History And The Judiciary
By Paul M. Weyrich
July 11, 2008
Page 4 of 5
Abraham Lincoln acknowledged that court opinions were binding upon the specific parties involved and "entitled to very high respect and consideration...by all other departments of the government." But like the Founding Fathers, he utterly rejected the myth that judges' opinions are the law of the land:
...If the policy of the government, upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties, in personal actions, the people will have ceased, to be their own rulers, having, to that extent, practically resigned their government, into the hands of that eminent tribunal.
In the last century cultural elites created an illusion of judicial power that would be unrecognizable to earlier Americans, lawyers and laymen. After the American Revolution, the framers of the Constitution rejected any judicial authority over the other branches of government.
I fear the conservative elites are putting the final nail in our coffin. I know these men. They mean well. They are not pursuing their view out of malice. They believe what they are doing is right. Nor do I associate myself with some of their critics who often are accusatory, judgmental and angry. I look at results, and it seems to me that proponents of the status quo are allowing the legal profession and the courts to impose moral and civil codes which cannot pass federal and state legislatures. They foolishly are handing absolute power to anti-Judeo-Christian, anti-family ideologues.
This is where the trajectory of the post-constitutional pragmatism undergirding the "conservative revolution" has taken us. The story is not yet complete, but if we continue on this trajectory we may reach the point of tyranny and persecution. History reveals this to be true.
Many of those with whom I have worked for years unwittingly are aiding the far left in the destruction of America. It is time for our presidents, governors, legislatures and prominent citizens to call the bluff of impotent judges as Jefferson did and to ask them, as President Andrew Jackson did, how they will enforce their impotent opinions. The myth of judicial supremacy cannot justify governors violating state and federal constitutions, their oaths of office and the sovereignty of the American people. Look at the way so-called gay marriage has been imposed by judicial fiat, running ruthlessly over elected legislatures and the will of the people.
The Massachusetts Constitution contains the quintessential statement of the American form of government: "The power of suspending the laws, or the execution of the laws, ought never to be exercised but by the legislature...." (Part the First, Article XX.) "[T]he people...are not controllable by any other laws than those to which their constitutional representative body have given their consent." (Part the First, Article X.) "The judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men." (Part the First, Article XXX.) "All the laws which have heretofore been adopted, used and approved...shall still remain and be in full force, until altered or repealed by the legislature...." (Part the Second, Article VI.)
>> Continued -- Page 1 2 3 4 5
| 
