Constitution of the United States of America

The second voyage of the Carnival of Elitist Bastards will sail forth on June 28th, 2008 and go here for all the participating posts.

The first voyage was a smashing success and all the hard hitting posts are linked here with my first post linked here.

What better way to cast off the lines and haul up the anchor for the 2nd Carnival than by discussing the Constitution of the United States of America. The United States Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787 and on March 4, 1789 the government began operation under the new Constitution without any firm plan to amend what was written. However many in the original 13 states were extremely concerned about limiting the power of the new federal government and the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution – known as the Bill of Rights – were intended to curb the power of the President, the Congress and the Courts over the states and the People in general. The compromise Bill of Rights consisting of ten Amendments was ratified on December 15, 1791. Until the 14th Amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868 after the Civil War, turning the Bill of Rights into the supreme law of the land, state’s rights did not fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government as outlined in the Bill of Rights.

Amendment XIV: Privileges or immunities, due process, elections and debt.

Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Although many people consider the Civil War to be primarily about ending the practice of slavery, it was more about the Southern states believing the Constitution allowed individual states to choose the style and substance of government provided the state did not usurp powers directly and exclusively granted to the federal government. This division was present at every stage of the nation’s growth and still continues to this day. Do the states have a right to exist under a society of their own choosing as long as it doesn’t conflict with the U.S. Constitution? Was this in fact the intent of the framers of the Constitution? My opinion is yes, yes it was.

The leaders of the 13 Original Colonies that fought against England did so, at first, not to create a new country, but to become citizens with full and equal representation in Parliament. Only when it became clear that King George III was not interested in negotiations and considered them to be traitorous rebels, did the War of Independence take on the flavor of a new nation being born. That new nation was run by free white Protestant men of English descent who created the Constitution for free white Protestant men and no others. ‘We the People’ did not include blacks, women, Native Americans or any other nationality. Although slavery was opposed by many in the northern colonies – later states – there never would have been a United States of America if equal rights for all men of all colors had been part of the U.S. Constitution at its inception. As a compromise slavery laws and importation of new slaves was allowed up until 1808 in the expectation that 20 years was sufficient time to solve the north-south divide. Equal rights for women and children was not even a remote consideration and still to this day, there are no amendments guaranteeing any rights other than for men in the U.S. Constitution, although through the years the U.S. Supreme Court has reluctantly extended rights to women.

Preamble
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

The original seven articles and various sub-sections of the Constitution were solely devoted to the structure and specific duties of the federal government and describing in detail those duties that the states could not do in return. This blueprint for a completely new style of national government as stated in the Preamble was to be concerned with the larger affairs of state and commerce while allowing the individual states the freedom to live how they chose. It did not contain any rights for the people because the Federalists considered the individual state’s Constitutions sufficient protection for any and all freedoms. As the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence below shows, the Federalists did not see the need to codify rights under the assumption that certain rights were unalienable and that by listing specific rights in need of protection, that meant that other rights would be taken away by default.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

But even these specific documents, the Declaration and the Constitution were both too much and too little for many in the states calling themselves Antifederalists. They believed that the federal government had been granted too much power and could take away the liberties the Revolution had been fought for. The resulting Bill of Rights was not promulgated to protect the citizens from each state’s Constitutions, but to protect the citizens from possible tyranny by the new federal government.

Patrick Henry, “Need for a Bill of Rights”

“This proposal of altering our federal government is of a most alarming nature!…. You ought to be watchful, jealous of your liberty; for, instead of securing your rights, you may lose them forever… I beg gentlemen to consider that a wrong step made now will plunge us into misery, and our republic will be lost, and tyranny must and will arise… The necessity of a Bill of Rights appears to me to be greater in this government than ever it was in any government before… All rights not expressly and unequivocally reserved to the people are impliedly and incidentally relinquished to rulers, as necessarily inseparable from the delegated powers… This is the question. If you intend to reserve your unalienable rights, you must have the most express stipulation; for, if implication be allowed, you are ousted of those rights. If the people do not think it necessary to reserve them, they will be supposed to be given up. [W]ithout a Bill of Rights, you will exhibit the most absurd thing to mankind that ever the world saw ­ a government [i.e. state governments] that has abandoned all its powers ­ the powers of taxation, the sword, and the purse. You have disposed of them to Congress, without a Bill of Rights ­ without check, limitation, or control… You have Bill of Rights to defend against a state government, which is bereaved of all its power, and yet you have none against Congress, thought in full and exclusive possession of all power!”

