Constitution Archives - Page 4 of 5

Private Property Rights Resolution

Resolution Acknowledging the Inalienable Rights of Private Property

I. Whereas, an overriding respect for the sanctity of the ownership and personal use of private property, free from restrictive and invasive regulatory regulations, is firmly embedded in American colonial law, common law, and constitutional law:

A. The three most-influential political philosophers impacting the formation of American law were Charles Montesquieu, William Blackstone, and John Locke¹

B. Charles Montesquieu, whose writings were recommended by major Framers such as James Madison, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton, declared: “Let us therefore lay down a certain maxim: that whenever the public good happens to be the matter in question, it is not for the advantage of the public to deprive an individual of his property – or even to retrench the least part of it by a law or a political regulation”²

C. William Blackstone, whose legal writings were considered as the final authority in American courts for a century-and-a-half after the adoption of the U. S. Constitution, declared: “So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property that it will not authorize the least violation of it – no, not even for the general good of the whole community”³

D. John Locke, whose writings had direct impact in the framing both of the Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Constitution, succinctly declared that “the preservation of property [is] the reason for which men enter into society” and that “government . . . can never have a power to take to themselves the whole or any part of the subject’s. property without their own consent, for this would be in effect to leave them no property at all”;⁴ and

II. Whereas, the right to hold, possess, and use one’s own private property was also recognized by our Framers and in our founding government documents as one of the foremost of our inalienable, inviolable, God-given rights:

A. Samuel Adams declared that our inalienable rights included “first, a right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly, to property – together with the right to support and defend them”⁵

B. John Adams declared that “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence”⁶ and that “Property is surely a right of mankind as really as liberty”⁷

C. John Jay, original Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and an author of the Federalist Papers declared that “It is the undoubted right and unalienable privilege of a [citizen] not to be divested or interrupted in the innocent use of . . . property. . . . This is the Cornerstone of every free Constitution”⁸

D. Adam Smith, famous economist of the Founding Era, foresaw the tendencies of governments to impinge the rights of private property, forewarning: “As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords [e.g., the governments], like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce”⁹

E. Noah Webster, a Founding Father who served as a judge and legislator, declared that property is “the exclusive right of possessing, enjoying and disposing of a thing; ownership. In the beginning of the world, the Creator gave to man dominion over the earth, over the fish of the sea and the fowls of the air, and over every living thing. This is the foundation of man’s property in the earth and in all its productions. Prior occupancy of land and of wild animals gives to the possessor the property of them. The labor of inventing, making or producing anything constitutes one of the highest and most indefeasible titles to property”¹⁰

F. Both John Adams (signer of the Declaration and framer of the Bill of Rights) and William Paterson (signer of the Constitution and Justice placed on the U. S. Supreme Court by President George Washington) declared: “All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights, among which may be reckoned the right of . . . acquiring, possessing, and protecting property”¹¹

III. Whereas, our founding governing documents declare that it is the purpose of government to protect and not violate inalienable God-given rights, including the right of owning and using one’s own property;

A. James Madison declared that “Government is instituted to protect property. . . . This being the end of government, that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his own. . . . That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions [i.e., restrictive zoning requirements], exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their [own] faculties”¹²

B. Fisher Ames, a Framer of the Bill of Rights, forcefully declared that “The chief duty and care of all governments is to protect the rights of property”¹³

C. John Dickinson, a signer of the Constitution, declared: “Let these truths be indelibly impressed on our minds: (1) that we cannot be happy without being free; (2) that we cannot be free without being secure in our property; (3) that we cannot be secure in our property if without our consent others may as by right take it away”¹⁴

D. John Adams – one of only two signers of the Bill of Rights – declared: “Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist” and that “it is agreed that the end of all government is the good and ease of the people in a secure enjoyment of their rights without oppression”¹⁵

E. James Wilson – a signer of the Declaration, signer of the Constitution, original U.S. Supreme Court Justice, and founder of the first organized legal training in America – declared that American government was created “to acquire a new security for the possession or the recovery of those rights to . . . which we were previously entitled by the immediate gift or by the unerring law of our all-wise and all-beneficent Creator,” including the right of property, and that “every government which has not this in view as its principal object is not a government of the legitimate kind”¹⁶

F. Thomas Jefferson similarly declared that the purpose of government “is to declare and enforce only our natural [inalienable, God-given] rights and duties and to take none of them from us,”¹⁷ including the right to own, use, and enjoy one’s own private property

G. An early public school textbook on ethics, reprinted for generations, transmitted these original principles to young Americans, teaching them: “Property is something which one owns and has a right to own. . . . Everything which you see or touch belongs to you or to somebody else. If it belongs to you, you have the right to do what you please with it, provided you do not abuse it: if it belongs to somebody else, you have no right to it whatever”¹⁸ – a prohibition that applies equally to government entities as well as to individuals; and

IV. Whereas, the Common Law, directly incorporated into the U. S. Constitution by the Seventh Amendment, establishes that an “absolute right . . . is that of property. . . . So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property that. . . . [i]n vain may it be urged that the good of the individual ought to yield to that of the community; for it would be dangerous to allow any private man, or even any public tribunal [governmental body], to be the judge of this common good and to decide whether it be expedient or no [how to use that property]”;¹⁹ and

VI. Therefore, Be It Resolved, that all interpretations and applications of zoning ordinances shall be examined and applied so as to recognize and preserve the inalienable, inviolable principles of private property usage and that such individual rights may be infringed only if it is clearly proven that they directly injure or harm the same rights of another citizen.

Footnotes

¹ Donald S. Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 143; Donald S. Lutz, “The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth Century American Political Thought,” American Political Science Review, 78:1:191, March 1984.

² Baron Charles Secondat de Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws (London: J. Nourse and P. Vaillant, 1752), 210.

³ William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Philadelphia: Robert Bell, 1771), I:139; The Founders’ Constitution, “Property: William Blackstone, Commentaries” (at http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s5.html).

⁴ John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (London: Awnsham and John Churchill, 1698) 273-274, Second Treatise §§ 138-40.

⁵ Samuel Adams, The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, William V. Wells, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1865), I:502, “The Natural Rights of the Colonists As Men.”

⁶ John Adams, A Defence of the Constitution of Government of the United States of America (Philadelphia: William Young, 1797), III:217, “The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth Examined.”

⁷ John Adams, A Defence of the Constitution (1797), III:216, “The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth Examined.”

⁸ John Jay, John Jay The Making of a Revolutionary, Unpublished Papers, 1745-1780, ed. Richard B. Morris (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1980), I:462, “A Freeholder: A Hint to the Legislature of the State of New York,” Winter 1778.

⁹ Adam Smith, “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations: Vol. I, Chapter 6.”

¹⁰ Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (New York: S. Converse, 1828), s.v. “property.”

¹¹ The Constitutions of the Several Independent States of America (Boston: Norman and Bowen, 1785), 6; William Paterson, The Charge of Judge William Paterson to the Jury (Philadelphia, Smith, 1796), 15.

¹² James Madison, The Writings of James Madison, Gaillard Hunt, editor (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1906), VI:102, “Property,” March 29, 1792.

¹³ Fisher Ames, The Works of Fisher Ames (Boston: T.B. Wait & Co., 1809), 125, “Eulogy on Washington”, Feb. 8, 1800.

¹⁴ John Dickinson, The Political Writings of John Dickinson (Wilmington, Bonsal and Niles, 1801), I:275, “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the inhabitants of the British Colonies,” Letter XII.

¹⁵ John Adams, The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), VI:280, “Discourse on Davila; a Series of Papers on Political History.”

¹⁶ John Adams, A Defence of the Constitution of Government of the United States of America (Philadelphia: William Young, 1797), III:293-294, “The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth Examined”; The Founders’ Constitution, “Balanced Government: John Adams, Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States” (at https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch11s10.html).

¹⁷ James Wilson, The Works of the Honorable James Wilson, ed. Bird Wilson (Philadelphia: Bronson and Chauncey, 1804), II:454, 466, “Of The Natural Rights Of Individuals.”

¹⁸ Thomas Jefferson, Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, ed. Thomas Jefferson Randolph (Boston: Gray and Bowen, 1830), IV:278, to Francis Gilmer, June 7, 1816.

¹⁹ William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Philadelphia: Robert Bell, 1771), I:138-139; The Founders’ Constitution, “Property: William Blackstone, Commentaries” (at https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s5.html).

Echoes of 1860: Is “Life” a Question of State’s Rights?

Much like the election of 1860, the 2008 presidential election generated a spirited debate over the correct relationship between the state and federal governments. The 1860 election debated the relationship of “states’ rights” to the issue of liberty; the 2008 election resurrected the issue of “states’ rights” but instead in the areas of life and family. Several of the 2008 presidential candidates declared themselves to be pro-life and pro-marriage but, citing federalism and “states’ rights,” they oppose either a Human Life or Marriage Amendment to the federal Constitution, claiming that such issues are to be decided by the state rather than the federal government. Yet a candidate’s position on such issues actually identifies their understanding of inalienable rights rather than their commitment to federalism.

In the original governing principles set forth in the Declaration (and then subsequently incorporated into the Constitution through Article VII), the right to life is one of three specifically identified inalienable rights; additional inalienable rights were subsequently enumerated in the Bill of Rights. The original documents – both the Declaration and the Constitution – make clear that the primary purpose of government, at all times and in all situations, is to protect those few inalienable rights.

Some candidates believed that the right to life is inalienable only to the degree that a specific state agrees – that if a state does not believe that the right to life is inalienable, then the federal government should not force the state to protect that right. Yet protection for the few specifically enumerated inalienable rights must always surpass what any particular state wishes – and this is the proper constitutional position on all inalienable rights, whether of life, private property, the right to keep and bear arms, the right of religious expression, etc. It is the duty of all government – including state governments – to protect inalienable rights. In fact, if the philosophy originally set forth in the Declaration of Independence and subsequently secured in the Constitution is rejected – the belief that there is a God, that He gives inalienable rights to man, and that the purpose of government is to protect those rights at all times (even when the states refuse to do so) – then there is no longer a unique American philosophy of government that will distinguish us from the rest of the world.

Understanding this, voices across the nation therefore asserted that what the state of Connecticut did in weakening property rights vis a vi the Kelo decision was intolerable because our founding documents specifically protected the inalienable right of private property through the Fifth Amendment; and they likewise asserted that what Washington, D. C. was doing with gun bans was wrong because it similarly violated the inalienable right to keep and bear arms secured to the people through the Second Amendment. Why, then, do they now believe that it is improper for the federal government to tell states that they must observe the inalienable right to life and traditional family set forth with equal force in the very same documents?

Some candidates even declared that because they are strict constructionists, they oppose amendments to the Constitution (a strict constructionist is one who supports interpreting the Constitution according to its original intent). Yet, since the Founders specifically included Article V in the Constitution to specify how the Constitution might be amended, then a strict constructionist must also support the part of the Constitution providing for its own amendment. In fact, refusing to consider a constitutional amendment does not reflect strict constructionism but rather a rejection of Article V of the Constitution.

The Founders wisely raised the bar so high as to make it is extremely difficult to pass any amendment, requiring a two-thirds approval of Congress and three-fourths approval of the states before any change could occur. Consequently, while there have been over 10,000 amendments to the Constitution proposed since 1789, only twenty-seven have been able to meet the constitutional standard. Of those twenty-seven, twelve were passed by the Founders themselves (the original “strict constructionists”) in only twenty years; in the subsequent two-hundred years, the nation has made just fifteen changes.

Federal constitutional amendments should be rare, but that does not mean they should be non-existent. States cannot be allowed to pick and choose which inalienable rights they will protect (although under the Constitution they are completely competent to determine virtually all other issues). The Constitution was written to preserve American culture and society, not to cause citizens to stand idly by while the culture is destroyed – especially when they have in their hands the means to preserve it through a constitutional amendment in the manner prescribed by the Constitution itself.

Some voices naively assert that simply eradicating abortion at the federal level and returning the issue to the states will correct the problem, but they are completely wrong. When the federal courts get out of the abortion issue and return it to the states, 20 states (based on both pro-life and pro-abortion estimates) will continue their current abortion practices, and those states include many with the largest population (e.g., California, New York, Illinois, etc.). Citizens from the other 30 states will therefore travel to one of those 20 states to get an abortion; so while the number of abortions will undoubtedly go down when the issue is returned to the states, it will come nowhere close to ending. Additionally, stopping abortion at the federal level will do nothing to correct the legal rulings generated in the state courts over the past 35 years as those state courts infused federal court positions into their own state case law. State courts will remain hostile to state attempts to restrict abortion because state case law is now as infused with the broad “health” exceptions, etc., as were the federal decisions.

A parallel legal analogy to today’s life and marriage protection concerns is seen in the 1860 slavery issue. At that time, even though the right to liberty was an inalienable right guaranteed in the founding documents, slavery was so deeply imbedded in the nation that the mere federal removal of itself from that issue vis a vi several federal statutes passed from 1861-1865 did little or nothing to change the slave culture in any of the states, either North or South – and those federal statutes certainly did nothing to change the bad court rulings that had occurred at the state level over the previous century.

Historically, the only manner in which bad case law can be completely eradicated from the law books (and thus completely terminate a long-standing harmful national practice that has permeated the states) is through a constitutional amendment – and a number of constitutional amendments have been passed to do just that (13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, etc.). In fact, had there been no constitutional amendments to secure the inalienable right to liberty that had been so egregiously violated by so many states, then there likely would still be slavery in America today as one generation, or family, or judicial system transmitted its errant beliefs to the next. So, too, with abortion.

