Originally Posted by
Flash
Neither were the people given the power to interpret the Constitution. The Constitution only gave the people the power to elect members of the House. There was no attempt to reverse Marbury through constitutional amendment. Judicial review existed in some of the colonies.
how do you say that with a straight face? are you that ignorant on the constitution?
Originally Posted by
Flash
And, in Federalist No. 78 Hamilton says this about the courts:
"The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution. By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ex-post-facto laws, and the like. Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing".
and if the courts were still independent, this might have meaning. they aren't, so it doesn't.
Originally Posted by
Flash
"A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents.
it is the height of ignorance to believe that we the people would write a constitution, debate it's meaning for years before we ratified it, so we would know EXACTLY what it meant, then turn it over to part of the new central government that we the people wanted to restrict in it's list of powers for interpretation. THE HEIGHT OF IGNORANCE!!!!!!
A sad commentary on we, as a people, and our viewpoint of our freedom can be summed up like this. We have liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, yet those very people look at Constitutionalists as radical and extreme.................so those liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans must believe that the constitution is radical and extreme.
Bookmarks