(Part 15) Thomas Jefferson specifically referenced this article (and many others in this series we have provided) as it closely reflected his views on judicial overreach. He and his Republican followers believed that Leftist Chief Justice John Marshall and the Federalist dominated Supreme Court went against the will of the majority of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 & against the State ratifying Convention compromises of 1788. That they also went against the vast majority of the people of the United States with the Cohens vs. Virginia decision (1821.) "No one measure has made so alarming a breach in our political institutions..."
Jefferson perfectly stated that the justices, "squeezed their own meaning out of the text... using the slipperiness of the eels of law." That they invented constructions in favor of their own prejudices and love of power.
This decision (and several others) started the "extrajudicial" consolidation of power into the hands of the Federal government instead of leaving it where it belongs; decentralized with the people of each individual sovereign State.
"It is, therefore, with the deepest concern that the advocates of the rights of the States have seen this odious and exploded doctrine revived to serve as a foundation for yet more novel and extravagant pretensions."
"Though we can discern the possibility of occasional inconvenience from ill-advised measures in the States, we see everything to fear from inroads upon their authority, and a destruction of their independence."
"The court, feeling the full force of the 11th amendment, have assailed it with all the objections which ingenuity can suggest or imagination conceive."
"The Cohens case must excite alarm in the mind of every man, who feels any attachment to the independence of the States."
"When the whole case is fairly laid open to the American people... No man is so blind as not to perceive, that a death blow has been aimed at the very existence of the States."
(Richmond Enquirer, Volume 18, Number 4, 22 May 1821)
This article prophetically predicted the messes that would ensue when the agreed upon rigorous and straightforward original construction of the Constitution is violated!
"Whether it is openly violated, or secretly undermined by the insidious arts of construction-- political death is ultimately the consequence. [Loose] Construction is the vampyre which sucks out the life-blood of the Constitution!"
"The Supreme court, by the latitude of construction in which they have indulged, have rendered the Constitution the sport of legal ingenuity."
"They have converted exceptions into the general rules, and built their jurisdiction on the unsubstantial basis of political necessity."
"It remains to be seen whether the people will submit to be cheated out of this rich inheritance, by the paultry arts of verbal construction."
This article also continues to prove that the War to Prevent Southern Independence was fundamentally about much more than just the status of slaves. The true causa causans was the incremental extension of the powers of the Federal government beyond that which was originally intended. Those powers not specifically delegated were reserved!
"The Dangers of the Union..."
"Our well balanced political system... is likely to be disturbed and its harmony interrupted, by the establishment of principles now for the first time avowed."
"If such a construction of the Constitution had been fairly avowed it may be confidently pronounced that the plan of the Convention would have been rejected, and the Constitution would have been looked upon rather as a scheme for our subjugation, than as the charter for our liberties and the ark of our salvation."
If these wrongful constructions were to be followed, "a violent collision may ensue... ultimately terminating in civil war."
Click Picture (from phone) to enlarge & zoom...
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