The federal government should never have intruded itself into the abortion issue through the multiple Supreme Court decisions that opened the proverbial Pandora’s Box; however, the federal government did intrude itself. As a result, the abortion culture is now deeply implanted in America, and there are those who are as committed to that practice today as there were those who were committed to slavery a century-and-a-half ago. And abortion (like slavery before it) has become one of the nation’s biggest economic businesses; it therefore will not be eradicated from the nation by mere statutory action at the state level (or vice versa).

The Founding Fathers established federalism to preserve states’ rights, but they also placed the protection of inalienable rights far above the level of states’ rights. Candidates who desire to lead the nation should follow the Framers’ example and conform to the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, protecting life and marriage through the constitutional process those early leaders wisely provided.

* This article concerns a historical issue and may not have updated information.

Five Judicial Myths

Talking Points About the Judiciary

Despite what we hear today . . .

1. THE JUDICIARY IS NOT A CO-EQUAL BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT

A. Federalist #51: “the legislative authority necessarily predominates.¹
B. Federalist #78: “The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither force nor will. . . . The judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution. . . . [T]he judiciary is, beyond comparison, the weakest of the three departments of power. . . . [and] the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter.²
C. Congress determines the operation of the Judiciary, not vice versa (Congress sets the number of judges and courts; what issues may come before the courts; judges’ salary and compensation; how often the courts meet and the length of their sessions; and just as Congress can establish and set the number of lowers courts, so, too, can Congress also abolish them; etc.)
D. Robert Wright, officer in the Revolution, Maryland judge, early U. S. Senator: “[C]ongress can establish legislatively a court, and thereby create a judge; so they can legislatively abolish the court and eventually annihilate the officer…the inferior courts are creatures of the legislature, and that the creature must always be in the power of the creator – that he who createth can destroy.³
E. William Giles, member of the first federal Congress under the Constitution: “Is that [the Judiciary department] formed by the Constitution? It is not…It is only declared that there shall be such a department, and it is directed to be formed by the two other departments, who owe a responsibility to the people….The number of judges, the assignation of duties, the fixing of compensations, the fixing the times when, and the places where, the courts shall exercise the functions, &c., are left to the entire discretion of Congress. The spirit as well as the words of the Constitution are completely satisfied, provided one Supreme Court be established….Congress may postpone the sessions of the courts for eight or ten years, and establish others to whom they could transfer all the powers of the existing courts.⁴
F. As Rep. Steve King correctly explains, “Constitutionally, Congress can reduce the Supreme Court to nothing more than Chief Justice Roberts sitting at a card table with a candle” – a power that the Judiciary cannot reciprocally exercise over Congress.

2. THE JUDICIARY IS NOT TO BE AN INDEPENDENT BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT

A. John Dickinson, signer of the Constitution: “[W]hat innumerable acts of injustice may be committed – and how fatally may the principles of liberty be sapped – by a succession of judges utterly independent of the people?⁵
B. Thomas Jefferson: “It should be remembered as an axiom of eternal truth in politics that whatever power in any government is independent is absolute also; in theory only, at first, while the spirit of the people is up, but in practice as fast as that relaxes. Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass.⁶
C. Nathaniel Chipman, office in the Revolution, early Member of Congress, U. S. federal judge, Chief Justice of Vermont Supreme Court: “If the judges are made thus independent . . . they will become a dangerous body.⁷
D. Jonathan Mason, law student trained by John Adams and an early Member of Congress: “The independence of the judiciary so much desired will – if tolerated – soon become something like supremacy. They will, indeed, form the main pillar of this goodly fabric; they will soon become the only remaining pillar, and they will presently be so strong as to crush and absorb the others into their solid mass.⁸
E. Thomas Jefferson: “We think, in America, that it is necessary to introduce the people into every department of government. . . Were I called upon to decide whether the people had best be omitted in the legislative or judiciary department, I would say it is better to leave them out of the legislative. The execution of the laws is more important than the making them.⁹
F. Joseph Nicholson, early Member of Congress, successfully managed the impeachment of multiple early federal judges: “Give [judges] the powers and the independence now contended for and . . . your government becomes a despotism and they become your rulers. They are to decide upon the lives, the liberties, and the property of your citizens; they have an absolute veto upon your laws by declaring them null and void at pleasure; they are to introduce at will the laws of a foreign country…after being clothed with this arbitrary power, they are beyond the control of the nation. . . . If all this be true – if this doctrine be established in the extent which is now contended for – the Constitution is not worth the time we are now spending on it. It is – as it has been called by its enemies – mere parchment. For these judges, thus rendered omnipotent, may overleap the Constitution and trample on your laws.¹⁰

3. THE JUDICIARY IS NOT THE SOLE BRANCH CAPABLE OF DETERMINING CONSTITUTIONALITY

A. James Madison: “But the great objection . . . is that the Legislature itself has no right to expound the Constitution – that wherever its meaning is doubtful, you must leave it to take its course until the Judiciary is called upon the declare its meaning. . . . I beg to know upon what principle it can be contended that any one department draws from the Constitution greater powers than another in marking out the limits.¹¹
B. Elbridge Gerry, signer of the Declaration and a framer of the Bill of Rights: “It was quite foreign from the nature of [the judiciary’s] office to make them judges of the policy of public measures.¹²
C. Luther Martin, framer of the Constitution and Attorney General of Maryland: “A knowledge of mankind and of legislative affairs cannot be presumed to belong in a higher degree to the Judges than to the Legislature.¹³
D. John Randolph of Roanoke: “[I]f you pass the law, the judges are to put their veto upon it by declaring it unconstitutional. Here is a new power of a dangerous and uncontrollable nature contended for…The power which has the right of passing – without appeal – on the validity of laws is your sovereign.¹⁴
E. Thomas Jefferson: “O]ur Constitution. . . . has given – according to this opinion – to one of [the three Branches] alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others – and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation. . . . The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the Judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please.¹⁵
F. Rufus King, signer of the Constitution, framer of the Bill of Rights: “The judges must interpret the laws; they ought not to be legislators.¹⁶
G. John Randolph of Roanoke: “The decision of a constitutional question must rest somewhere. Shall it be confided to men immediately responsible to the people – the Congress, or to those who are irresponsible…the judges?….[a]re we [Congress] not as deeply interested in the true exposition of the Constitution as the judges can be? With all the deference to their talents, is not Congress as capable of forming a correct opinion as they are? Are not its members acting under a responsibility to public opinion which can, and will, check their aberrations from duty?¹⁷
H. Thomas Jefferson: “[T]he 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.¹⁸
I. James Madison: “[R]efusing or not refusing to execute a law, to stamp it with its final character. . . . makes the Judiciary department paramount in fact to the Legislature, which was never intended and can never be proper.¹⁹
J. Federalist #81: “[T]here is not a syllable in the plan [the Constitution] which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution.²⁰
K. Thomas Jefferson: “You seem . . . to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions – a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. . . . [A]nd their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective.²¹
L. President Andrew Jackson: “Each public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others. . . . The authority of the Supreme Court must not, therefore, be permitted to control the Congress or the Executive.²²
M. Abraham Lincoln: “I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court. . . . At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made . . . the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having . . . resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.²³

4. FEDERAL JUDGES DO NOT HOLD LIFETIME APPOINTMENTS

A. The Constitution says that judges hold their office only during “good behavior” (Art. III, Sec. 1).
B. Federal judges may be removed by Congress for misbehavior, which, historically, did not include only criminal behavior but also other misbehavior.
C. Historically, federal judges have been removed from the bench by Congress for contradicting an order of Congress, for profanity, for rude treatment of witness in a courtroom, for drunkenness, for judicial high-handedness and a variety of other reasons.²⁴
D. The Constitution provides six clauses on impeachment – the most often-mentioned subject in the Constitution.²⁵
E. The Founding Fathers and early legal authorities were clear about the ground for impeachment:
- 1. James Wilson, signer of the Constitution, original Justice on the U. S. Supreme Court: “[I]mpeachments are confined to political characters, to political crimes and misdemeanors, and to political punishments.²⁶
- 2. Justice Joseph Story, a “Father of American Jurisprudence” appointed to the Supreme Court by President James Madison: “The offenses to which the power of impeachment has been and is ordinarily applied as a remedy. . . . are aptly termed political offences, growing out of personal misconduct, or gross neglect, or usurpation, or habitual disregard of the public interests.²⁷
- 3. John Marshall, Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court: “[T]he present doctrine seems to be that a Judge giving a legal opinion contrary to the opinion of the legislature is liable to impeachment.²⁸
- 4. George Mason, the “Father of the Bill of Rights”: “attempts to subvert the Constitution.²⁹
- 5. Alexander Hamilton: “the abuse or violation of some public trust. . . . [or for] injuries done immediately to the society itself.³⁰
- 6. George Mason, “Father of the Bill of Rights,” and Elbridge, signer of the Declaration and Framer of the Bill of Rights: “mal-administration.³¹
- 7. William Rawle, legal authority and author of early constitutional commentary: “the inordinate extension of power, the influence of party and of prejudice³² as well as attempts to “infringe the rights of the people.³³
- 8. Justice Joseph Story, a “Father of American Jurisprudence” appointed to the Supreme Court by President James Madison: “unconstitutional opinions” and “attempts to subvert the fundamental laws and introduce arbitrary power.³⁴
F. Federalist #65: “[T]he practice of impeachments [is] a bridle in the hands of the Legislative body.³⁵
G. Justice James Iredell, a ratifier of the Constitution, placed on the Supreme Court by President Washington: “Every government requires it [impeachment]. Every man ought to be amenable for his conduct. . . . It will be not only the means of punishing misconduct but it will prevent misconduct. A man in public office who knows that there is no tribunal to punish him may be ready to deviate from his duty; but if he knows there is a tribunal for that purpose although he may be a man of no principle, the very terror of punishment will perhaps deter him.³⁶

5. THE PURPOSE OF THE SUPREME COURT IS NOT TO PROTECT THE MINORITY FROM THE MAJORITY, AND CONGRESS IS A BETTER PROTECTOR OF MINORITY RIGHTS THAN IS THE JUDICIARY

A. George Washington: “[T]he fundamental principle of our Constitution… enjoins [requires] that the will of the majority shall prevail.³⁷
B. Thomas Jefferson: “[T]he will of the majority [is] the natural law of every society [and] is the only sure guardian of the rights of man. Perhaps even this may sometimes err. But its errors are honest, solitary and short-lived.³⁸
C. The Judiciary is now regularly anti-majoritarian.
D. The primary purpose of the Supreme Court is not to protect the minority from the majority.
E. The primary purpose of the Bill of Rights is not to protect the minority from the majority; the purpose of the Bill of Rights is to protect every citizen, whether in the minority or the majority, from the intrusion upon their rights by government.
F. Congress is a better guardian of the people and the minority than are the courts.
G. Federalist #51: “The members of the Legislative department . . . are numerous. They are distributed and dwell among the people at large. Their connections of blood, of friendship, and of acquaintance embrace a great proportion of the most influential part of the society. . . . they are more immediately the confidential guardians of their rights and liberties.³⁹>
H. In 1875, Congress banned all segregation,⁴⁰ but in 1882, the Supreme Court struck down that law.⁴¹ While the Court is often praised today for ending segregation in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, what the Court actually did in that case was only to reverse its own position that had kept segregation alive 70 longer than Congress’ ban.
I. Thomas Jefferson: “When the Legislative or Executive functionaries act unconstitutionally, they are responsible to the people in their elective capacity. The exemption of the judges from that is quite dangerous enough. I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them [the people] not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.⁴²

Endnotes

¹ James Madison, John Jay & Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist (Philadelphia: Benjamin Warner, 1818), 281.

² James Madison, John Jay & Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist (Philadelphia: Benjamin Warner, 1818), 419-420.

³ The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (Washington: Gales & Seaton, 1851), 7th Cong., 1st Session, 114, January 15, 1802.

⁴ Debates and Proceedings (1851), 7th Cong., 1st Sess., 585-586, 593, February 18, 1802.

⁵ John Dickinsonn, Leters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies (New York: The Outlook Company, 1903), 92, Letter IX.

⁶ The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb (Washington DC: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), XV:137, to Spencer Roane, September 6, 1819.

⁷ Debates and Proceedings (1851), 7th Cong., 1st Sess., 131, January 19, 1802.

⁸ Debates and Proceedings (1851), 7th Cong., 1st Sess., 63, January 13, 1802.

⁹ The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958), 15:283, to the Abbe Arnoux, July 19, 1789.

¹⁰ Debates and Proceedings (1851), 7th Cong., 1st Sess., 823-824, February 27, 1802.

¹¹ Debates and Proceedings ( 1834), 1st Cong., 1st Sess., 520, June 17, 1789.

¹² The Papers of James Madison, ed. Henry D. Gilpin (Washington: Langtree & O’Sullivan, 1840), II:783, “Debates in the Federal Convention,” June 4, 1787.

¹³ Papers of James Madison, ed. Gilpin (1840), II:1166, “Debates in the Federal Convention,” July 21, 1787.

¹⁴ Debates and Proceedings (1851), 7th Cong., 1st Sess., 661, February 20, 1802.

¹⁵ Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Lipscomb (1904), XV:213, to Spencer Roane, September 6, 1819.

