Saturday, November 08, 2008 "Constitution" (just words?)

Saturday, November 08, 2008

“Constitution” (just words?)

There was a time I think we put more weight upon the words we speak, it used to be that a handshake was all that was needed to secure an agreement over the words that had been spoken. 

 

That was all that was needed because the words held the power of the character within the person. We seem to have lost that today as we have to have contracts to secure the words that should stand on their own, but in these days they cannot.

Julie mentioned our recent election the other day and in our pervious post I gave my congratulations to President-Elect Obama. I also mentioned to my regret I was unable to support him in his campaign. That was much to do with his words, one very important area being the judges he said he would appoint, to which I took him at his word.

That concerned me I suppose the most, as all the other areas I had concern with will be dealt with again in 4 or maybe 8 years. These judges and their influence will be with me for the rest of my life, and by then it may be that where they take our country could redefine our whole culture.

He has stated the judges he appoints will tend to interpret the Constitution in what some call a living Constitutional view, being that it evolves with the times in which we live, and the meaning changes as culture changes. That sounds reasonable unless you study what our Founders intended, which was a very strict adherence to the Constitutional code and Amendments to be made only by the ascribed methods.

Our Constitution is not just words, it defines us, if it evolves and changes then so do we. It could very well be what we are today as a people will not be what we are tomorrow, the term American would mean something completely different from what it does today.

I will surely write my representatives in Congress and strongly urge them to resist any appointment other than a strict Constitutionist.

I am an American, I am proud to be an American, it is one of my greatest honors, and it becomes more so as I discover more and more about what an American is. I discover that by searching out our history and acquainting myself with our governing documents and how our Founders interpreted their meaning. This tells me what it means to be an American and helps enable me to identify a none American idea when it rises up in our mist.

Our Constitution, just words? Let's turn our ears to the words of our Founders once again for guidance;

NOAH WEBSTER (1758-1843)

Was among the first to call for the Constitutional Convention and was responsible for the copyright and patent protection clause found in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. Furthermore, Webster was a master of word usage, learning over twenty languages and compiling America’s first dictionary that defined some 70,000 words.

Webster explained:

“In the lapse of two or three centuries, changes have taken place which in particular passages . . . obscure the sense of the original languages . . . The effect of these changes is that some words are . . . being now used in a sense different from that which they had . . . and thus present wrong signification or false ideas. Whenever words are understood in a sense different from that which they had when introduced . . . mistakes may be very injurious.” - Noah Webster, The Holy Bible . . . With Amendments of the Language (New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1883), p. iii.

THOMAS JEFFERSON

Thomas Jefferson admonished Supreme Court Justice William Johnson:

“On every question of construction, 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 invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.” Thomas Jefferson, Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, From the papers of Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, editor (Boston: Gray and Bowen, 1830), Vol IV, p. 373, to Judge William Johnson on June 12 1823.

 

 

 

James Madison 

JAMES MADISON

James Madison also declared:

“I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution. And if that be not the guide in expounding it, there can be no security for a consistent and stable, more than for a faithful, exercise of its powers . . . What a metamorphosis would be produced in the code of law if all its ancient phraseology were to be taken in its modern sense.” -  James Madison, The Writings of James Madison, Gaillard Hunt, editor (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1910), Vol. IX, p. 191, to Henry Lee on June 25, 1824.

 

 

 

 

JUSTICE JAMES WILSON (1742-1798)

James Wilson was a distinguished Founder; he was one of only six who signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; he was the second most active member of the Constitutional Convention, speaking 168 times on the floor of the Convention; he was a law professor; he was nominated by President George Washington as an original Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court; and in 1792 he was co-author of America’s first legal commentaries on the Constitutional

Justice James Wilson explained:

“The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it.” - James Wilson, The works of the Honorable James Wilson, Bird Wilson , editor (Philadelphia: Bronson and Chauncey, 1804), Vol. I, p. 14, from “Lectrues on Law Delivered in the College of Philadelphia; Introductory Lecture: Of the study of the Law in the United States.”

 

 

 

JUSTICE JOSEPH STORY (1779-1845)

Joseph Story was the son of one of the “Indians” at the Boston Tea Party”; was the founder of Harvard Law School; was called the “foremost of American legal writers” and was nominated to the Supreme Court by President James Madison.

Justice Joseph Story explained:

“The first and fundamental rule in the interpretation of all instruments [documents] is to construe them according to the sense of the terms and the intention of the parties.” Joseph story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, and Company, 1833), Vol. III, p. 383, 400.

May God bless each you,

David