In regards to the Second Amendment.
Posted 06-27-2008 at 12:00 PM by Budd
As James Madison, our Constitution’s principal author, wrote in the Federalist Papers (No. 46), “The ultimate authority... resides in the people alone... The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation... forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition.”
More to the point, Justice Joseph Story, appointed to the Supreme Court by Madison, wrote in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1833), “The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of the rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.”
The “Living Constitution” Leftists, however, have been whittling away at the people’s powers for more than a century.
In Federalist No. 81 Alexander Hamilton writes, “[T]here is not a syllable in the [Constitution] which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution...”
But, Thomas Jefferson feared, “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.”
Jefferson clearly understood human nature, and though our Founders never intended the courts to amend our Constitution by judicial diktat, he foresaw what British historian Lord John Acton affirmed in 1887, a hundred years after the adoption of our Constitution: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
We are so far from where we started it is sad. Even the founding fathers could see this and tried to prevent it - yet it still prevails.
More to the point, Justice Joseph Story, appointed to the Supreme Court by Madison, wrote in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1833), “The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of the rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.”
The “Living Constitution” Leftists, however, have been whittling away at the people’s powers for more than a century.
In Federalist No. 81 Alexander Hamilton writes, “[T]here is not a syllable in the [Constitution] which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution...”
But, Thomas Jefferson feared, “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.”
Jefferson clearly understood human nature, and though our Founders never intended the courts to amend our Constitution by judicial diktat, he foresaw what British historian Lord John Acton affirmed in 1887, a hundred years after the adoption of our Constitution: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
We are so far from where we started it is sad. Even the founding fathers could see this and tried to prevent it - yet it still prevails.
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