¹⁶ The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, ed. Max Farrand (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1911), I:108, from Rufus King’s records of the Convention from Monday, June 4, 1787.

¹⁷ Debates and Proceedings (1851), 7th Cong., 1st Sess., 661, February 20, 1802.

¹⁸ Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Lipscomb (1904), XI:51, to Mrs. John Adams, September 11, 1804.

¹⁹ James Madison, Letters and Other Writings of James Madison (New York: R. Worthington, 1884), 1:194, “Remarks on Mr. Jefferson’s Draught of a Constitution for Virginia,” October 1788.

²⁰ James Madison, John Jay & Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist (Philadelphia: Benjamin Warner, 1818), 436.

²¹ Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb (Washington DC: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), XV:277, to William Charles Jarvis, September 28, 1820.

²² James D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents (Published by Authority of Congress, 1899), III:1145, “Veto Message,” July 10, 1832.

²³ The Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. John H. Clifford (New York: The University Society Inc., 1908), V:142-143, “First Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1861.

²⁴ Congressional Record (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1933), 76:4914-4916, Impeachment articles against Harold Louderback, district judge for northern California, February 24, 1933; Congressional Record ( 1905), XXXIX:1281-1283, Impeachment articles against Charles Swayne, district judge for northern Florida, Junary 24, 1905; Congressional Record (1912), XLVIII:9051-9053, Impeachment articles against Robert W. Archbald, third circuit judge, July 15, 1912; Congressional Record (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1926), LXVII:6585-6589, Impeachment articles against George W. English, district judge for eastern Illinois, March 30, 1926; Floyd Riddick, Procedure and Guidelines for Impeachment Trials in the United States Senate (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1974), 10-13.

²⁵ See The Constitution of the United States of America, available online at https://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution.html; Impeachment is mentioned in the following clauses: Article I, Section 2 and Section 3, Article II, Section 2 and Section 4, Article III, Section 2.

²⁶ The Works of the Honorable James Wilson, ed. Bird Wilson (Philadelphia: Bronson and Chauncey, 1804), II:166, “Of the Constitution of the United States and of Pennsylvania—of the Legislative Department.”

²⁷ Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Boston: Hilliard, Gray & Co, 1833), II:233-234, Sec. 762.

²⁸ The Papers of John Marshall, ed. Charles F. Hobson (Chapel Hill, VA: The University of North Carolina Press, 1990), VI:347, to Samuel Chase, January 23, 1805.

²⁹ The Papers of James Madison, ed. Henry D. Gilpin (Washington: Langtree & O’Sullivan, 1840), III:1528, “Debates in the Federal Convention, 1787.”

³⁰ Madison, Jay & Hamilton, The Federalist (1818), 352.

³¹ Papers of James Madison, ed. Gilpin (1840), III:1528, “Debates in the Federal Convention, 1787.”

³² William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States of America (Philadelphia: Philip H. Nicklin, 1829), 211.

³³ Rawle, A View of the Constitution (1829), 210.

³⁴ Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Boston: Hilliard, Gray & Co, 1833), Vol. II, p. 268,

³⁵ Madison, Jay & Hamilton, The Federalist (1818), p. 353,

³⁶ The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, as Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia in 1787, Jonathan Elliot, editor (Washington: Printed for the Editor, 1836), IV:32, July 24, 1788.

³⁷ Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents (1899), I:156, from the “Sixth Annual Address” of November 19, 1794.

³⁸ Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Boyd (1961), XVI:179, “Response to the Citizens of Albermarle,” February 12, 1790.

³⁹ Madison, Jay & Hamilton, The Federalist (1818), p. 275.

⁴⁰ The Statutes at Large (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1875), XVIII:3:335-337, “An Act to protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights,” March 1, 1875.

⁴¹ The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883).

⁴² Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed.. Lipscomb (1904), XV:278, to William Charles Jarvis, September 28, 1820.

Health Care and the Constitution

In 2010, after a year of contentious debate, it became clear that the House intended to pass the health care bill by whatever means necessary, even if it required the use of a “deem and pass” procedure whereby Members would not vote directly on the bill. After a massive public outcry arose against that unconstitutional proposal (Article I, § 7, ¶ 2, and § 5, ¶ 3 direct that “the votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and nays” on a measure rather than just “deeming” it passed), Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), head of the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee, urged Democrat House Members to remain quiet and avoid talking about the unconstitutional process in an attempt to lessen the political backlash.¹

That procedure ultimately was not used, but once the health care bill passed, voters demanded of congressional leaders the constitutional provision that authorized the federal takeover of health care. In answering that question, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) replied: “Under several clauses – the Good and Welfare Clause and a couple others. All the scholars – the constitutional scholars that I know (I’m chairman of the Judiciary committee, as you know) – they all say that there’s nothing unconstitutional in this bill.”²

Of course, there is no Good and Welfare Clause in the Constitution, but assuming that Conyers simply made an honest mistake, he likely was referring to the General Welfare Clause, which appears in two locations:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote THE GENERAL WELFARE, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. PREAMBLE TO THE CONSTITUTION

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and GENERAL WELFARE of the United States. ART. 1, SEC. 8, PAR. 1

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) agreed that “Congress has ‘broad authority’ to force Americans to purchase” health care “so long as it was trying to promote ‘the general welfare’.”³

(Rep. James Clyburn – the No. 3 ranking Democrat in the House – did not invoke the General Welfare Clause but instead candidly admitted, “Most of what we do down here is not authorized by the Constitution.”⁴)

The attempt by congressional leaders to invoke the General Welfare Clause as a cover for an unconstitutional act is nothing new. In 1792 when New England was suffering a crisis in one of its most important economic industries (fishing), some Congressmen proposed that federal funds be used to subsidize that troubled industry. James Madison quickly asserted that such a proposal was unconstitutional, explaining:

Those who proposed the Constitution knew, and those who ratified the Constitution also knew that this is . . . a limited government tied down to specified powers. . . . It was never supposed or suspected that the old Congress could give away the money of the states to encourage agriculture or for any other purpose they pleased.⁵

Madison then warned about the consequences of allowing Congress to expand the narrow meaning of the “General Welfare Clause”:

If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the “general welfare,” and are the sole and supreme judges of the “general welfare,” then they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county, and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the United States; they may assume the provision for the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, everything from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police would be thrown under the power of Congress, for every object I have mentioned would admit of the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the “general welfare.”⁶

According to Madison, if the original intent of the General Welfare Clause were ever expanded, then Congress would begin an unbridled intrusion into areas that were deliberately designed by the Constitution to be under the control of the state and local governments. Two specific aspects of the Constitution were intended to prohibit such federal encroachments: (1) the Enumerated Powers Doctrine, and (2) the Bill of Rights – specifically the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

Concerning the first, the Constitution authorizes Congress to address only eighteen specifically enumerated (that is, individually listed) areas and responsibilities; this is called the Enumerated Powers Doctrine. As affirmed by Thomas Jefferson:

Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but is restrained to those specifically enumerated, and . . . it was never meant they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers.⁷

Many other Founders were equally outspoken about Congress’ limitations under the Enumerated Powers Doctrine. In fact, this doctrine was so well understood that in America’s first several decades, presidents had only four cabinet level departments: the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Attorney General (occasionally there was also a separate Secretary of the Navy, but many presidents often placed him under the Secretary of War). Today, however, there are almost four times as many cabinet level positions, including a Secretary of Agriculture, Labor, Commerce, Housing, Education, Transportation, Energy, and many others.⁸ Each of those areas was also very important two centuries ago, but because the Constitution had placed these areas under the jurisdiction of state governments, there was no federal presence involved in them.

Concerning the second point (the Bill of Rights), the Founding Fathers – dedicated students of history, government, and human nature that they were – knew that the federal government would invariably try to step beyond its enumerated powers; they therefore added the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution, directly stipulating that all areas not specifically listed in the Constitution were to remain under the jurisdiction of the states and local governments, which thus included areas such as education, criminal justice, energy, agriculture, and many others. As Thomas Jefferson affirmed:

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: that “all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people” [the Tenth Amendment]. . . . To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.⁹

James Madison agreed:

I declare it as my opinion that [if] the power of Congress be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations . . . of the limited government established by the people of America.¹⁰

Jefferson further explained:

Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance and from under the eye of their constituents . . . will invite the public agents to corruption, plunder, and waste. . . . What an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-building, and office-hunting would be produced by an assumption of all the state powers into the hands of the federal government!¹¹

As Jefferson summarized it:

The states can best govern our home concerns, and the [federal] government our foreign ones.¹²

Significantly, health care issues often arose in early America – as when various dangerous fevers would periodically appear, ravaging American cities and killing scores of citizens. Concerning health care issues, the Founders specifically placed domestic health care into the hands of the state governments, leaving issues of international health care in the hands of the federal government. As Thomas Jefferson affirmed, the federal government was “to certify with exact truth, for every vessel sailing from a foreign port, the state of health respecting this fever which prevails at the place from which she sails,” but that “the state authorities [are] charged with the care of the public health.”¹³ Under the Constitution, states were to handle domestic health care issues, and the federal government foreign ones.

Notwithstanding the fact that a majority of Congressmen voted for the recent passage of the unconstitutional health care bill, there are many in Congress who do understand the constitutionally limited powers of Congress. Dozens of these Congressmen formed the Constitution Caucus, chaired by Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), and many of its Members have made outstanding efforts to return Congress to its constitutional role; two such measures are highlighted below.

Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ)

Every session since John has been in Congress, he has introduced “The Enumerated Powers Act” which would require “that all bills introduced in the U. S. Congress include a statement setting forth the specific constitutional authority under which the law is being enacted.”¹⁴ As Shadegg explains, “The Enumerated Powers Act will help slow the flood of unconstitutional legislation and force Congress to reexamine the proper role of the federal government.”¹⁵

Not surprisingly, leaders of Congress have not allowed this bill to move forward, nevertheless, what a refreshing idea that Congress should provide constitutional authority for the actions it takes and the bills it passes!

Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX)

Federal law establishes September 17 (the day the Constitution was signed in 1787) as Constitution Day, requiring that on that day every school receiving federal funding spend time studying the Constitution. Despite the law, a survey found that the majority of high school students had never heard of Constitution Day, and only ten percent could recall any such school celebration the prior year.¹⁶ However, Congressman Conaway believed that not just school students but also Members of Congress and their staff should also study the Constitution on that day, so he introduced a congressional resolution to that effect. When the a committee chairman heard the resolution, he told Mike, “That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard!” – an attitude far too common among many in Congress.

Nonetheless, Mike (and many other Congressmen like him) continues to study the Constitution regularly. In fact, Mike always carries a pocket Constitution with him and each time he reads through it, he writes the date on the flyleaf of the booklet – a practice he began even before he became a Member of Congress.

— — — ◊ ◊ ◊ — — —Founding Father John Jay wisely advised:

Every member of the State ought diligently to read and to study the constitution of his country. . . . By knowing their rights, they will sooner perceive when they are violated and be the better prepared to defend and assert them.¹⁷

The only way that more Congressmen will begin to study the Constitution is if “We The People” study it first and then, through the power of our voice, calls, letters, and votes, insist that our elected officials also know and observe it.

Endnotes

¹ “Van Hollen memo lays out time line and messaging,” Politico.com, March 12, 2010 (at: https://www.politico.com/livepulse/0310/Van_Hollen_memo_lays_out_time_line_and_messaging_.html).
² Kerry Picket, “Conyers fabricates constitutional law citing ‘good and welfare’ clause,” Washington Times, March 23, 2010.
³ Matt Cover, “Hoyer Says Constitution’s General Welfare Clause Empowers Congress to Order Americans to Buy Health Insurance,” CNSNews.com, October 21, 2009.
⁴ David A. Patten, “Napolitano: Supreme Court to Strike Down Obamacare,” Friday, 26 Mar 2010, Newsmax.com.
⁵ James Madison on “The Cod Fishery Bill,” February 7, 1792, Jonathan Elliott, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution (Washington: 1936), 4:428.
⁶ James Madison on “The Cod Fishery Bill,” February 7, 1792, Elliott, Debates in the Several State Conventions (1936), 4:429.
⁷ Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, June 16, 1817, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb (Washington, D. C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), XV:133.
⁸ “The Cabinet,” WhiteHouse.gov (at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/cabinet) (accessed March 30, 2010); “Cabinet Level Departments,” National Defense Industrial Association (accessed March 30, 2010).
⁹ Jefferson’s opinion against the constitutionality of a National Bank, February 15, 1791, Writings of Jefferson, ed. Lipscomb (1903), III:146, .
¹⁰ James Madison on “The Cod Fishery Bill,” February 7, 1792, Elliott, Debates in the Several State Conventions (1936), 4:429.
¹¹ Thomas Jefferson to Gideon Granger, August 13, 1800, Writings of Jefferson, ed. Lipscomb (1903), X:167-168, .
¹² Thomas Jefferson to Judge William Johnson, June 12, 1823, Writings of Jefferson, ed. Lipscomb (1903), XV:450.
¹³ Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, 1789-1873, Message by President Thomas Jefferson “To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America,” on Tuesday, December 3, 1805 (at: https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field%28DOCID+@lit%28sj0044%29%29); Thomas Jefferson, “Fifth Annual Message,” The American Presidency Project, December 3, 1805, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/202789.
¹⁴ “Text of H.R. 450: Enumerated Powers Act,” Govtrack.us, January 9, 2009, https://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-450.
¹⁵ John Shadegg, “Enumerated Powers Act,” JohnShadegg.com.
¹⁶ David Yalof and Ken Dautrich, survey conductors, “New Constitution Day Survey,” John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, September 20, 2007.
¹⁷ John Jay, The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, ed. Henry P. Johnston (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890), I:163-164, from his Charge to the Grand Jury of Ulster County, September 9, 1777.

