Who was the bill of rights intended for?

No American is actually a constitutionalist.

Although the kind of rights guaranteed by the federal government are hailed by both parties as essential, the truth is that they are absolutely impractical on a local level, almost everyone disagrees on their universal application, and both parties violate the constitution’s broad stance on many issues.  Conservatives, for instance, will say that freedom of speech is intended to protect political and religious speech, while Liberals say that freedom of speech is also intended for dirty language and suggestive themes on daytime television, but not “hate” speech. Both parties prosecute pedophiles for baiting children with words on the internet, you can’t yell “FIRE!” in a crowded theater or divulge your intent to kill someone, The FCC exists, it is illegal to disclose classified information, and we currently do not allow people to advertise for Christian roommates.  And even though most agree that infringement is absolutely necessary in the first five of these, these cases are all still unconstitutional infringements upon the first amendment.

In regard to the freedom to practice religion, neither end of the spectrum believes that beating your wife (as mandated in the Qur’an) should be protected, or that sacrificing your children to Molech or marrying 30 wives is acceptable behavior.  And of course, the freedom to practice religion isn’t considered important to liberals when a business-owner wants to hire only Christians at a Christian bookstore, and conservatives don’t want to respect the non-endorsement of religion when statues of the Ten Commandments are involved.  Simply put, we’ve never taken the radical nature of our federal constitution seriously, and we never will: it’s simply impossible.  The funny thing is that it was intended to be.

For instance, we all understand that the founding fathers were intelligent, and arguably more educated than the majority of our politicians today.  And most modern Americans are quick to argue that the founding fathers personally adopted their preferred form of government, be it deistic (or effectively atheistic) libertarianism or Judeo-Christian paleoconservatism.  But the most interesting thing about all these positions is that the first two positions–although seemingly contradictory–were both adopted by our founding fathers.

As an example, the constitution makes no bones about our civil liberties: we’re granted freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, and the freedom to practice religion; and no establishments of religion are to be be created by our government, and this is stated in the most plain and exception-free terms possible.  There simply isn’t a constitutional way around these rights.  But what we find is that upon the inception of the original 13 United States, the very same people who crafted a radically secular and radically libertarian code of government (even by today’s standards) went on to draft state constitutions which contained the following:

Vermont: “every sect or denomination of people ought to observe the Sabbath or Lord’s day, and keep up some sort of religious worship which to them shall seem most agreeable to the revealed will of God [Chapter 1, Section 3].“

“And each member, before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz: I do believe in one God, the Creator and Governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and punisher of the wicked. And I do acknowledge the scriptures of the old and new testament to be given by divine inspiration, and own and profess the Protestant religion [Chapter 2, Section 9].”

“That all men have a natural and unalienable right to worship ALMIGHTY GOD, according to the dictates of their own consciences and understanding, regulated by the word of GOD; and that no man ought, or of right can be compelled to attend any religious worship, or erect, or support any place of worship, or maintain any minister, contrary to the dictates of his conscience; nor can any man who professes the protestant religion, be justly deprived or abridged of any civil right, as a citizen, on account of his religious sentiment, or peculiar mode of religious worship, and that no authority can, or ought to be vested in, or assumed by, any power whatsoever, that shall, in any case, interfere with, or in any manner controul, the rights of conscience, in the free exercise of religious worship [Chapter 1, Article 3].”

Pennsylvania (which was overseen and approved by Benjamin Franklin, a falsely labeled deist):  “And each member, before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz:  I do believe in one God, the creator and governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked. And I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine inspiration [Section 10].”

“Laws for the encouragement of virtue, and prevention of vice and immorality, shall be made and constantly kept in force, and provision shall be made for their due execution: And all religious societies or bodies of men heretofore united or incorporated for the advancement of religion or learning, or for other pious and charitable purposes, shall be encouraged and protected in the enjoyment of the privileges, immunities and estates which they were accustomed to enjoy, or could of right have enjoyed, under the laws and former constitution of this state [Section 45].”

“…no authority can or ought to be vested in, or assumed by any power whatever, that shall in any case interfere with, or in any manner controul, the right of conscience in the free exercise of religious worship [Section 2].”

Delaware: “Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house, or appointed to any office or place of trust, before taking his seat, or entering upon the execution of his office, shall take the following oath, or affirmation, if conscientiously scrupulous of taking an oath, to wit … and also make and subscribe the following declaration, to wit: I, A B. do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration [Article 22].”

“There shall be no establishment of any one religious sect in this State in preference to another; and no clergyman or preacher of the gospel, of any denomination, shall be capable of holding any civil once in this State, or of being a member of either of the branches of the legislature, while they continue in the exercise of the pastorial function [Article 29].

