Hate Mail: “You Idiot! ‘We The People’ Nullified States Rights

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Mandeville, LA – I frequently receive hate mail from this letter writer with nearly all of it being very similar i.e. “…hey, IMBECILE! The SCOTUS has ruled for We The People on the _____Amendment making it applicable to_________ and even the little Martian looking Quisp dude; so, why don’t you take your treason off the airwaves and join a Branch Davidian chapter nearby?”

Today, I am accused of “sacrificing the BOR to “my flawed philosophy! My response is contained below the screed.

Dear Mike,

It never fails to amaze me that you are willing to sacrifice the rights and liberties of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments guaranteed to all Americans on this obsession with states’ s rights- 37 of which were not even in the Union when the Constitution was ratified and most of which were created BY the Federal Government- and not vice versa as you claim.  Secondly you continue to ignore the part of the Constitution that allows for it to be amended and your stubborness to recognize the legitimacy of 13, 14 and 15.

This is the central hole in your flawed philosophy: You can not trumpet “liberty” as you claim to; and still uphold the right of a state to enslave people if they wish, or in other ways to violate the Bill of Rights by denying the legitimacy of incorporating them to the benefit of all Americans.

The preamble refers to We the People, not We the states.

Kim

Dear Kimothy,

First of all, one cannot sacrifice someone else’s liberties because I have no access to the legislative or judicial process to do so. Secondly, your Hugo Blackian “understanding” of the Constitution (and 14th Amendment applying to BOR) renders that instrument as meaningless as the recycled paper it is printed on these days. Patrick Henry brought up the clause “We the People” as forming “a consolidated national government.”

Henry was refuted by James Madison, George Nicholas, Henry Lee of Westmoreland, Edmund Randolph and others that the preamble was 1. Just that and had no force of law and 2. The term referred to “the People OF each State, not one consolidated American People.

Preview: Patrick Henry demands to know “Who authorized [James Madison & co] to speak the language of ‘We the People’ Instead of We the States & thus begins his opposition to the Constitution

Albert Taylor Bledsoe Taylor explores and explains this better than any one I have ever read.

“But let us admit, for the sake of argument, that the colonies formed one people before their separation from Great Britain, and that they were again made one people by the Declaration of Independence. Then no one colony could lawfully act without the concurrence of the others; as the parts would not be independent of the whole. Accordingly, Mr. Justice Story declares, that “the colonies did not severally act for themselves, and proclaim their own independence.”  But it is well known; that Virginia did so. “Virginia,” says Judge Story, “ on the 29th June, 1776, (five days before the Declaration of Independence.) declared the government of the country as formally exercised under the crown of Great Britain, totally dissolved, and proceeded to form a new Constitution.” Nay, she had already formed a new Constitution, in pursuance of her resolution of the 15th of the preceding month, and she adopted it on the 29th of  never been regarded as tainted with treason, or rebellion, against the people of America, because she thus proclaimed her own separate independence, and established her own Constitution. On the contrary, she has ever been honored by her sister colonies and States, for this bold and independent act.

This is not the only insuperable difficulty in the way of the hypothesis, that the colonies were made one people by the Declaration of Independence. For, if this hypothesis be adopted, we must believe that this one people were afterwards broken up into separate and independent States by an act of Confederation! In the case of Gibbons and Ogden, the Supreme Court of the United States, say, (and the words are quoted with approbation by Mr. Justice Story,)  “As preliminary to the very able discussion of the Constitution which we have heard from the bar, and as having some influence on its construction, reference has been made to the situation of these States, anterior to its formation.

ATTENTION!!! Coming in May: Mike Church & Brion McClanahan’s Edition of Albert Taylor Bledsoe’s  “Was Davis A Traitor” book from Founding Father Films! In Hardbound collector’s edition with cloth cover, linen paper pages hand bound & stitched  circa 1886, modern harback,  E-book, Kindle and Audio Book editions!

It has been said, that they were sovereign, were completely independent, and were connected with each other only by a league. THIS IS TRUE.” Now, if this be true, as the Supreme Court of the United States affirm, and as Mr. Justice Story admits, how were this one people broken up into so many separate, “sovereign,” and “completely independent” States? This must have been done by the Articles of Confederation; since it is only in the presence of these Articles, that this fine theory about the oneness of the American people disappears, and the States once more shine out as free and independent sovereignties. No other cause can be assigned for the change.

It is perfectly certain, indeed, that if the people of America were one nation, or political community, prior to the adoption of those Articles, they then became divided into separate, distinct, and independent States. For, according to those Articles, “Each State retains its sovereignty,  freedom,  and independence.”  Each State retains! This language implies, indeed, that each State was free, sovereign and independent before those Articles were adopted. But then this is only one of the difficulties in the way of the theory of Judge Story.”