Guns, Kids and Critics

Shortly after the December 2012 mass shooting of children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, many began calling for severe limitations on private gun ownership and even a complete repeal of the Second Amendment, with its constitutional guarantee for citizens to “keep and bear arms.” David Barton was invited on a one-hour national television program to provide an historical perspective on the issue of gun ownership and gun control. In that one hour show, he presented colonial laws, early state constitutional provisions, statements from the Founding Fathers, positions of various presidents, and court decisions on the issue from both past and present.

In one part of the program, David specifically noted that even in the aftermath of the shootings of Presidents Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, John Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan, there were not calls for gun control – that even Reagan (while lying in the hospital recovering from the wound) voiced opposition to such efforts.¹ None of these shootings was used as a reason to immediately call for increased regulation of guns, as was done by President Obama in the aftermath of Sandy Hook (thus applying Rahm Emanuel’s axiom to never let a crisis go to waste). But several of David’s obsessive critics, being more concerned with opportunism than truth or context, quickly took to websites and blogs claiming that his statement concerning Reagan was erroneous – that Reagan did support gun control.² But David’s statement was completely accurate, for it was ten years after Reagan was shot, and three years after he left office before he declared support for the Brady gun control bill. David had made very clear that his context was presidential responses in the aftermath of shootings; and President Reagan, unlike President Obama, had not used an emotional national crisis to call for gun control.

In another part of the program, David pointed out the Founding Fathers’ emphasis on young people being taught the use of guns from an early age, believing that early training increased gun safety and decreased gun accidents and injuries. This view was clearly articulated by John Quincy Adams.

When he was dispatched by President James Madison as America’s official Minister to Russia, he left his three sons in the care of his younger brother, Thomas. Arriving in St. Petersburg, Adams wrote with specific instructions regarding the education and training of his boys (George, age 9; John, age 7; and Charles, age 3), telling his brother:

One of the things which I wish to have them taught – and which no man can teach better than you – is the use and management of firearms. This must undoubtedly be done with great caution, but it is customary among us – particularly when children are under the direction of ladies – to withhold it too much and too long from boys. The accidents which happen among children arise more frequently from their ignorance than from their misuse of weapons which they know to be dangerous.³

Expressing similar views, Founding Father Richard Henry Lee, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a framer of the Bill of Rights, declared:

[T]o preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.⁴

Thomas Jefferson likewise advised his young fifteen year-old nephew:

In order to assure a certain progress in this reading, consider what hours you have free from the school and the exercises of the school. Give about two of them, every day, to exercise; for health must not be sacrificed to learning. A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks.⁵

Having established the early American view of training children with the use and handling of guns, David explained that this practice continued for generations thereafter, even citing an example of students in the Old West who drew their guns at a school house in order to protect their teacher from a potential shooter. But David’s critics, being unfamiliar with that story and finding it inconceivable that previous generations could possibly think different about guns than they themselves do today, once against took to websites and blogs, claiming that David had made up this story, or that it was completely fictional.⁶ They were again wrong.

The account comes from noted western historian, Louis L’Amour, one of the most famous writers of both historical western fiction and non-fiction. L’Amour amassed a personal library of as many as 17,000 rare books/diaries/journals/documents⁷ particularly focusing on the American west, including numerous handwritten journals of frontier pioneers and settlers. Additionally, he personally interviewed many personalities who had lived in the waning days of the Old West, including gunfighters, cowboys, lawmen, outlaws, and many others.⁸ For his outstanding body of work across his lifetime, he received the Congressional Gold Medal and then the Medal of Freedom from President Ronald Reagan.⁹

Later in life, L’Amour recorded a number of interviews, relating interesting practices and incidents he had found in his research. In one such interview, he related the specific account (what he called “a true incident”)¹⁰ that David cited – a real-life story that he also included in one of his historical novels¹¹ (he regularly included numerous true stories and anecdotes from the Old West throughout his stories). So not only did David not make up the anecdote, it actually came from one of America’s most celebrated western historians, who personally attested to its authenticity.

Proverbs 18:17 reminds us that one side sounds right until the other side is presented. The critics presented their side; David presented the truth. Proverbs 18:2 states that “A fool has no delight in understanding, but in expressing his own heart,” and several of David’s fixated critics have certainly done this, raising objections and expressing the hate in their heart without adequately researching their claims. For this reason, we always encourage folks to be thorough in their research and get the rest of the story before reaching a conclusion.

Incidentally, for those interested, L’Amour’s interview that includes the account of the students with guns at school follows below.

Interview with Louis L’Amour
Audio CD: South of Deadwood

“Deadwood, South Dakota was a wild boom camp that opened up in the Black Hills after the Indians were pushed out. There’s a lot of dispute about the Black Hills now about who they belonged to, but as a matter of fact, it’s very doubtful whether the Indian tribe had much of a claim on them. The Kiowa’s had them for a while and the Sioux drove the Kiowa’s out and the Sioux now claim that they were pushed out by the white man and want to be paid for it. But why not the Kiowas the Sioux drove out? And the Kiowas drove somebody else out; this was the way of things.

But Deadwood was a boom camp that started there. Some of Custer’s men, they were exploring the Black Hills found gold; and they found gold in several places. But Deadwood was where they found most of it. It started around a group of mines or a mine in particular and it did sprawl on the whole side of the canyon there, and there was a lot of dead wood up on the inside of the other and knocked down by, I imagine by wind (that will do it occasionally). I know a place in Colorado where there was a whole forest lining the side of a hill that a sudden wind blew the trees down. But anyway, Deadwood was very, very famous for that.

And Deadwood burst into growth out of nowhere. Buildings and tent houses and everything sprang up along the street and then the people began to come in: the gamblers and the women and the men who were doing the mining and the men who were trying to take the money away from those who brought it out of the ground. And Deadwood was rough and tough. That was where Hitchcock was killed sometime later, shot in the back. There was a sheriff round there for a while named Seth Bullock; he was quite a well-known man, he was a merchant later in Montana. But he was not a gun fighter at all, just a stern quiet man who knew his business and went about it and was very highly respected.

Calamity Jane was around there for a while, but Calamity Jane was really nobody in the West. The only thing she’s remembered for is because she had that tricky name. She was a prostitute of a particular low order and not good looking enough to do much business in town, so she did her business out on the road with traveling wagon trains.

But it was wild and rough and at one time or another nearly all the gunfighters showed up there. There was a very well-known gunfighter at that time who’s been forgotten pretty much since named Boone May. He was a police officer there, deputy sheriff I should say, and probably as good with a gun as any of the others that you’ve heard about. But he didn’t acquire the reputation.

It was a wild, rough town. There’s a very good book written about it by a woman named Estelle Bennett, whose father was a judge there, who had a quite fine library. And he handled a lot of the cases there in town, and Estelle Bennett was a little girl growing up there when all this was going on. She tells a good account of it.

See, sometimes people wonder how we know about what happened in the West. They think you have to have a good imagination. You don’t. Because there were people there at the time who were writing down what happened, you don’t have to imagine; you know. There are diaries every place, and nearly every town had its newspaper (some had two), that were recording the facts right at the time. You know all about these people; you can check everything right from beginning to end.

What you have to understand is that there were generally two sections in any western town. There was the people on the wrong side of the tracks you might say – the saloons and the red light district and all that, and that’s where most of the rough stuff went on. At the same time this was happening, at the same time that gunfights were going on and everything, on the other side of the track there were churches and schools and people going on and carrying on their lives the way any normal people would. And sometimes all they knew about the gunfights was the sound of the gunfire. They didn’t know who was shooting who until they heard it later. But among the rougher crowd, and among the cowboys in the neighborhood, gunfighters were treated about like baseball stars or football stars now. People talked about their various abilities and what would happen if two of them came together and who would be better than who, you know? And this was a discussion that went on quite often, and it was rough; very rough.

And the saloons in those days were not just a place where you went to drink. They were clearing houses for information. Many of the men who went to saloons didn’t drink at all. But you would go in there, and there at the bar or at the card tables you could get information on any part of the country or anybody you wanted to know. If you wanted to know about the marshal in a certain town, you could ask somebody; they would always know. Or they’d always know where a trail was. And if you happened to be a little bit careful about it, and listen a lot, and ask questions very discreetly, you could find out where the outlaw hideouts were, cause there was always somebody around who knew.

And you see, actually, the West was a relatively small place. It was huge in area, but there weren’t many people. And when a cattle drive, for example, started in Texas to go north to Dodge City or Abilene or Oklahoma or Nebraska or wherever they were going, a man would sit down and draw a trail for them in the dust or the clay, or maybe on a piece of paper in a barroom, and show them where they had to go. And usually he would tell them also about the town marshal in those various towns, he’d tell them about Wild Bill Hickok, or Mysterious Dave Mathers, somebody like that, and how they had to be careful of this man, he was dangerous. So, it was relatively a small world and there was really no place to hide in the West. Once you got out there and people knew you by some name or another, they never asked you what your name was. If you told them a name – and you could say “I’m Shorty” – that was all they ever recognized you by. Or if you said your name was “Mr. John B. Ellison,” they just accepted that. They didn’t ask what your background was, or where you came from, or who you were, or where you went to school – anything. They just took you at your own word. If you came round a ranch and stopped by for some food or something (what they used to call “riding the grub line”), you could stop at any ranch, and any ranch would feed you. So nobody asked you your name or anything; if you wanted to volunteer it, that was up to you. If you had some distinction, they might refer to you by that; they might call you “Red,” or “Shorty,” or “Slim.” I was on a circus briefly where there were about five or six “Shorty’s” and seven or eight “Slim’s,” so they got to designating them as “Overland Slim” and “Red Slim” and that sort of thing.

All kinds of people came west, some of them with pretty bad records behind them. The West was a natural magnet for any adventurer, any drifter, anybody who was at loose ends. So men came there from all over the world, not just from America, but from other countries as well. They came there from Australia, from France, from England. We had a man up in North Dakota, called Marquis de Morès, who built a chateau out on the western plains and ran cattle out there. A very handsome man. He even got in a couple of gun battles. But he was a friend of Teddy Roosevelt also, or at least they were acquainted. And there were others that came. For example, a little-known fact is that five of the men who died with Custer at the Little Bighorn had been members of the Vatican Guard. You never knew who you were talking to in the West.

Once up, I think it was in Idaho, there were some miners sitting round a table and one of them had brought a newspaper into the area. Now newspapers were very rare and hard to come by. So he was reading the paper aloud to all these miners while they’re eating. He was reading everything to them because it was all news to them. And he came to an account of the rowing match between Cambridge and Oxford on the Thames River. And one man sitting down at the end of the table looked up and said, “I used to row on that team.” And he had. You see, you never knew who you were talking to.

There were people out there who were titled men. For example, we have a senator in Washington right now who is the descendant of a titled man: Senator Wallop. Oliver Wallop came over here from England and ranched in the plains of Wyoming for thirty years. And then went back and took a seat in the House of Lords. So you never knew who you were talking to.

But Texas, due to the kind of country it was, developing very rapidly, and with men who were fiercely proud and fiercely independent, naturally gravitated toward the use of guns. There were outlaws, there were Indians, so everybody had to carry the gun from necessity. Even children going to school did. Actually, many of the gunfighters were very young. If a man lived to be, say, thirty-five years old as a gunfighter, usually he lived forever, or for a long, long time. But the fellows who were in most of the gunfights were anywhere from seventeen to twenty-five. After that they began to realize that they were vulnerable too, and they began to be more careful about their gun battles. But they were mostly young. There was no such thing, really as a juvenile delinquent in those days. A boy went right from being a boy in knee pants to being a man. And that’s what he wanted to be more than anything else in the world. He wanted to be a man, and be accepted as a man, and welcomed as a man, and do a man’s work; and that was the important thing for him. So as soon as he got to that point, he’d established himself to a degree, and he was very proud of the fact that he had. But some of them went overboard, and some of them became killers and became very vicious. And if you were old enough to carry a gun, you were old enough to get shot. It was your problem.

There’s a case I use in one of my stories; I use it in the story called Bendigo Shafter. All the kids coming to school used to hang their guns up in the cloakroom because they were miles from home sometimes, and it was dangerous to ride out without a gun. And this is taken from an actually true incident. (emphasis added) I use it in my story and tell the story, but it really happened. Now a man came to kill the teacher. It was a man. And he came with a gun, and all the kids liked the teacher, so they came out and ranged around him with their guns. That stopped it. But kids twelve and thirteen used to carry guns to school regularly.”

Endnotes

¹ “Gun Control: Reagan’s Conversion,” Time Magazine, April 8, 1991.

² Warren Throckmorton, “Did Ronald Reagan oppose James Brady on gun control? No, David Barton, Reagan favored the Brady Bill,” Warren Throckmorton, January 16, 2013.

³ John Quincy Adams, Writings of John Quincy Adams, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1914), III:497, to Thomas Boylston Adams on September 8, 1810.

⁴ Richard Henry Lee, An Additional Number Of Letters From The Federal Farmer To The Republican (New York: 1788), 170, Letter XVIII, January, 25, 1788.

