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…is not what the American Revolution was fought for.  It is exactly what it was fought to break away from.

 

The English “constitution” was not a written document.  It was a series of documents and common law traditions with Parliament being the sovereign, not the people.  So whatever Parliament did was constitutional…just because they did it, so it had to be constitutional.  Sound familiar?

 

The Declaration, Revolution, Articles Of Confederation, and the Constitution…the very basic and founding ideas of American principles…are directly opposed to the idea of  “evolving standards” that wise overlords in black robes would dictate to the people.

 

The founding generation gave us something unique…a written constitution and of course the idea of the individual being sovereign.  The principles of freedom and liberty have no expiration date.

 

During the 20th century numerous judges took it upon themselves to write into law their own ideas…what 1950’s chief justice Earl Warren called…“the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a mature society”.

 

I suppose if their understanding of “decency” differs from all of their predecessors including the likes of Jefferson and Madison, well that just means these judges are “superior” to their predecessors because they have “evolved” within a “maturing” society.  And if the judges differ with the electorate, well that just proves what rubes we are and how “superior” they really are.

 

So what of federalism, republicanism, and limited government that the Constitution clearly lays out?  If it is not self-evident by just reading the Constitution that the document is a grant of very few and specific powers to a central government, then looking at the convention debates and the states’ ratification debates makes it inarguably, indis****bly clear that the sovereign people of each individual state were not giving the central government a blank check, but were delegating only very few and specific powers.

 

So how do we know the true meaning of the Constitution?  How do we interpret it?  Well, James Madison said to look to the states’ ratification debates.  What did they think they were agreeing to?  Similarly Thomas Jefferson’s test for the meaning of the Constitution:  “the true sense in which it was adopted by the States, that in which it was advocated by its friends.” 

 

As Kevin Gutzman, a history professor with a PHD and law degree, points out for over a century now law school’s “constitutional law” focuses on the case method.  Prospective lawyers (and future judges) don’t study English or colonial history leading to the Constitution.  “Constitutional Law” also ignores the records of the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 where the Constitution was written.  They don’t read the ratification debates that led to its implementation.  Instead they study the latest opinions from the courts. Those “opinions” and not the text of the Constitution and how it was understood by the people who ratified it are what law schools teach as “constitutional law”.

 

That “true sense” is inarguably that the Constitution gave us a republican federal government with very limited power.

 

The Politically Correct Guide To The Constitution by Kevin Gutzman

 

Who Killed The Constitution by Kevin Gutzman and Thomas Woods

 

The Original Constitution: What it Actually Said and Meant by RobertNatelson

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The Constitution. Every Issue, Every time. No Exceptions, No Excuses.

 

"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty."---Thomas Jefferson

 

"That's what governments are for... get in a man's way."---Mal Reynolds Capt. of Serenity, "Firefly-Class" spaceship

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