Posted on 05/05/2005 3:22:31 PM PDT by Constitutionalist Conservative
May 5, 2005 – Criticizing those who believe the Constitution should be flexible and adapted to modern times, Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Thursday during a speech at Texas A&M University that there is no such thing “as the living Constitution.”
Scalia was speaking as part of the Twanna M. Powell Lecture at the George Bush Presidential Conference Center.
“I’m what you call an ‘originalist,’ one who believes the Constitution should be interpreted exactly as it was adopted,” Scalia added.
“It should be interpreted as it was written – nothing more, nothing less. Rights do not grow smaller or larger. Some legal experts say you have to interpret the Constitution broadly, but that’s not true under any circumstance.”
Scalia, who was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan, added, “You hear the phrase ‘the living Constitution’ and that it’s a ‘living’ document. I’m a believer in the dead Constitution. Maybe we should better phrase it ‘the enduring Constitution.
“The Constitution is not a living document. It’s a legal document, and legal documents do not change.”
Scalia said that such controversial subjects as the death penalty and abortion are really not Constitutional issues “because there’s not one word about them in the Constitution. People who believe in a living Constitution would like to see such things as un-Constitutional.”
The Constitution, he added, does exactly what it’s supposed to do: “It provides stability,” he said.
Bush , when introducing Scalia, said that he “was a free spirit and deep thinker. He shares his views openly, and he is certainly thought-provoking.”
Among the overflow crowd to hear Scalia were members of the Texas Supreme Court, the Fifth Court of Circuit Appeals and numerous federal and state judges.
A native of Trenton, N.J., Scalia graduated from Harvard Law School and was a Sheldon Fellow of Harvard University. He was also a law professor at the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago and visiting law professor at Stanford and Georgetown. He served the federal government as General Counsel of the Office of Telecommunications Policy and was appointed judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for District of Columbia in 1982.
He and his wife, Maureen, have nine children.
Scalia, who was approved as a Supreme Court justice by a vote of 98-0, said such approval “would never happen today. Congress wants moderates and a moderate interpretation of the Constitution. The ‘living’ Constitution idea is seductive to the man on the street, and even to some judges.
“But we must apply the words as they were originally written and we must be bound by their original meaning. We must think of what the words are and what the words meant when the people adopted them.
“The Constitution doesn’t ‘morph’ to be what we want it to be.”
Scalia said if there were one change he could make to the Constitution, it would be to make amendments to it an easier process.
“Amendments are not easy to do,” he added.
“They must be ratified by three-fourths of the states. But someone figured out that with the population disparity of states today, only two percent of the total population could prevent an amendment from being passed. It’s very difficult to get an amendment passed.”
No foreign court ruled away his RKBA in the US, an American court did. As an American citizen, he committed a bad act on foreign soil. You demand that we put blinders on the moment someone leaves our soil. I do not.
Looking over at that other thread, you seem to be looking for the court to have overturn the constitutionality of Federal Code § 922 because of this case. This is not the case to do that. It's not the case to even begin to try to do that. This case was purely about an ambiguity of the interpretation of a single word within the code.
Fine, but even though the Constitution says "Congress shall make no law," Congress itself is making laws left and write abridging the freedom of speech, etc.
This is a very dangerous way to view the Constitution. The burden is on the groups who claim that a given practice commonly held legal in 1789 and well beyond is "unenlightened" or "rendered inhumane by progress." Witness the onset of marriage redefinition activism. Clearly marriage is for rearing children according to anyone with any reasonable interpretation of the concept. Yet simply having an intimate relationship is suddenly "enough" to qualify for marriage in the progressive camp, complete with state benefits and a total rewrite of every sex education curriculum in the entire public school system.
For example, what does "Congress shall make no law..." mean?
This is very easy to understand given the writings of our most prolific and articulate founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and others. The intent is far short of what the typical FReeper believes it means. But injecting religious establishment into the Constitution by artificial transfusion is a convenient mechanism for defending culture against the revisionist hordes. And yes, they are savage hordes worthy of the name "hun."
The founding fathers were not secular humanists. They didn't believe in the incorruptible goodness of their fellow human beings; they believed in Calvinist and Enlightenment notions of power corrupting absolutely and knew an obligation to restrain individual authority on that basis with checks and balances. They did not believe that "social progress" would solve social problems rooted in human nature. Their form of humanism posited that restraints on the state and on individual authority combined with spiritual (if Deist) sincerity would produce ideal conditions in which liberty could flourish. But once anyone violated those boundaries, self-defense for those whose rights he had violated became a duty, and later the state was obligated to try him by a jury of his peers and remove him from his community.
We are a nation of laws, not men. Think about that very carefully. It's a very profound statement. The same notion of "reinterpreting" the Constitution has permitted judges, legislators, and executive offices in many states (including California's) to abandon the second amendment because it's inconvenient to some modern ideals of peacability.
