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"The house of representatives ... can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny."
-- James Madison, Federalist No. 57, 1788 “It is, Sir, the people’s government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people. The people of the United States have declared that this Constitution shall be the supreme law.”
-- Daniel Webster, 1830 America's Principles in Public Policy
"History will also give occasion to expatiate on the advantage of civil orders and constitutions, how men and their properties are protected by joining in societies and establishing government; their industry encouraged and rewarded, arts invented, and life made more comfortable: The advantages of liberty, mischiefs of licentiousness, benefits arising from good laws and a due execution of justice. Thus may the first principles of sound politics be fixed in the minds of youth." -- Benjamin Franklin, Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania, 1749 "Human law is law only by virtue of its accordance with right reason; and thus it is manifest that it flows from the eternal law. And in so far as it deviates from right reason it is called an unjust law; in such case it is no law at all, but rather a species of violence."
-- Thomas Aquinas *Provided courtesy of Guy Stevenson
"True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrong-doing by its prohibitions. And it does not lay its commands or prohibitions upon good men in vain, although neither have any effect on the wicked. It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal a part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by Senate or People, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is, God, over us all, for He is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge. Whoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his human nature, and by reason of this very fact he will suffer the worst penalties, even if he escapes what is commonly called punishment . . ." -- Marcus Tullius Cicero, Republic, The Laws, 59 - 47 B.C. The Witherspoon Institute - Public Discourse
Joel Alicea Those who oppose judicial supremacy follow in the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln himself. Newt Gingrich’s statements about the judiciary during the December 15, 2011, GOP debate and on Bob Schieffer’s Face the Nation the following weekend ignited a firestorm over his view of American constitutionalism that has been smoldering in the media for several months now. His challenge to judicial supremacy—the idea that the Supreme Court has the last word on the meaning of the Constitution—has been much condemned, particularly because Gingrich’s argument also criticizes the declaration of judicial supremacy in the Court’s 1958 desegregation decision, Cooper v. Aaron. Ian Millhiser of Think Progress was quick to accuse the former Speaker of siding with the white supremacists of the 1950s when Gingrich first released his position paper on the judiciary in October. Although the media’s breathless denunciations suggest otherwise, Gingrich is not the first public figure to challenge the Cooper Court’s assertion of its supremacy over constitutional interpretation. Attorney General Edwin Meese did the same in a 1986 lecture at Tulane University. Meese’s address elicited a similarly angry response from the press, especially from columnist Anthony Lewis, who made Cooper the centerpiece of his appraisal of Meese’s speech. As was the case in 1986, the debate over Cooper in the past few months has been confused, epitomized by the New York Times’ recent suggestion that Gingrich’s critique of Cooper has “disturbing racial undertones.” The Times and others misunderstand the history and law of that famous case. Those who argue that the Supreme Court is not the ultimate arbiter of the Constitution’s meaning need not deny the fact that Cooper was rightly decided; they can and do celebrate the courage of that opinion. Cooper v. Aaron came to the Supreme Court under extraordinary circumstances, the drama of which is matched by... Read this important article at thepublicdiscourse.com ... "What was the primary and principal object in the institution of government? Was it — I speak of the primary and principal object — was it to acquire new rights by a human establishment? Or was it, by human establishment, to acquire new security for the possession or the recovery of those rights, to the enjoyment or acquisition of which we were previously entitled by the immediate gift, or by the unerring law, of our all-wise and all-beneficent Creator? The latter, I presume, was the case…"
-- James Wilson, 1790 |
SelfGovernment.US
"Every man, and every body of men on earth, possesses the right of self-government."
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