Today, December 15th, is the 212th anniversary of the adoption of our Bill of Rights, the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution as ratified this day, December 15, 1791. Many of the Founders objected to listing the Bill or Rights as "amendments" because it might be construed that such rights were subject to change. As noted by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 84: "I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?"
Read in context, the Bill of Rights is both an affirmation of innate individual rights (see Jefferson's words under "The Foundation") and an explication of constraints upon the central government. But in the last four decades, an activist judiciary has grossly devitalized the Bill of Rights. For example, the Leftjudiciary has "interpreted" the First Amendment as placing all manner of constraint upon the exercise of religion while asserting that all manner of expression constitutes "speech." And the courts are constantly dissolving the strength of the Second Amendment, which James Madison's appointee, Justice Joseph Story, declared "...the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers...."
"Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Thus begins our Bill of Rights. George Mason, known as "The Father of the Bill of Rights," wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights from which Jefferson drew to write the Declaration of Independence. Mason was one of fifty-five who wrote the U.S. Constitution, but was also one of sixteen who refused to sign it because it did not abolish slavery and did not limit the power of the Federal Government. He worked with Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams to prevent the Constitution from being ratified, as the abuses of King George's concentrated power were still fresh. It was through Mason's insistence that in the first session of Congress ten limitations were put on the Federal Government. George Mason had suggested the wording of the First Amendment be: "All men have an equal, natural and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that no particular sect or society of Christians ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others."
However, as Thomas Jefferson warned repeatedly, the greatest risk that those limitation on the central government would be eroded, was an unbridled judiciary: "Over the Judiciary department, the Constitution [has] deprived [the people] of their control. ... The original error [was in] establishing a judiciary independent of the nation, and which, from the citadel of the law, can turn its guns on those they were meant to defend, and control and fashion their proceedings to its own will. ... It is a misnomer to call a government republican in which a branch of the supreme power [the judiciary] is independent of the nation. ... The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what 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."
Memo to you despots in the Leftjudiciary: Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party (December 16, 1773). Take note!
Enjoy!!!
Hog
