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A Supreme Mistake - Part II
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(photo: Justices of the Supreme Court, 2008)
Over the last day or so a lot of dialogue has been offered to my earlier post on this subject. I appreciate every opinion that was sent in; however, I must contend that most of you missed the point of the column. What I object to, and I think you should as well, is that the Supreme Court decision was incorrect based on the reasons given by the majority of five justices.
The Main Point of the Post was:
The Supreme Court overstepped its bounds by legislating from the bench. The nine Justices are not elected officials and have no law making powers. The Supreme Court has given itself law making and law interpretation powers. The decision sets a dangerous precedent where the Court can overrule any law of any State that they are not in agreement with. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments were disregarded by the Supreme Court, and no one seems to understand the transfer of power that has occurred in this country since Bush v. Gore. The branch of government that is mentioned in Article III, and was supposed to be the least powerful, has now become the most powerful governmental branch in this country.
Some other points for you historians to consider:
- Some of the postings referred back to writings of the founding fathers who, like yourselves, expressed their support for gun ownership. The quotes you used were personal statements by those great men; they are not law and definitely not found in the Constitution of the United States.
- The Constitution, and the Second Amendment, was written following the crisis of Shay’s Rebellion in Massachusetts in 1786–87. The State of Massachusetts hired a militia to put down an insurgency of former Revolutionary War soldiers. The Second Amendment was a compromise between the Federalists and the anti-Federalists to allow the people to retain their natural right “to keep and bear arms” because of the principal need to maintain state militias “to provide for the common defense.”
- Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, men from different ends of the political spectrum, agreed that the People should be able to keep arms as long as they are trained in their use. After the Constitutional Convention, Oliver Ellsworth, who would precede James Marshall as Chief Justice of the United States, summed up this position: "Anarchy, or a want of such government as can protect the interests of the subjects against foreign and domestic injustice, is the worst of all conditions." The goal was to prevent anarchy, violence, and rebellions. This prevention was accomplished by controlling the militias and army, and by retaining the right to limit weapons to those who formed "A well regulated Militia."
- President Andrew Jackson made this point clear during the Nullification Crisis in 1832-33, when warning South Carolina to step back from the brink of secession and constitutional disaster. Jackson's point, which Abraham Lincoln would reiterate to the South in 1861, was that the Constitution contemplated numerous ways for unhappy citizens, or even States, to protest Federal legislation, but that these means did not include nullification, secession, or any other sort of rebellion.
- During the Civil War, President Lincoln suspended several Amendments of the Bill of Rights. In World War II, the government of the United States took away the liberty and personal property of Japanese Americans for several years. Throughout our history, the National government has chosen when, and how, the stated rights of individuals should apply.
- Finally, the founders of our country did not trust the People to choose their own political leadership. Direct election of United States Senators by the People was instituted through the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. We still have an Electoral College who chooses the President of the United States.
To conclude, the founding fathers did not trust Government or the People. They set up a system of separation of powers with the States and the National government existing as co-equals. The States and the Congress are both empowered to make laws to guide the actions of their constituents. Last week, the Supreme Court decided to usurp this critical foundation of the Federal system thereby shifting power from one branch of government to another - the Supreme Court itself.
Nine people, who have never been elected to any office, overturned the will of over 590,000 citizens of our country. If we agree to this violation of the separation of powers, there is no law in any State that will be safe from interference…this is the definition of absolute power and looks a lot like a dictatorship to me.
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