After a long hiatus, I find it interesting that my first entry is basically a link to an entry I wrote almost exactly two years ago. The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), in its typical year end flurry of decisions, came to a conclusion regarding the MacDonald 2nd Amendment case out of Chicago. Chicago, for years, has had some of the most stringent anti 2nd Amendment laws in America. And to go along with that distinction, Chicago was also the murder capitol of the United States for many years. But, again, my comments are not on the case itself but rather that the case decision was, again, 5-4.
The historic part of the decision is an amalgam: for the second time in over two centuries, the SCOTUS has ruled on the 2nd Amendment plus, for the first time as to whether it is an incorporated right. SCOTUS has a very long record of rulings on the 1st Amendment, the 4th Amendment and the 5th Amendment. The incredible legal twistings and rationales regarding the 1st Amendment over decades is truly breathtaking. I am so often reminded as of late what that great activist SCOTUS jurist (“great” being an adjective modifying “activist” not “jurist”) Thurgood Marshall stated:” You do what you think is right and let the law catch up.” (One word: YIKES! ) So, with all that activist sentiment regarding the incorporation principle for the Bill of Rights, the 2nd Amendment remained an orphan of decisions. Until now.
I’ve tried to remind my readers that so many people confuse what the Constitution is all about. They confuse the concept of a “federal” versus a “national” Constitution. The Constitution was all about establishing but more importantly restricting this newly created federal government. With the arrival of the 14th Amendment and its “due process” clause, the Constitution was on its way to becoming national, not just federal in some defiance of the 10th Amendment (aka Amendment X BTW). With this “due process” clause as background, there were four SCOTUS jurists that failed to find further incorporation to protect the citizens under the Constitution.
I am once again very distressed to learn that my unalienable rights hang on the decision of just one Supreme Court jurist. And as I predicted, the fight goes on as witnessed by Mayor Daley and his fight against Chicago citizens defending themselves.
“It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.“ John Philpot Curran
I believe you would count me among the “confused.” You state: “The Constitution was all about establishing but more importantly restricting this newly created federal government.”
However, before the Constitutional Convention that hot summer in Philadelphia, the federal government was about as “restricted” as one level of an organization could be! There was a reason why the political leaders at the time decided to send the Articles of Confederation to the scrapyard of history: it was not working for the American people! Please do not think that I feel I have any level scholarship close to your obvious study of our Constitution. How would you think that a “supremacy clause” got into the document if the conventioneers had not recognized that the federal government had to be able to overcome the jealousies inherent with the Articles shortcomings? To me the greater loss of states' rights was the enactment of the 17th Amendment. (And may I say that the minimal impact that the 10th amendment – referred to by the SCOTUS as a “truism” – would suggest that your moniker does not really have a substantial legal impact to legislation.) Thanks for your observations.
Tom Rees