Reinterpreting the Constitution is going to destroy the Republic.
bump for later
The 13th Amendment took care of that.
If he believes what he is saying, he really screwed up on the Earls case.
No foreign court ruled away his RKBA in the US, an American court did.
Nope, the 'justice dept' simply decreed that he had been convicted, and denied him his RKBA's.
As an American citizen, he committed a bad act on foreign soil.
So you, and the feds claim. Why should an alleged 'bad act' there lose him rights here?
You demand that we put blinders on the moment someone leaves our soil. I do not.
I demand that our RKBA's not be deprived without due process. You do not.
Looking over at that other thread, you seem to be looking for the court to have overturn the constitutionality of Federal Code § 922 because of this case.
Exactly. That is their duty, under their oath to support the Constitution.
This is not the case to do that. It's not the case to even begin to try to do that. This case was purely about an ambiguity of the interpretation of a single word within the code.
So you would have us believe. -- I believe it's an issue of Constitutional principle. No citizen should lose his RKBA's by the decree of a foreign court.
I told you, I would be more than willing to subject him to more "due process", but I doubt that he would want it.
Exactly. That is their duty, under their oath to support the Constitution.
Find a better case & plead it that way. The defendant didn't make that claim in this one.
Reinterpreting the Constitution is going to destroy the Republic.
Indeed it will, and imho, it has already started to do so.
I recently ran across this very generalized comment on the basics of our Constitution. - I'd bet that a majority of the FReepers on this board would not agree with all of its points, points that should be clear to anyone who has read the document:
______________________________________
The Constitution of the United States
The U.S. Constitution is the central instrument of all levels of government in the USA and the "supreme law of the land".
It is the oldest written Constitution in the world that is in force. It was written in 1787 in Philadelphia by the Continental Congress of the new American republic and was officially adopted in 1789.
The objective of the writers was to outline the structure of a new, strong central government after the years of weakness and chaos resulting from the preexisting "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union" which loosely bound the colonies together since 1778.
The U S Constitution outlines the structure and powers of the 3 branches of government (executive, legislative, judicial) and the 3 levels of government (federal, state, local).
The basic principles of the Constitution are the same today as when it was written:
1--The 3 branches of government (executive, legislative, judicial) are separate and each is checked and balanced off by the power of the other two, and by the powers of the States and the people.
2--The U S Constitution is supreme.
3-All persons are equal before the law, as are all States. Each State must have a republican form of government and respect the law of other States, and the individual rights of the people.
4--The people can only change the U S Constitution by the methods and according to the principles outlined within it.
With the first case that came before the Supreme Court, there was someone breathing life into the concept of living document.
In addition to these checks, I would add two more:
People who want to change what the Constitution means should be free to discuss that and propose any change that follows the guidelines of life, liberty, and the pursuit (not the promise of it) of happiness for individuals. These rights are very narrowly defined in terms of what individuals can do without including others. There are no collective rights.
Well said..
-- Refresh my memory, was Silveira v. Lockyer appealed to the USSC? - And didn't Thomas & Scalia vote to deny a hearing?
The fact that a right wasn't enumerated in the Constitution doesn't mean it didn't exist. There was tremendous opposition to writing the Bill of Rights, because the founders believed such a bill would be used to LIMIT rights rather than guarantee them. The 9th Amendment was added to assure that the people had many rights besides those enumerated.
So they aren't growing. They are being identified by the courts.
The problem I have with a right to privacy is that it is being used to override more essential rights: those of life and liberty. When your unenumerated right infringes upon my enumerated right, then we have a fundamental violation.
- Silveira v. Lockyer - Rejected by Supreme Court!
Address:http://www.gunownersalliance.com/Silveira_vs_Lockyer-02.htm Changed:10:12 PM on Sunday, December 28, 2003
I couldn't find the info, but if memory serves the court was unanimous in their rejection, and gave no reason.
Another strike against our two 'Conservatives' on the bench.
Disturbing.
My point is some would consider the rights to be growing by the justices identifying them.
I agree... the left won't like the lack of the "living" Constitution. Can you believe they have names for this stuff now?
2nd amendment actually says "life, liberty, and property". Interesting that I don't know where "pursuit of happiness" came from. I'll check it out. Almost like the pledge of allegiance, which originally did not "under God" in it.
To be fair, the constitution simply reserves powers for the federal government; this doesn't mean that states and the federal government have to execute criminals. On the other hand, history and this passage indicate that our founding fathers and their descendants did use capital punishment.
There seems to be an almost effeminate apprehension toward execution of heinous criminals. I attribute this to the loss of consistent morals that the 20th century and post-modernism have brought us.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
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