Each state drew up their own Constitution based on the desires of the people in that state and each state could choose to continue a state religion or any other restriction such as slavery, but could not override the U.S. Constitution if there was a conflict of federal laws. The states were not close knit neighbors but rather each was a unique colony that had a different religious founding and political viewpoint towards the proper governance of its populace. The leaders that agreed with Patrick Henry saw the U.S Constitution as a frightening power grab and an attempt to turn the states into vassals of the central government. All the amendments in the Bill of Rights were written specifically to forbid the federal government from tampering with the state’s manner of governance but did not mean that these rights were guaranteed by the federal government. As written the Bill of Rights stated that the federal government did not grant these rights to the states, but could never take them away from the states. The last and 10th Amendment of the Bill of Rights made that abundantly clear by its stern rejoinder to the federal government to keep to the powers listed and no more.

Amendment X

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

But the U.S. Constitution was in no way construed to be the ultimate be all and end all as we think of it today with the notion that all state Constitutions must not conflict with the minimum rights in the U.S. Constitution. Our legal system is based on English Common Law that preceded the United States by many centuries and that is often at odds with many, if not all, of the amendments. Which is why the U.S. Supreme Court is so busy. State laws many times are judged unconstitutional when nothing about the law would have existed in 1789 or earlier. Ruling after ruling through the centuries has resulted in the federal government of all three branches gradually taking more and more power away from the states under the guise of unconstitutional. The Bill of Rights has been a utter failure from the Antifederalists point of view because instead of insuring the separate freedom of the states, it has been used to curb the power of the states. Although the framers of the U.S. Constitution were all free white Protestant men, they did realize that societies changed and so provided the mechanisms to change the laws as well. Many knew that slavery would eventually come to an end and perhaps a few radicals thought that one day women would vote, but none could have foreseen the world in which we live today. It is doubtful they truly thought that 219 years in the future we would still be fighting and searching for ‘a more perfect Union’ or that the federal government would be so large and so dominant in running the everyday life of the citizens. For all their flaws and the failure to resolve the obscenity that was slavery, the free white Protestant men who fought, died and founded this country would be outraged and appalled at the politically driven erosion of the freedoms they held sacred.

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“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” ~ Samuel Adams

“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself.” ~Thomas Paine

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” ~Benjamin Franklin

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” ~James Madison

“A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

“All men are by nature born equally free and independent.” ~ George Mason

“There can be no Friendship where there is no Freedom.” ~ William Penn

“Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.” ~ George Washington

“We should begin by setting conscience free. When all men of all religions … shall enjoy equal liberty, property, and an equal chance for honors and power … we may expect that improvements will be made in the human character and the state of society.” ~ John Adams

“If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” ~ George Washington

“What havoc has been made of books through every century of the Christian era? Where are fifty gospels condemned as spurious by the bull of Pope Gelasius? Where are forty wagon-loads of Hebrew manuscripts burned in France, by order of another pope, because of suspected heresy? Remember the Index Expurgato-rius, the Inquisition, the stake, the axe, the halter, and the guillotine; and, oh! horrible, the rack! This is as bad, if not worse, than a slow fire. Nor should the Lion’s Mouth be forgotten. Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years.” ~ John Adams

“Inequality will exist as long as liberty exists. It unavoidably results from that very liberty itself” ~ Alexander Hamilton

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Read the rest of the post and The Full and Complete text of the Constitution of the United States of America here.