<⁵ Thomas Jefferson, Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, ed. Thomas Jefferson Randolph (Charlottesville: F. Carr, and Co., 1829), I:287, to Peter Carr on August 19, 1785.

⁶ Chris Rodda, “Is David Barton Now Getting His ‘History’ from Louis L’Amour Novels?” Huffington Post, February 4, 2013; Warren Throckmorton, “What’s the source for David Barton’s Kids with Guns Sotry?” Warren Throckmorton, February 4, 2013.

⁷ “America’s Favorite Storyteller,” The Louis L’Amour Collection (accessed on February 14, 2013). See also “A Brief biography of Louis L’Amour,” The Official Louis L’Amour Website (accessed on February 14, 2013); Donald Dale Jackson, “World’s fasted literary gun: Louis L’Amour,” Smithsonian Magazine, 1987.

⁸ Donald Dale Jackson, “World’s fasted literary gun: Louis L’Amour,” Smithsonian Magazine, 1987.

⁹ “Louis L’Amour Biography,” Bio. True Story (accessed on February 14, 2013).

¹⁰ Louis L’Amour, South of Deadwood (New York: Random House Audio, 1986).

¹¹ Louis L’Amour, Bendigo Shafter (New York: Bantam Books, 1979), 164.

An Article V Convention of the States

By David Barton

Article V of the Constitution provides the means whereby a so-called “Constitutional Convention” can be convened to amend the Constitution of the United States:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution; or on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which in either case shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of this Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof.

If thirty-four (that is, two-thirds) of the states issue a formal call for a convention to propose an amendment(s) to the Constitution, then such a Convention must be assembled. (Any such Convention is not led or supervised by Congress, but rather by delegates selected by the state legislatures.) Some 10,000 amendments to the Constitution have been proposed in Congress,¹ but in two centuries, two-thirds of the states have never requested the same amendment. But that began to change in 1957.

History

Under the growing economic difficulties of the 1940s following World War II and the widespread implementation of Progressive economic policies under President Franklin Roosevelt, Indiana sought to curb uncontrolled congressional spending and growing national debt by issuing the first call for a Balanced-Budget Amendment to the federal Constitution. As federal economic problems only increased across subsequent decades, other states joined the call,² and eventually thirty-four – the required two-thirds – did request such a Convention, but apparently the threshold was not met, for during that same time, some states had rescinded their call for an amendment.³

Some conservatives had begun to loudly warn that if a gathering to write a Balanced Budget Amendment were ever convened, it could result in a “runaway convention.” As proof, they pointed to the original Constitutional Convention, claiming that it had met only for the purpose of repairing the Articles of Confederation but ended up writing a new Constitution instead. It was therefore argued that if a gathering was convened to write a Balanced Budget Amendment, that the entire Constitution could be set aside and replaced with an entirely new one – and that liberals had already written a substitute and were awaiting an opportunity to implement it. (Of course, subsequent experience has proven that Progressives don’t write a new constitution; they simply ignore the old one and have their judges rewrite it through activist decisions.)

I had heard these arguments for years and even repeated them to express my opposition to an Article V “Constitutional Convention,” but I now support such a Convention. Why? Because I personally researched the documents related to Article V and discovered that the portrayal of history I had been told was wrong – and it is a proven lesson that if you get your history wrong, then public policy positions based on that bad history will also be wrong.

The US Constitution

As a point in fact, the 1787 gathering to write the U. S. Constitution was definitely not a runaway convention – the delegates did not ignore their state’s instructions about revising the Articles of Confederation and then come up with a renegade Constitution. This is affirmed by the fact that the states ratified the Constitution after it was written – they supported what occurred at the Convention. Furthermore, history also shows that throughout the construction of American government, the states had full control over their delegates.

For instance, during the Second Continental Congress (which, like the Constitutional Convention, was a gathering outside the normal governmental bodies of the time), Pennsylvania instructed its delegates not to support any separation from Great Britain,⁴ and their delegates followed those instructions. But Pennsylvania later changed its instructions and authorized their delegates to vote with the other states,⁵ and thus for the Declaration of Independence. When several of their delegates ignored those instructions and voted against the Declaration, Pennsylvania recalled them and replaced them with new ones.⁶ Clearly, the states had control of their delegates and could stop any runaway convention.

(There are many excellent resources available to bring an accurate historical perspective to any examination of Article V. See, for example, the historical information at www.conventionofstates.com, particularly under “Convention of States Handbook” and “Opposition Response.”)

Support for a Convention?

So both history and the explicit language of the Constitution make four points evident:

1. The original Constitutional Convention was not a runaway convention

2. The current proposed gathering is not a “Constitutional Convention,” for it is not a gathering to write a constitution; rather, it is a “Convention of the States” convened for the purpose of suggesting a specific constitutional amendment(s) to limit the federal government

3. The Constitution itself specifically stipulates that any such Convention can only “propose Amendments to this Constitution,” not produce a new one

4. The states have extensive authority to control their delegates and prevent them from going afield from the purpose for which they were sent to the convention

One other crucial point that conservative opponents of an Article V Convention have failed to acknowledge is that it does not endanger the Constitution to use the Constitution. The Founders specifically placed Article V into the Constitution as a tool whereby states could enforce federalism and limit federal overreach, and to not use this part of the Constitution for fear of losing the Constitution is like not using the First Amendment for fear of losing the First Amendment, or not using the Second Amendment for fear of losing the Second Amendment, or not using Trial by Jury for fear of losing Trial by Jury. If something is in the Constitution, then conservatives can’t be like Progressives and pick and choose which parts they embrace.

Furthermore, it is time to change our mindset about using the Constitution. Long ago, Founding Father John Jay, an author of the Federalist Papers and the original Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, wisely advised:

Every member of the State ought diligently to read and to study the constitution of his country, and teach the rising generation to be free. By knowing their rights, they will sooner perceive when they are violated and be the better prepared to defend and assert them.⁷

We have been defending the Constitution. It is now time to assert it.

Assert the Constitution

Significantly, the National War College in Washington, D. C., teaches the brightest American military officers both the philosophy and the tactics necessary not just to engage in war but to win that war. A course central to that training is “The Nine Principles of War,” and offense is one of those key doctrines of war, but defense is not. In fact, defense is only considered a temporary condition during which assets are reorganized in order to go back onto offense. Going on offense, and then sustaining a strong offense, is the key to ultimate victory. It is time for states to go on the offensive to limit the overreach of the federal government.

Bad history not only engenders bad policy, it also produces straw-men arguments that inflame the emotions and limit offensive aggressiveness by raising fears of what MIGHT happen – that if an Article V gathering is convened, it MIGHT turn into a runaway convention, and it MIGHT replace the Constitution with a new one (and it is alleged that George Soros is currently funding such efforts). But we also MIGHT be wiped out by a falling meteor tomorrow afternoon at 3PM; or Hawaii MIGHT experience a blizzard on July 18th; or in the last two years of his presidency, Barack Obama MIGHT become the greatest constitutional conservative in American history. There are too many “MIGHTS” – too much fear – and fear keeps citizens on defense rather than offense. Because of what MIGHT happen, then nothing is done.

By the way, suppose for a moment that all of history and the explicit language of the Constitution is wrong, and that the critics’ worst fears do come to pass, and that the Convention does write an entirely new Constitution. What then? The new document could take effect only after it was ratified by BOTH bodies of the legislature in three-fourths, or 38 of the states. Thus, it takes only one legislative body in thirteen different states – either the house or the senate – to stop such any such new document.

There are 99 state legislative chambers in America (Nebraska has a unicameral legislature with only one body), so then this means that 87 of the 99 legislative bodies would have to vote to dump the current Constitution before a new one could be implemented. No Progressive – no matter how optimistic – can identify anywhere close to 87 state legislative bodies that would support such a plan. Similarly, no conservative – no matter how pessimistic – should have any trouble naming 13 States in which either the House or Senate would refuse to ratify and thereby put that state in the “no” column. Again, only 13 States saying “no” would stop such a plan. But it will not come to this, for the Constitution explicitly stipulates that an Article V gathering can only propose amendments to the Constitution, not replace it.

Statement

These are some of the many reasons why I support an Article V Convention of the States. It is time to reject straw-men arguments, relearn our history, and embrace what the Constitution authorizes. It is time to act on the Constitution and limit the federal government before it becomes so large and intrusive that it can no longer be restrained.

I was recently asked to provide a letter of support for a state legislature that was voting on a call for an Article V Convention of the States. Here are my comments to that body:

Fellow Patriots,

It is exciting to see such a renewed interest in basic constitutional principles. Liberty lovers across America are studying their past in order to find ways to stop our federal government’s explosive growth and sprint towards socialism.

Fortunately, our Founding Fathers, with their thorough understanding of human nature, created constitutional means to restrain the federal government when it exceeded its jurisdiction. One specific means was the Constitution’s Article V amendment process by means of a Convention of the States. This is a proper solution.

We have not come to this conclusion lightly. Like many of our conservative friends, we initially avoided this constitutionally-specified process due to a fear of what might occur, or what could happen. But after years of research and studying the Founders’ original intent for this amendment process – and after years of witnessing an unconstitutional reshaping of our federal government – we are confident that this is the correct course of action.

The Federalist Papers declare that the Constitution specifically furnishes each part of government “with constitutional arms” for its own “effectual powers of self-defense.” One such arm of self-defense that the Constitution gives to the states is an Article V Convention of States. For states to refuse to use this tool would be like going into a street fight, but refusing to use one of your biggest and most effective weapons. And it is illogical to consider the use of any constitutional provision as a threat to the Constitution. It makes as much sense as violating the free-market system to save it, or breaking health care to fix it.

We urge you to support all of the Constitution, and thus the efforts of the Convention of States to pass their extremely well-thought-out and strategic legislation in your home state and thus join us in a call to restore our constitutional republic.

David Barton

Founder and President, WallBuilders

Endnotes

¹ “Measures Proposed to Amend the Constitution,” Senate.gov (accessed on June 5, 2014).

² Russell Caplan, Constitutional Brinkmanship: Amending the Constitution by National Convention (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 78-89. So far, 34 states have issued such a call, including Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming, Michigan, and Ohio.

³ “List of Rescissions of Article V Convention Applications,” Wikipedia (accessed on June 5, 2014). Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Georgia have resubmitted calls for convention starting in 2011. The rescinded states include Alabama (rescinded 1988; new call 2011); Arizona (rescinded 2003); Florida (rescinded 1988 ; new call issued 2010, renewed in 2014 with 2 other provisos); Georgia (rescinded 2004; new call issued 2014); Idaho (rescinded 1999); Louisiana (rescinded 1990; new call issued 2008; renewed in 2011 and 2014); New Hampshire (rescinded 2010; new call issued 2012); North Dakota (rescinded 2001; new call issued 2011); Oklahoma (rescinded 2009); Oregon (rescinded 1999); South Carolina (rescinded 2004); South Dakota (rescinded 2010); Tennessee (rescinded 2010; new call issued 2014); Utah (rescinded 2001); Virginia (rescinded 2004); and Wyoming (rescinded 2009).

⁴ Peter Force, American Archives: Four Series. Containing a Documentary History of the English Colonies in North America, from the King’s Message to Parliament of March 7, 1774, to the Declaration of Independence (Washington: M. St Clair Clarke & Peter Force, 1840), III:1792-1793, instructions to the Delegates from the Province [of Pennsylvania] in Congress, November 9, 1775.

⁵ Force, American Archives (1840), VI:862-863, instructions to the Delegates [of Pennsylvania] in Congress, June 14, 1776.

⁶ Thomas F. Gordon, The History of Pennsylvania from Its Discovery by Europeans to the Declaration of Independence in 1776 (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, & Carey, 1829), 537-538. See also Force, American Archives (1848), I:1586, Pennsylvania’s appointment of new delegates, July 20, 1776.

⁷ John Jay, The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, ed. Henry P. Johnston (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890), I:163-164, Charge to the Grand Jury of Ulster County, September 9, 1777.

Expatriation, Conscience, and a Worthless Oath of Office

After Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant signed a law protecting religious conscience, [1] and North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory signed a law limiting bathroom use to biological sex, [2] Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York issued executive orders banning all non-essential travel to the two states. [3] Cuomo’s sought to show solidarity with the LGBT agenda but both of his acts were direct violations of specific constitutional protections in state and federal constitutions.

The first right Cuomo abridged was the constitutional right of expatriation – the right to move freely between states. This right was rooted, as were all other inalienable rights, in the natural law, which meant that they were seen as coming directly from God and thus were never to be regulated or infringed by government. As Constitution signer John Dickinson affirmed, an inalienable right is one “which God gave to you and which no inferior power has a right to take away.” [4] He explained:

We claim them [these rights] from a higher Source – from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence, which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power. [5]

Numerous other Founders said the same, including John Adams, [6] Alexander Hamilton, [7] Samuel Adams, [8] and Thomas Jefferson. [9]

Because expatriation (the right to move freely and without interference between states) was one of the specific natural rights beyond government regulation, it was therefore protected in various state constitutions, [10] in the Articles of Confederation, [11] and in the U. S. Constitution through the Privileges and Immunities Clause. [12] This right has been upheld in numerous rulings by the Supreme Court up to the current time, [13] but Cuomo disdains it.

