Tag: Constitution

Constitutional Amendment 16

Post author By David
Post date July 31, 2009
4 Comments on Constitutional Amendment 16

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The longer I live and the more I study, the more convinced I become that the sixteenth amendment is the greatest assault on liberty in our Constitution.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

The amendment was passed as a benign revision to the Constitution, amending Article I Section 9 which had specifically prohibited Congress from laying any direct tax. Without this amendment the government could never have sufficient funds to substantially exceed their constitutional authority.

This amendment was passed in order to make it possible to levy income taxes – the most sinister aspect of income taxes being that government now holds first claim on the income of its citizens. If I don’t wish to support what the government is doing my only legal way to not support it is to have no income (or at least, less income than they are interested in taxing). While it will never happen in my lifetime (and probably will never happen period) the fact that the government has first claim on my income means that Congress could claim everything I produce and take it as income tax. So much for the right to property because my property (and yours) is now a gift or loan from the government.

Tags amendments, Constitution, documents, history, liberty, taxes

General

Constitutional Amendment 15

Post author By David
Post date July 23, 2009
No Comments on Constitutional Amendment 15

The 15th Amendment appears to be the first attempt to curb the efforts of those who were trying to deny blacks the right to vote as explicitly established in the 14th amendment.

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

As history has shown, those people who still held their prejudices found more creative ways to deny that right. This is just further proof that there is no way to legislate what people will or should think – regardless of how well the social engineers concoct their plans.

Tags amendments, Constitution, documents, history, liberty

National

Constitutional Amendment 14

Post author By David
Post date July 21, 2009
2 Comments on Constitutional Amendment 14

I have written previously about the Fourteenth Amendment as an example of a law that declares a legal principle of equality but does not extend to defining a quantitative measure of the level of equality that is expected. This amendment is applicable to current political debates for two reasons. First, that we are grappling with the proper way to construct laws to protect the liberty and equality of all citizens. Second, this amendment is referenced in some debates about how to deal with the issue of illegal immigration.

Section 1 of the amendment declares the principle – and it is a debate about what it means to be “born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” that is applicable to some proposed legislation related to illegal immigration.

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.

Section 2 specifies the consequences of abridging the equality specified in the first section.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Some people have argued that the non-outcome-based approach to the problem of abridging voting rights is what lead to widespread discrimination against blacks in the south for a century after this amendment was adopted. I think that it would be more accurate to say that failure to impose the declared penalty was more at fault for this practice. People cannot have their inner thoughts and desires regulated by written laws, but they generally will mold their actions to their own best interest. If the penalty of reduced representation were applied to the states that were using intimidation and Jim Crow laws to prevent blacks from exercising their civic rights I have little doubt that those states would rather quickly have found the motivation necessary to end such practices in order to have a full voice in the actions of the federal government without needing the creation of some of the civil rights legislation of the 1960’s that focused on equality of outcomes rather than universal principles of equal protection.

Tags amendments, Constitution, documents, history, voting

General

Constitutional Amendment 13

Post author By David
Post date July 20, 2009
No Comments on Constitutional Amendment 13

The Thirteenth Amendment is about as straightforward as any of the first ten amendments (I find it interesting to notice that the most obvious and natural amendments tend to be the shortest).

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

While there is nothing that I would dare add to that amendment and I doubt that anyone needs a lesson in the context behind its adoption I do wonder how our nation might be different if the issue of slavery had been resolved by the process of adopting this amendment rather than fighting a war before then adopting this amendment.

I would not suggest that the issue would have been “resolved” by 1865 even to the degree that it was with the Civil War, but I would not be surprised if the outcome would have been to more completely lay to rest the prejudices that were so openly accepted 100 years later and which we still feel among our society today. (No, electing a black president does not prove that we have no racism or bigotry remaining in our society – in case there was anyone who entertains such a notion.)

Tags amendments, Constitution, documents, history, questions

General

Constitutional Amendment 12

Post author By David
Post date June 17, 2009
No Comments on Constitutional Amendment 12

After five presidential elections in which the second choice for president became the vice president, the nation decided to alter the presidential elections with the Twelfth Amendment. Prior to this amendment it was common for the president and the vice president to stand in opposition to each other as the strongest candidates in the election. I suspect that the resulting tension when they were then supposed to work as part of the same administration is why John Adams called the vice presidency:

the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived

Perhaps if the nation had miraculously not developed a party system this amendment would not have been necessary:

The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists 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 for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, 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. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President. The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States. (strikout portion was altered in the 20th amendment)

No longer was the president chosen and then paired with his strogest rival. Based on this amendment the president and vice president were chosen separately and simultaneously. Our present system of parties creating presidential tickets to specify who they prefer for each position and of presidential candidates generally choosing their running mates with very little interference (although they undoubtedly get lots of advice in the process) is neither mandated nor forbidden by the Constitution.

