on power; as they probably would have for several elections, if not longer.
Mercifully, when it came to a vote the sense decency, statesmanship, and of duty called forth "the better Angel of our nature" in enough members of Congress, including a surprisingly large number of Republican/Jeffersonians, to defeat the measure of impeachment against Samuel Chase...and any other Justice, at any other time.
So why was no amendment passed? Oh, several reasons, I expect. The shame a lot of the members of Congress felt about getting tangle up in this mess ("Damn your conscience! Vote with your party!"); the sullen fury of Jeffereson who most certainly would have pushed for an amendment if he thought he had even a ghost of a chance; the mounting troubles with Britian; the trouble brewing out West, etc.
"The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority; to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls; to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction; to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party; to Controversies between two or more States; between a State and Citizens of another State [Modified by Amendment XI]; between Citizens of different States; between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make."
This crisis has arisen not because the Justices of the Supreme Court are or are not impeached.
It has arisen because of the repeated failure of Congress to make proper exceptions to, and regulation of, the appellate jurisdiction of the Court, as they are charged to do by Art. III, s. 2.
A Congress so weak as to fail in its written duty to make exceptions to and regulate the appellate jurisdiction of the Court will NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS consider the much more radical, and much less well-documented, step of impeachment and removal of one or several justices.
We need to keep our focus on marriage, and rebuke the SCOTUS with an Amendment to the Constitution.
It has arisen because of the repeated failure of Congress to make proper exceptions to, and regulation of, the appellate jurisdiction of the Court, as they are charged to do by Art. III, s. 2.
A Congress so weak as to fail in its written duty to make exceptions to and regulate the appellate jurisdiction of the Court will NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS consider the much more radical, and much less well-documented, step of impeachment and removal of one or several justices.
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Amen! While morally reprehensible, short sighted, callous, and opportunistic, a SCOTUS Justice voting for "gay rights" is not an impeachable offense.
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Mr. Jefferson's near paranoid antipathy toward both the SCOTUS and the Federalist party in general is a well know albeit little mentioned facet of his being.
The above quote, read w/o this knowledge of Jefferson's character does indeed sound noble. However, considering Jefferson the man and politican, as opposed to Jefferson the historial liberal icon, his words take on altogether different shading.
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