The other inalienable right Cuomo openly repudiated was that of religious conscience – the longest-protected of American civil rights. Explicit protection for this was established long before the Constitution incorporated it, beginning with Rhode Island (1640), Maryland (1649), New Jersey (1664), Carolina (1665), and so forth. This right prevented government from forcing persons of faith to participate in activities that violated their religious convictions. The Founding Fathers strongly affirmed this to be the most precious and sacred of all our many constitutional and civil rights. For example:

No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience. [14] Our rulers can have no authority over such natural rights, only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted. [15] It is inconsistent with the spirit of our laws and Constitution to force tender consciences. [16] THOMAS JEFFERSON

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort. . . . Conscience is the most sacred of all property. [17] The religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. [18] JAMES MADISON

Many other Founders affirmed the same, as did state constitutions across the subsequent two centuries.

Today, this longest-protected of all of America’s civil rights is now the most frequently attacked one. Christian bakers, florists, photographers, sportscasters, professors, and others have been fired, fined, or jailed simply for refusing to personally affirm or participate in homosexual nuptials – something their religious conscience says is wrong for them.

For example, the Washington State constitution explicitly provides that:

Absolute freedom of conscience in all matters of religious sentiment, belief, and worship shall be guaranteed to every individual; and no one shall be molested or disturbed in person, or property, on account of religion. [19]

But the constitutional protection for this “absolute” freedom was insufficient to prevent the state from punishing florist Barronelle Stutzman for declining to personally be part of in a wedding that was anathema to her own sincerely-held religious convictions. [20] Similarly explicit clauses in other state constitutions have also failed to safeguard citizens in Oregon, [21] New Mexico, [22] Colorado, [23] Kentucky, [24] New York, [25] California, [26] Georgia, [27] Maryland, [28] Iowa, [29] and elsewhere.

The inalienable right to religious conscience seems to be the right that political leaders today are the most eager to abrogate, including Governor Cuomo. In fact, the constitution of New York provides explicit protection for the rights of religious conscience, [30] but he seeks to punish those in other states who do what his own state constitution demands.

Our constitutions provide explicit protection for the inalienable rights of expatriation and religious conscience. Governor Cuomo took an oath to uphold the constitution of his state and of the United States. He has miserably failed to do either.

Endnotes

[1] “Gov. Phil Bryant signs MS ‘religious freedom’ bill,” The Clarion-Ledger, April 15, 2016.

[2] Erica Stapleton and Hope Ford, “Gov. McCrory Signs “Bathroom Bill” Into Law,” WFMY News, March 25, 2016.

[3] Tré Goins-Phillips, “New York Governor Bans Travel to Mississippi After State Passes Religious Liberty Bill ‘Against the LGBT Community’,” The Blaze, April 6, 2016; “Cuomo Bans Non-Essential State Travel To North Carolina Over Transgender Bathroom Bill,” CBS New York, March 28, 2016.

[4] John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies (New York: The Outlook Company, 1903), p. xlii, “Introduction.”

[5] John Dickinson, The Political Writings of John Dickinson (Wilmington: Bonsal and Niles, 1801), Vol. I, p. 111, “An Address.”

[6] John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Charles C. Little & James Brown, 1851), Vol. III, p. 449, “A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law.”

[7] Alexander Hamilton, The Works of Alexander Hamilton, John C. Hamilton, editor (New York: John F. Trow, 1850), Vol. II, p. 80, “The Farmer Refuted,” 1775.

[8] Samuel Adams, The Writings of Samuel Adams, Harry Alonzo Cushing, editor (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908), Vol. IV, p. 356 to the Legislature of Massachusetts, January 17, 1794.

[9] Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, H. A. Washington, editor (Washington, D.C.: Taylor & Maury, 1854), Vol. VII, p. 73, to Dr. John Manners, June 12, 1817.

[10] The Constitutions of the Several Independent States of America (London: J. Stockdale, 1783), p. 187, 1776 Pennsylvania Constitution, A Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the State of Pennsylvania: Sec. XV; “The Founders’ Constitution (accessed on May 3, 2016).

[11] “Articles of Confederation, Art. 4,” The Founders Constitution (accessed on May 3, 2016).

[12] “Privileges and Immunities Clause,” The Heritage Guide to the Constitution (accessed on May 3, 2016).

[13] See, for example, Corfield v. Coryell,
6 Fed. Cas. 546, no. 3,230 (C.C.E.D.Pa. 1823); Crandall v. State of Nevada, 73 U.S. 6 Wall. 35 35 (1867); Paul v. Virginia, 75 U.S. 7 Wall. 168 (1869); Saenz v. Roe (98-97), 526 U.S. 489 (1999).

[14] Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, H. A. Washington,editor (New York: Rikers, Thorne & Co., 1854), Vol. VIII, p. 147, to the Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church at New London, Connecticut, February 4, 1809.

[15] Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (London: John Stockdale, 1787), p. 265.

[16] Thomas Jefferson, The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Paul Leicester Ford, editor (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904), Vol. III, “Proclamation Concerning Paroles,” January 20, 1781.

[17] James Madison, The Writings of James Madison, Gaillard Hunt, editor (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1906), Vol. VI, p. 102, “Property,” originally published in The National Gazette on March 29, 1792.

[18] James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance on the Religious Rights of Man (Washington, D.C.: S.C. Ustick, 1828), p. 3.

[19] “Washington State Constitution,” Washington State Legislature, Art. 1, Sec. 11 (accessed on May 3, 2016).

[20] Danny Burk, “A florist loses religious freedom, and much more,” CNN, February 20, 2015.

[21] Chris Enloe, “‘Sweet Cakes’ Owners’ Bank Accounts Seized as Damages for Refusing to Bake Wedding Cake for Lesbian Couple,” The Blaze, December 29, 2015.

[22] Ken Klukowski, “New Mexico Court: Christian Photographer Cannot Refuse Gay-Marriage Ceremony,” Breitbart, August 22, 2013.

[23] Ken Klukowski, “Baker Faces Prison for Refusing to Bake Same-Sex Wedding Cake,” Breitbart, December 12, 2013.

[24] Allan Smith, “Anti-gay-marriage Kentucky clerk jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses,” Business Insider, September 3, 2015.

[25] Andrea Peyser, “Couple fined for refusing to host same-sex wedding on their farm,” New York Post, November 10, 2014.

[26] Kristine Marsh, “Gays Force San Francisco Wedding Photographers to Close Shop,” MRC NewsBusters, November 21, 2014.

[27] Ryan T. Anderson, “Atlanta Fire Chief Fired for Expressing Christian Beliefs,” The Daily Signal, January 8, 2015.

[28] Paul Strand, “University Employee Punished over Marriage Petition,” CBN News, October 18, 2012.

[29] Charlie Butts, “Iowa couple fined for refusing gay wedding: ‘We are still here’,” OneNewsNow, June 3, 2015.

[30] “New York State Constitution,” New York State, Art. 1, Sec. 3, January 1, 2014.

* This article concerns a historical issue and may not have updated information.

Biblical Christianity: The Origin of the Rights of Conscience

Overview

Significantly, 1 Timothy 1:5 declares that the goal of the entirety of everything taught in the Scriptures is threefold:

The goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and a sincere faith.

Significantly, the three are inseparable, and without a good conscience, there will not be either a sincere faith or a pure heart. It is therefore not surprising that developing, maintaining, and living according to a good conscience is referenced more than thirty times in the New Testament (cf. Acts 24:16, 1 Timothy 1:19, 3:9, 1 Peter 3:16, 21, Romans 13:5, 2 Corinthians 4:2, etc.).

In fact, 1 Corinthians 8:4-12 flatly states that if a Christian views something as a matter of conscience – if the inner voice that God has placed within him or her tells them that something is sin to them – they are not to violate their conscience; and if anyone makes them do so, then they “sin against Christ.” (This message is repeated in Romans 1:1-23, 1 Corinthians 10:28-32, and elsewhere.) Few subjects in the Bible are stressed as strongly as that of maintaining a pure conscience – of preserving the conviction that one will answer directly to God for what his religious faith requires him to do, or refrain from doing.

Strikingly, only nations who respect Biblical teachings and traditions offer protection for the rights of religious conscience. Secular and non-Biblical nations, and those with state-established churches (such as those that predominated in England and Europe at the time of the American Founding), do not allow rights of conscience but instead demand conformity, which often requires governmental punishment coercion concerning religious beliefs, which violates the Scriptures.

Christ Himself established religious non-coercion as the standard. His approach was so voluntary that He even directed His disciples that when they presented the Gospel to others, if someone was interested, then they could stay and share the message with them; but if someone did not want to hear, then they were to leave the area and not force the issue (Luke 10:8-12). There was absolutely no coercion. It was also this way with Paul and the other Apostles: in every case; hearers then chose whether or not to follow Christianity; there was never any penalty, pressure, or force levied against them.

As John Quincy Adams noted, Jesus Christ “came to teach and not to compel. His law was a Law of Liberty. He left the human mind and human action free.”¹ Two generations later, legal writer Stephen Cowell (1800-1872) similarly avowed:

Nonconformity, dissent, free inquiry, individual conviction, mental independence, are forever consecrated by the religion of the New Testament as the breath of its own life – the conditions of its own existence on the earth. The book is a direct transfer of human allegiance in things spiritual from the civil and ecclesiastical powers to the judgment and conscience of the individual.²

And several generations after that, President Franklin D. Roosevelt continued to affirm the same truth, noting: “We want to do it the voluntary way – and most human beings in all the world want to do it the voluntary way. We do not want to have the way imposed. . . . That would not follow in the footsteps of Christ.”³

From the beginning, America faithfully observed these principles, refusing to apply government coercion or conformity to the religious beliefs and practices of individuals. But today, this is dramatically and rapidly changing, with government routinely requiring people of faith to violate their religious conscience, particularly on social issues such as those surrounding aspects of sexuality, whether the taking of unborn human life, contraception, or requiring participation in homosexual nuptials, affirmation of transgenderism, and other major sexual elements of the LGBT agenda.

The American Experience on Religious Conscience

Colonial Era

Many of the early colonists who came to America were familiar with the Bible teachings on conscience and brought them to America, where they took root and grew to maturity at a rapid rate, having been planted in virgin soil completely uncontaminated by the religious apostasy and routine violations of the rights of conscience that had characterized the previous millennia. Hence, Christianity as practiced in America became the world’s single greatest historical force in securing non-coercion, religious toleration, and the rights of conscience.

For example, in 1640, the Rev. Roger Williams established Providence (the city that became the center of the Rhode Island colony), declaring:

We agree, as formerly hath been the liberties of the town, so still, to hold forth liberty of conscience.⁴

Similar language and protections were also included in subsequent American documents, including the 1649 Maryland “Toleration Act,”⁵ the 1663 charter for Rhode Island,⁶ the 1664 Charter for Jersey,⁷ the 1665 Charter for Carolina,⁸ the 1669 Constitutions of Carolina,⁹ the 1676 charter for West Jersey,¹⁰ the 1701 charter for Delaware,¹¹ the 1682 frame of government for Pennsylvania,¹² and many others. As John Quincy Adams affirmed, “The transcendent and overruling principle of the first settlers of New England was conscience.”¹³

Revolutionary Era

In 1775 (a year before our official separation from Great Britain), Commander-in-Chief George Washington addressed Continental soldiers and from the beginning charged them:

While we are contending for our own liberty, we should be very cautious of violating the rights of conscience in others, ever considering that God alone is the judge of the hearts of men and to Him only in this case they are answerable.¹⁴

With America’s official break from Great Britain in 1776, the states created their very first state constitutions and specifically secured the religious toleration, non-coercion, and the rights of conscience. For example, the 1776 constitution of Virginia declared:

[R]eligion . . . can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force and violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience.¹⁵

The 1776 Constitution of New Jersey similarly protected the rights of conscience,¹⁶ causing Governor William Livingston (a signer of the U. S. Constitution) to happily proclaim:

Consciences of men are not the objects of human legislation. . . . In contrast with this spiritual tyranny, how beautiful appears our catholic [expansive] constitution in disclaiming all jurisdiction over the souls of men, and securing (by a never-to-be-repealed section) the voluntary, unchecked, moral suasion of every individual – and his own self-directed intercourse with the Father of Spirits!¹⁷

When New York’s first constitution (1777) likewise protected the rights of conscience,⁸¹ Governor John Jay (an author of the Federalist Papers and the original Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court) similarly rejoiced that:

Adequate security [under our constitution] is also given to the rights of conscience and private judgment. They are by nature subject to no control but that of Deity, and in that free situation they are now left. Every man is permitted to consider, to adore, and to worship his Creator in the manner most agreeable to his conscience.¹⁹

Similar clauses securing the rights of religious conscience also appeared in many other early state constitutions, including that of Delaware (1776),²⁰ North Carolina (1776),²¹ Pennsylvania (1776),²² Vermont (1777),²³ South Carolina (1778),²⁴ Massachusetts (1780),²⁵ New Hampshire (1784),²⁶ etc. Today, the safeguards for the rights of conscience explicitly appear in forty-five state constitutions, and by inference in the other five.²⁷

Federal Era

In 1788 following the ratification of the federal Constitution, six states submitted proposals for a Bill of Rights,²⁸ with several specifically recommending national language that “all men have an equal, natural, and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience.”²⁹ Although the word “conscience” did not ultimately appear in the final language of the religion clauses of the First Amendment, those who framed that Amendment believed that by preventing the government from establishing a national religion and by guaranteeing to the people their “free exercise of religion,” that the rights of conscience had been fully secured³⁰ – a fact affirmed by President Thomas Jefferson when he penned his famous letter to the Danbury Baptists assuring them that the First Amendment was an “expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience.”³¹ Subsequent constitutional commentaries reiterated that the First Amendment did indeed protect the rights of conscience.³²

Founding Fathers

In addition to the several Founders already mentioned, here are a few more unequivocal declarations regarding the constitutional duty of official to protect and defend the rights of religious conscience:

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort. . . . Conscience is the most sacred of all property.³³ JAMES MADISON

No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority.³⁴ It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself to resist invasions of it in the case of others, or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.³⁵ Our rulers can have no authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted – we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God.³⁶ THOMAS JEFFERSON

[T]he consciences of men are not the objects of human legislation. . . . For what business, in the name of common sense, has the magistrate (distinctly and singly appointed for our political and temporal happiness) with our religion, which is to secure our happiness spiritual and eternal? . . . [T]he state [does not] have any concern in the matter. For in what manner doth it affect society . . . in what outward form we think it best to pay our adoration to God?³⁷ WILLIAM LIVINGSTON, SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION

Modern Era

As a result of the conscience protections long provided in American history and law, government exemptions are routinely granted to those whose religious faith requires them to participate in, or refrain from activities that violate their religious conscience. For example:

Pacifists and conscientious objectors are not forced to fight in wars;³⁸
Jehovah’s Witnesses are not required to say the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools;³⁹
The Amish are not required to complete the standard compulsory twelve years of education;⁴⁰
Christian Scientists are not forced to have their children vaccinated or undergo medical procedures often required by state laws;⁴¹
Muslim and Jewish men are not required to shave their beards in jobs that otherwise require employees to be clean-shaven;⁴²
Seventh-Day Adventists cannot be penalized for refusing to work at their jobs on Saturday;⁴³

and there are additional examples.