Tags Constitution, documents, history

General

Constitutional Amendment 11

Post author By David
Post date June 10, 2009
3 Comments on Constitutional Amendment 11

The amendments in the Bill of Rights seem to be viewed by many people as part of the original constitution. It looks to me that later amendments can be categorized as either clarifications of the constitution or alterations to it. The Eleventh Amendment would fall under the category of clarification:

The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.

I don’t believe that the founders ever intended to infringe upon the sovereignty of states simply because a citizen of another state had a grievance against them. The initial intent was probably to have an impartial judge of such cases but they discovered that citizens could abuse that clause. Today we need to find ways to stop Congress from abusing some other clauses of the constitution.

Tags amendments, Constitution, documents, history

General

Constitutional Amendment X

Post author By David
Post date June 3, 2009
3 Comments on Constitutional Amendment X

Up until the last few months, when states have started to assert their rights through such actions as resolutions and the formation of the Patrick Henry Caucus, I am convinced that the Tenth Amendment has long been the most widely ignored of our Bill of Rights amendments.

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.

Few people are even alive today who can remember a time when the Federal Government was not grossly trampling the rights of states. Although such overreaching has been going on to some degree for virtually our entire history it seems that especially since the passage of the 16th and 17th amendments the Federal government has been treating the states as vassals rather than sovereign territories.

Tags Bill of Rights, Constitution, documents, federalism, history

General

Constitutional Amendment IX

Post author By David
Post date June 2, 2009
2 Comments on Constitutional Amendment IX

I really appreciated being challenged in my positions related to the eighth amendment. I would love to have people continue to let me know when they think I’m off base. As I read the Ninth Amendment I see it as a great example of why Hamilton was concerned about the side effects of having a bill of rights. At first glance it sounds very good that:

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Indeed in some ways it would seem that this is the most important of the amendments in the Bill of Rights – how would it be if our rights were limited to those specifically enumerated. It is important that any assumption be that people retain rights not already enumerated.

Unfortunately I think that this amendment is the activists (and activist judges) best friend. Using the ninth amendment as a foundation they find it easy to argue in favor of such rights as the right to legal recognition of previously unheard-of family structures. Of course the right to form such attachments is a true right, but the right to legal recognition of those – not so much. How about the “right” to health care (or any other segment of a social safety net)? Definitely not.

I might not be so worried about such manufactured “rights” if it were not for the fact that these artificial rights are often used as a weapon to trample upon the true natural rights that are supposed to be protected by our Constitution.

Tags activism, amendments, Bill of Rights, Constitution, documents, history, judges

National

Constitutional Amendment VIII

Post author By David
Post date May 28, 2009
8 Comments on Constitutional Amendment VIII

Like the second amendment, the eighth Amendment leaves no room for exceptions.

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

There are those who would argue that not all the rights in the Constitution and Bill of Rights apply to non-citizens. Depending on your definition of “rights” there may be room to make such an argument, but no definition of rights could be used to argue that this right does not apply to every person on earth and that our government should honor this right in all its actions.

This brings up the question of torture as a tool employed by our government. The amendment does not allow any room for any form of torture regardless of the existence of any Geneva convention or rules of war because torture is, by definition, cruel. The only argument that could be made is that, although cruel, torture is not used as punishment because it is administered not in retribution for crimes, but in search of information. I think it is obvious how flimsy such an argument would be.

On a related note, our current administration claims to forbid the use of torture (no way to verify those claims) but proclaims their intention to use indefinite detention on those they deem as threats but who cannot be convicted of any crime. This absolutely violates the fifth amendment right that “No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” While the relevant laws may vary between citizens and non-citizens, indefinite detention does not allow for that due process. If a person cannot be charged and convicted of a crime they should be released. If they are not a citizen they should be released to their country of citizenship.

Tags amendments, Bill of Rights, Constitution, documents, Elevated, history, torture

General

Constitutional Amendment VII

Post author By David
Post date May 27, 2009
No Comments on Constitutional Amendment VII

The seventh Amendment really intrigues me:

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

In criminal cases the right to a trial by jury is absolute for civilians regardless of the crime in question. In civil cases the founders obviously felt that citizens might not want to trust a judge to decide cases involving large sums of money. I don’t know exactly how much $20 was in 1787 but it’s very little today. I think this amendment would be burdensome if it required rather than allowing trial by jury for any amount of money not indexed to inflation.

The intent of the amendment seems to be to preserve the citizens rights tot heir own property by making it impossible to simply get a judge to enter a judgment against them in civil court cases and thus strip them of their property. Is there some other reason that I am overlooking?

Tags amendments, Bill of Rights, Constitution, documents, history, questions