Conclusion

Clearly, protection for the inalienable rights of religious conscience is deeply embedded into the fabric of American governmental policy. But as currently demonstrated in countless nations around the world, and now in America, when secularism or any other non-Biblical philosophy becomes dominant in its culture, a loss of legal protections for religious rights is usually one of the first casualties of the change.

Today in America, to seek to provide protection for the traditional rights of religious conscience is now regularly denounced as discriminatory.⁴⁴ The LGBT movement, and those in government aligned with it, disdain the rights of religious conscience and instead use the power, penalties, and full force of the law to coerce all others to embrace and participate in affirming their views, including Christian bakers,⁴⁵ florists,⁴⁶ photographers,⁴⁷ churches,⁴⁸ homeowners,⁴⁹ pastors,⁵⁰ clerks,⁵¹ business owners,⁵² officials,⁵³ religious schools,⁵⁴ military personnel,⁵⁵ sportscasters,⁵⁶ and others.⁵⁷

Our Framers recognized that if religious liberties and our civil liberties were inseparable – that if our religious liberties were diminished, our civil liberties would soon follow. As Joseph Story (a “Father of American Jurisprudence,” placed on the Supreme Court by President James Madison) pointed out:

There is not a truth to be gathered from history more certain or more momentous than this: that civil liberty cannot long be separated from religious liberty without danger, and ultimately without destruction to both. Wherever religious liberty exists, it will, first or last, bring in and establish political liberty.⁵⁸

Signer of the Declaration John Witherspoon concurred:

There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost and religious liberty preserved entire. . . . God grant that in America true religion and civil liberty may be inseparable and that the unjust attempts to destroy the one may in the issue tend to the support and establishment of both.⁵⁹

And Jedidiah Morse (a pastor, educator, and historian of the American Revolution, appointed by the federal government to document the condition of Indian affairs) agreed:

All efforts made to destroy the foundations of our Holy Religion ultimately tend to the subversion also of our political freedom and happiness. In proportion as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation . . . in the same proportion will the people of that nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom.⁶⁰

Secularism produces an antipathy toward religion and religious rights, when ultimately diminish our civil rights. In fact, after President Obama announced that America no longer should be viewed as a Christian nation,⁶¹ he then announced that he was rescinding the traditional religious rights of conscience for those working in the medical profession.⁶² Historically, governmental protection for religious rights is the only sure indicator of protection for other non-religious civil rights.

Endnotes

¹ John Quincy Adams, A Discourse on Education Delivered at Braintree, Thursday, October 24th, 1839 (Boston: Perkins & Marvin, 1840), 18.

² Stephen Colwell, Politics for American Christians: A Word upon our Example as a Nation, our Labour, our Trade, Elections, Education, and Congressional Legislation (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co. 1852), 82, Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, for 1844 (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1844), 752, “The Politics of the New Testament,” December 1844.

³ “Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Christmas Greeting to the Nation,” The American Presidency Project, December 24, 1940.

⁴ The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters and Other Organic Laws, ed. Francis Newton Thorpe (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1909), VI:3205-3207, “Plantation Agreement at Providence – August 27-September 6, 1640.”

⁵ William MacDonald, Select Charters and Other Documents Illustrative of American History 1606-1775 (New York: MacMillan Company, 1899), 104-106, “Maryland Toleration Act,” April 1649.

⁶ <a href=”https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015001567794;view=1up;seq=27″ target=”“blank”” rel=”noopener”>Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), VI:3211, “Charter of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations-1663.”

⁷ Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), V:2537, “The Concession and Agreement of the Lords Proprietors of the Province of New Caesarea, or New Jersey, 1664.”

⁸ Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), V:2771, “Charter of Carolina – 1665.”

⁹ Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), V:2785, “The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina – 1669.”

¹⁰ Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), V:2549, “The Charter or Fundamental Laws of West New Jersey, Agreed Upon – 1676.”

¹¹ Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), I:558, “Charter of Delaware – 1701.”

¹² Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), V:3063, “Frame of Government of Pennsylvania, May 5, 1682.”

¹³ John Quincy Adams, A Discourse on Education Delivered at Braintree, Thursday, October 24th, 1839 (Boston: Perkins & Marvin, 1840), 28.

¹⁴ George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1931), 3:492, to Benedict Arnold, September 14, 1775.

¹⁵ The American’s Guide: Comprising the Declaration of Independence; the Articles of Confederation; the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitutions of the Several States Composing the Union (Philadelphia: Hogan & Thompson, 1835), 180, 1776 Constitution: Bill of Rights, No. 16.

¹⁶ Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), V:2597, “Constitution of New Jersey – 1776.”

¹⁷ William Livingston, The Papers of William Livingston, ed. Carl E. Prince (Trenton: New Jersey Historical Commission, 1980), 2:235, 237, article under the name “Cato,” originally published in the New Jersey Gazette on February 18, 1778.

¹⁸ Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), V:2636-2637, “Constitution of New York – 1777.”

¹⁹ William Jay, The Life of John Jay (New York: J. & J. Harper, 1833), I:82, John Jay’s charge to the grand jury during the first term of the New York state Supreme Court.

²⁰ Constitutions of the Several Independent States of America (New York: E. Oswald, 1786), 129.

²¹ Constitutions (1786), 185.

²² Constitutions (1786), 109.

²³ Federal and State Constitutions, ed. Thorpe (1909), VI:3740.

²⁴ Constitutions (1786), 215.

²⁵ Constitutions (1786), 11-12.

²⁶ Constitutions (1786), 4.

²⁷ Forty-five state constitutions contain explicit language specifically singling out the rights of conscience. Five other states – Alaska, Hawaii, Louisiana, Montana, and South Carolina – use similar language to the U.S. Constitution (“make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”). As is seen in the subsequent section, the Founding Fathers believed that this language provided specific protection for the rights of conscience.

²⁸ Those states initially included Massachusetts, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, and North Carolina; two years later in 1790, Rhode Island submitted its proposals. See Jonathan Elliot, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution (Washington: 1836), I:322-333.

²⁹ Anson Phelps Stokes, Church and State in the United States (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950), 1:600-610. New Hampshire recommended an amendment stating that “Congress shall make no law touching religion, or to infringe the rights of conscience.”

³⁰ The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States, ed. Joseph Gales (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1834), I:757-796, August 15, 1789 to August 21, 1789.

³¹ Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. H. A. Washington (Washington D.C.: Taylor & Maury, 1854), VIII:113, “Messrs. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, and Stephen S. Nelson, A Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association, in the State of Connecticut,” January 1, 1802.

³² See, for example, Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, and Company, 1833), I:701, § 990-991:

The rights of conscience are, indeed, beyond the just reach of any human power. They are given by God, and cannot be encroached upon by human authority, without a criminal disobedience of the precepts of natural, as well as revealed religion. The real object of the amendment was, not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government. It thus sought to cut off the means of religious persecution, (the vice and pest of former ages,) and the power of subverting the rights of conscience in matters of religion, which had been trampled upon almost from the days of the Apostles to the present age.

St. George Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries: with Notes of Reference, to the Constitution and Laws, of the Federal Government of the United States; and of the Commonwealth of Virginia (Philadelphia: William Young Birch and Abraham Small: 1803), I:489, “Appendix: Note G. Of the Right of Conscience; and Of the Freedom of Speech and Of The Press”:

Liberty of conscience in matters of religion consists in the absolute and unrestrained exercise of our religious opinion, and duties, in that mode which our own reason and conviction dictate, without the control or intervention of any human power or authority whatsoever. This liberty though made a part of our constitution, and interwoven in the nature of man by his Creator, so far as the arts of fraud and terrors of violence have been capable of abridging it, hath been the subject of coercion by human laws in all ages and in all countries as far as the annals of mankind extend.

James Wilson, Thomas McKean [Wilson and McKean both signed the Declaration of Independence, and Wilson was a signer of the Constitution and an original Justice on the U. S. Supreme Court], Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States of America (London: 1791), II:61:

In the third place we are told, that there is no security for the rights of conscience. I ask the honorable gentleman, what part of this system puts it in the power of Congress to attack those rights? When there is no power to attack, it is idle to prepare the means of defense.

And others.

³³ James Madison, The Writings of James Madison, ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1906), VI:102, “Property,” originally published in The National Gazette on March 29, 1792.

³⁴ Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. H. A. Washington (New York: Biker, Thorne, & Co., 1854), VIII:147, to the Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church at New London, CT on February 4, 1809.

³⁵ Thomas Jefferson, Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, ed. Thomas Jefferson Randolph (Charlottesville: F. Carr, an Co., 1829), III:507, to Benjamin Rush on April 21, 1803.

³⁶ Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (London: John Stockdale, 1787), 265, “Query XVII: The different religions received into that state?”

³⁷ William Livingston, Papers, ed. Prince (1980), 2:235, 237, article under the name “Cato,” originally published in the New Jersey Gazette on February 18, 1778; Hezekiah Niles, Principles and Acts of the Revolution in America: Or, An Attempt to Collect and Preserve Some of the Speeches, Orations, & Proceedings (Baltimore: William Ogden Niles, 1822), 306-307, “Remarks on liberty of conscience, ascribed to his excellency William Livingston, governor of New Jersey, 1778”; B. F. Morris, Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States, Developed in the Official and Historical Annals of the Republic (Philadelphia: George W. Childs, 1864), 162-163, from William Livingston.

³⁸ United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163 (1965).

³⁹ West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943).

⁴⁰ Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972).

⁴¹ See, for example, “Parents claim religion to avoid vaccines for kids,” NBCNews, October 17, 2007; “Vaccination Exemptions,” College of Physicians of Philadelphia (accessed on May 9, 2016).

⁴² Potter v. District of Columbia, Civil Action No. 01-1189 (D.D.C. Sept. 28, 2007).

⁴³ Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Commission of Florida, 480 U.S. 136 (1987); Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 409 (1963).

⁴⁴ See, for example, Adam Serwer, “Arizona passes law allowing discrimination,” MSNBC, February 21, 2014; Paresh Dave, “Miss. governor signs religious freedom bill; civil rights groups dismayed,” Los Angeles Times, April 4, 2014; Chris Johnson, “Georgia Senate passes religious discrimination bill,” Washington Blade, March 5, 2015; Tony Cook, “Gov. Mike Pence signs ‘religious freedom’ bill in private,” IndyStar, April 2, 2015; Monica Davey, “Indiana and Arkansas Revise Rights Bills, Seeking to Remove Divisive Parts,” The New York Times, April 2, 2015; Timothy Holbrook, “Georgia, North Carolina bills are about LGBT discrimination. Period,” CNN, March 28, 2016; Marina Fang, “Tennessee Legislature Resurrects Discriminatory Transgender Bathroom Bill,” Huffington Post, April 6, 2016.

⁴⁵ See, for example, Ken Klukowski, “Baker Faces Prison for Refusing to Bake Same-Sex Wedding Cake,” Breitbart, December 12, 2013; Chris Enloe, “‘Sweet Cakes’ Owners’ Bank Accounts Seized as Damages for Refusing to Bake Wedding Cake for Lesbian Couple,” The Blaze, December 29, 2015.

⁴⁶ See, for example, Danny Burk, “A florist loses religious freedom, and much more,” CNN, February 20, 2015.

⁴⁷ See, for example, Ken Klukowski, “New Mexico Court: Christian Photographer Cannot Refuse Gay-Marriage Ceremony,” Breitbart, August 22, 2013; Kristine Marsh, “Gays Force San Francisco Wedding Photographers to Close Shop,” MRC NewsBusters, November 21, 2014; Samuel Smith, “Christian Videographer Faces Legal Action After Refusing to Work Lesbian Wedding, Says It’s Against Her Biblical Beliefs,” Christian Post, March 18, 2015.

⁴⁸ See, for example, Molly Montag, “Group asks IRS to investigate Cornerstone Church,” Sioux City Journal, October 1, 2010; “Southern Baptists draw distance from harsh anti-gay rhetoric, yet hold to convictions,” Baptist Press, May 24, 2012.

⁴⁹ See, for example, Andrea Peyser, “Couple fined for refusing to host same-sex wedding on their farm,” New York Post, November 10, 2014.

⁵⁰ See, for example, Todd Starnes, “Fired for preaching: Georgia dumps doctor over church sermons,” Fox News, April 20, 2016; Natalie Jennings, “Louie Giglio pulls out of inauguration over anti-gay comments,” The Washington Post, January 10, 2013.

⁵¹ See, for example, Allan Smith, “Anti-gay-marriage Kentucky clerk jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses,” Business Insider, September 3, 2015; Jim Douglas, “Hood County is focal point of same-sex debate,” WFAA, July 1, 2015.

⁵² See, for example, Katie Zezima, “Couple Sues a Vermont Inn for Rejecting Gay Wedding,” The New York Times, July 19, 2011; Billy Hallowell, “Lesbian Couple Wins Discrimination Lawsuit Against Religious Bed and Breakfast Owner Who Denied Them a Room,” The Blaze, April 16, 2013; Justin Moyer, “Kentucky T-shirt printer that wouldn’t make gay pride shirts vindicated by court,” The Washington Post, April 28, 2015; Charlie Butts, “Iowa couple fined for refusing gay wedding: ‘We are still here’,” OneNewsNow, June 3, 2015.

⁵³ See, for example, Kathleen Gilbert, “San Diego firefighters victorious in suit against forced participation in gay pride parade,” Life Site News, January 28, 2011; Eryn Sun, “Court Affirms CDC’s Firing of Counselor Over Same-Sex Advice,” Christian Post, February 8, 2012; Ryan T. Anderson, “Atlanta Fire Chief Fired for Expressing Christian Beliefs,” The Daily Signal, January 8, 2015; “Utah officer who objected to role in gay pride parade says he was unfairly labeled a bigot,” Fox News, February 25, 2015; Randy Ludlow, “Ohio judges who perform weddings must marry same-sex couples,” The Columbus Dispatch, August 11, 2015.

⁵⁴ See, for example, “Evangelical College Gay Rights Stand Causes Uproar,” NewsMax, November 2, 2014; “Gay Teacher Files Sex Discrimination Claim Against Georgia School,” NPR, July 9, 2014; “Lesbian teacher who was fired for becoming pregnant sues Catholic school for discrimination,” Daily Mail, August 22, 2014.

⁵⁵ See, for example, Todd Starnes, “Fox Exclusive: Airman Faces Punishment for her Religious Beliefs,” Fox News, August 6, 2013; Kirsten Anderson, “Air Force Sergeant claims he was fired for refusing to endorse gay ‘marriage’: faces court martial,” Life Site News, September 10, 2013; “Navy Threatens To End 19-Year Career Of Decorated Chaplain Who Served Navy SEAL Teams, According To Liberty Institute,” PR Newswire, March 9, 2015.

⁵⁶ See, for example, Melissa Barnhart, “Fox Sports Southwest Charged With Discrimination for Firing Craig James Over Homosexuality Remarks,” Christian Post, March 7, 2014; Ahiza Garcia, “‘I’m not transphobic,’ says ex-ESPN analyst Curt Schilling,” CNN Money, April 22, 2016.

⁵⁷ See, for example, “Missouri school sued by student who refused to support gay adoptions,” USA Today, November 2, 2006; Paul Strand, “University Employee Punished over Marriage Petition,” CBN News, October 18, 2012; Billy Hallowell, “Christian Product Engineer Claims Ford Motor Fired Him for Voicing His Bible-Based Opposition to the Company’s Promotion of ‘Pro-Homosexual Ideas’ — Now He’s Fighting Back,” The Blaze, January 28, 2015.

⁵⁸ Joseph Story, A Discourse Pronounced at the Request of the Essex Historical Society, on the 18th of September, 1828, in Commemoration of the First Settlement of Salem, in the State of Massachusetts (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkins, 1828), 46.

⁵⁹ John Witherspoon, The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men. A Sermon, Preached at Princeton, on the 17th of May, 1776. Being the General Fast appointed by the Congress through the United Colonies (Philadelphia: 1777), 27-28, 38.

⁶⁰ Jedidiah Morse, A Sermon, Exhibiting the Present Dangers and Consequent Duties of the Citizens of the United States of America. Delivered at Charlestown. April 25, 1799, The Day of the National Fast (MA: Printed by Samuel Etheridge, 1799), 9.

⁶¹ Aaron Klein, “Obama: America is ‘no longer Christian’,” WorldNetDaily, June 22, 2008. See also David Brody, The Brody File, “Exclusive: Barack Obama E-mails the Brody File,” CBN News, July 29, 2007; “Obama says U.S., Turkey can be model for world,” CNN, April 6, 2009.

⁶² See, for example, Rob Stein, “Obama Plans to Roll Back ‘Conscience’ Rule Protecting Health Workers Who Object to Some Types of Care,” The Washington Post, February 28, 2009; Saundra Young, “White House set to reverse health care conscience clause,” CNN, February 27, 2009; Rob Stein, “Obama administration replaces controversial ‘conscience’ regulation for health-care workers,” The Washington Post, February 18, 2011.

* This article concerns a historical issue and may not have updated information.

Stansbury’s Elementary Catechism on the Constitution (1828)

A catechism is defined as “a set of formal questions put as a test” and can be on a variety of subjects.

An 1828 book by Arthur Stansbury presented a series of questions and answers on the U.S. Constitution. This work, Elementary Catechism on the Constitution of the United States: For the Use of Schools, is mentioned in this video by David Barton. Test your knowledge of the Constitution with this book — and below are a few questions from this catechism!

Q. Cannot all the people of a country govern themselves?

Q. Who is to determine whether any law is contrary to the Constitution or no, the people themselves?

Q. Suppose all the members of the Senate, or all the members of the House of Representatives do not attend a meeting, can those who do attend make laws without them?

Q. Who executes the laws which Congress have made, that is, who takes care that every body shall obey the laws?

Q. Can he [the answer to the above] make the law?

Q. How are the Judges of the Courts of the United States appointed?

Q. How long do they [these Judges] remain in office?

Q. Has the United States Government any power but such as is contained in the Constitution?

Stumped? See the answers below. And be sure to check out the complete book!

A.If every man was perfectly virtuous, and knew what would be best for himself and others, they might. But this is far from the case; and therefore the people of every country are and must be governed.

A. No: but certain persons whom they have appointed, [called Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States].

A. If more than one half are present, they have in most cases power to do whatever the whole number could have done. More than one half are called a Majority, less than one half are called a Minority. As many as are necessary to do business are called a Quorum.

A. The President of the United States.

A. Not at all. These two powers, of making law, and executing law, are kept by the Constitution, entirely separate; the power that makes the law cannot execute it,and the power the executes the law cannot make it. (The one of these powers is called the Legislative, and the other is called the Executive power.

A. By the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate.

A. During good behavior; that is, until they resign their office or are turned out of it for some great offence.

A. No.

The Constitution of the United States of America

The Constitution of the United States of AmericaPREAMBLE

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

ARTICLE I

Section 1. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Section 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislature.

No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty-five years and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons. [The preceding portion in italics is amended by the Fourteenth Amendment, Section 2.] The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand but each State shall have at least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six; New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

When vacancies happen in the representation from any State, the executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies.

The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other officers; and shall have the sole power of impeachment.

Section 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the legislature thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote.

Immediately after they shall be assembled in consequence of the first election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three classes. The seats of the Senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year, of the second class at the expiration of the fourth year, and of the third class at the expiration of the sixth year, so that one-third may be chosen every second year; and if vacancies happen by resignation, or otherwise, during the recess of the legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary appointments until the next meeting of the legislature, which shall then fill such vacancies.

No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty years and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

The Vice-President of the United States shall be President of the Senate but shall have no vote unless they be equally divided.

The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice-President, or when he shall exercise the office of President of the United States.

The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: and no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two thirds of the members present.

Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States: but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment according to Law.

Section 4. The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations except as to the places of choosing Senators.

The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.

Section 5. Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner, and under such penalties as each House may provide.

Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member.

Each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings and from time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their judgment require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the members of either House on any question shall, at the desire of one fifth of those present, be entered on the Journal.

Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days nor to any other place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.

Section 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all cases except treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House they shall not be questioned in any other place.

No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States which shall have been created or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no person holding any office under the United States shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office.

Section 7. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills.

Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve, he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his objections, to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal and proceed to reconsider it. If, after such reconsideration, two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a law. But in all such cases, the votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and nays and the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each House respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law in like manner as if he had signed it unless the Congress, by their adjournment, prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law.

Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the same shall take effect shall be approved by him, or, being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives according to the rules and limitations prescribed in the case of a bill.

Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States and with the Indian tribes;

To establish an uniform rule of naturalization and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

To establish post offices and post roads;

To promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive rights to their respective writings and discoveries;

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas and offences against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise & support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively the appointment of the officers and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular States and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the State in which the same shall be for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings; – and

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States or in any department or officer thereof.

Section 9. The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation not exceeding ten dollars for each person.

The privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.

No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed.

No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State.

No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another: nor shall vessels bound to or from one State be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another.

No money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time.

No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever from any king, prince, or foreign State.

Section 10. No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money, emit bills of credit; make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.

No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts of duties on imports or exports except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws: and the net produce of all duties and imposts laid by any State on imports or exports shall be for the use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress.

No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another State or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.

ARTICLE II

Section 1. The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years and, together with the Vice-President chosen for the same term, be elected as follows:

Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States shall be appointed an elector.

The electors shall meet in their respective States and vote by ballot for two persons of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted for and of the number of votes for each; which list they shall sign and certify and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each State having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice-President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice-President. [The preceding section has been superseded by the Twelfth Amendment.]

The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States.

No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.

In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice-President, and the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation, or inability, both of the President and Vice-President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly until the disability be removed or a President shall be elected.

The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services a compensation which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the United States or any of them.

Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation: – “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Section 2. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper in the President alone, in the Courts of law, or in the heads of departments.

The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.

Section 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the Union and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States.

Section 4. The President, Vice-President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

ARTICLE III

Section 1. The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the Supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a compensation which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.

Section 2. The judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority: – to all cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls; – to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; – to controversies to which the United States shall be a party; – to controversies between two or more States; – between a State and citizens of another State; – between citizens of different States, – between citizens of the same State claiming lands under grants of different States, and between a State, or the citizens thereof, and foreign States, citizens, or subjects.

In all cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction both as to law and fact with such exceptions and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.

The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed.

Section 3. Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act or on confession in open court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.

ARTICLE IV

Section 1. Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.

Section 2. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.

A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice and be found in another State, shall on demand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime.

No person held to service or labor in one State under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.

Section 3. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States or parts of States without the consent of the legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States or of any particular State.

Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the Executive (when the legislature cannot be convened), against domestic violence.

ARTICLE V

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of this Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several States or by conventions in three fourths thereof as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

ARTICLE VI

All debts contracted and engagements entered into before the adoption of this Constitution shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution as under the Confederation.

This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several State legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

ARTICLE VII

The ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the same.

DONE in convention by the unanimous consent of the States present the seventeenth day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven, and of the independence of the United States of America the twelfth.

Signers of the Constitution

DELAWARE : George Read, Gunning Bedford, Jr., John Dickinson, Richard Bassett, Jacob Broom

MARYLAND : James McHenry, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, Daniel Carroll

VIRGINIA : John Blair, James Madison, Jr., George Washington

NORTH CAROLINA : William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Hugh Williamson

SOUTH CAROLINA : John Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler

GEORGIA : William Few, Abraham Baldwin

NEW HAMPSHIRE : John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman

MASSACHUSETTS : Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King

CONNECTICUT : William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman

NEW YORK : Alexander Hamilton

NEW JERSEY : William Livingston, David Brearley, William Paterson, Jonathan Dayton

PENNSYLVANIA : Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, George Clymer, Thomas Fitzsimons, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris

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Resolution Acknowledging the Inalienable Rights of Private Property

Footnotes

Talking Points About the Judiciary

1. THE JUDICIARY IS NOT A CO-EQUAL BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT

2. THE JUDICIARY IS NOT TO BE AN INDEPENDENT BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT

3. THE JUDICIARY IS NOT THE SOLE BRANCH CAPABLE OF DETERMINING CONSTITUTIONALITY

4. FEDERAL JUDGES DO NOT HOLD LIFETIME APPOINTMENTS

5. THE PURPOSE OF THE SUPREME COURT IS NOT TO PROTECT THE MINORITY FROM THE MAJORITY, AND CONGRESS IS A BETTER PROTECTOR OF MINORITY RIGHTS THAN IS THE JUDICIARY

Endnotes

Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ)

Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX)

Endnotes

Interview with Louis L’Amour Audio CD: South of Deadwood

Endnotes

By David Barton

History

The US Constitution

Support for a Convention?

Assert the Constitution

Statement

Endnotes

Endnotes

Overview

The American Experience on Religious Conscience

Colonial Era

Revolutionary Era

Federal Era

Founding Fathers

Modern Era

Conclusion

Endnotes

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Audio CD: South of Deadwood