Georgia:  “The representatives shall be chosen out of the residents in each county, who shall have resided at least twelve months in this State, and three months in the county where they shall be elected; except the freeholders of the counties of Glynn and Camden, who are in a state of alarm, and who shall have the liberty of choosing one member each, as specified in the articles of this constitution, in any other county, until they have residents sufficient to qualify them for more; and they shall be of the Protestent religion, and of the age of twenty-one years, and shall be possessed in their own right of two hundred and fifty acres of land, or some property to the amount of two hundred and fifty pounds [Article 6].”

“All male white inhabitants, of the age of twenty-one years, and possessed in his own right of ten pounds value, and liable to pay tax in this State, or being of any mechanic trade, and shall have been resident six months in this State, shall have a right to vote at all elections for representatives, or any other officers, herein agreed to be chosen by the people at large; and every person having a right to vote at any election shall vote by ballot personally [Article 9].”

“All persons whatever shall have the free exercise of their religion; provided it be not repugnant to the peace and safety of the State; and shall not, unless by consent, support any teacher or teachers except those of their own profession [Article 106].”

After reading these constitutions, it becomes clear that our founding fathers nor only had very different ideas than we do about what constitutes an establishment of religion and freedom of speech, but that the broad rights intended on the federal level were never intended for the local and state levels. In an 1833 ruling on Barron v. Baltimore, the Supreme Court publicly and clearly defended this intention, as it was the first case ever brought before the Supreme Court which actually challenged state authority because of the Bill of Rights (see section 1 of the link).

Furthermore, this was again displayed almost a hundred years after the US’s inception, when the 14th amendment incorporated (or rather, enforced) the Bill of Rights in the states.  What this incorporation clearly states is that until that time, the states were granted far more leeway regarding forms of democratically instituted government, almost unbound by the US federal Bill of Rights.  Numerous court cases since then have been instrumental in ending state rights as far as the US constitution was concerned, only because the 14th Amendment’s due process clause made the process possible.  As further proof of this intended disconnect between federal and state rights, the reader should also note that the 2nd and 3rd Amendments have not yet been officially incorporated by the courts by utilizing the 14th Amendment.

So which way are we supposed to have it?  The answer, as our original state constitutions and the 14th amendment imply, is both.  The federal government, because of the tendency for concentrated power to corrupt–was severely limited in very broad terms which protect the average citizen from a distant and tyrannical central government, while granting states the right to govern themselves.   This is how freedom works, because the people in New York city don’t know a damn thing about what’s good for Valdosta, Georgia.  And with any decision the president of the US makes, he is opposing the will of half the very large American populace.

And this brings us to a very important question: what exactly is liberty?  Liberty is the right to determine if a vice behavior is bad for your community, and whether or not to outlaw it. Liberty is being able to decide who teaches your children without fighting federally protected teachers unions, and liberty is locally deciding what kind of curriculum your kids are taught.  Liberty is getting together with your community to decide who exactly deserves welfare, and whether or not to lower services or lessen taxation.  Liberty is deciding what kind of legal protection to give unions.  Liberty is having the ability for your state to engage in socialist health-care or not without the rest of the country’s consent.  Liberty is your community deciding whether or not you need to enforce affirmative action in the workplace, and if you should be able to sell your home to anyone you want.  Liberty is allowing your state to limit corporate contributions to campaigns or not.  Liberty is giving people the option of living in 50 different states with different communities for people with different values. Our founding fathers devised this union to exist so that California–should it be so inclined–can turn Los Angeles into Detroit with welfare and gang-protecting legislation, while Hastings, Nebraska educates their children with Christian values and keeps both their spending and taxes low to stimulate business.

Liberty isn’t lying to people and pretending that a neutral stance is being taken, when in reality a very real code of morality is being enforced (as no human, regardless of what they may publicly declare, is actually capable of living within a moral void).  Liberty also isn’t demanding that people tolerate bad character, or funding social programs nationwide that half of America finds offensive and wasteful, or ensuring that every public school in America is dedicated to teaching kids about evolutionary atheism and sexual promiscuity.  Liberty is about choosing what you and your society will have, and if you don’t like it, being able to freely go somewhere that the government reflects your moral character.  As such, while declaring liberty for all Americans, the fourteenth amendment actually restricted our liberty by effectively tying our hands behind our backs in a system of government which was intended to cripple a centralization of power, not to live by.

To live in a truly free society, we must acknowledge that the ability for citizens to ruin their state and lose their liberty ironically makes people regard it as dangerous and volatile.  But we should seriously consider why it should ever be different.  In a democratic republic, an upright and soberly-minded citizenry will have a government they deserve.   That is liberty: nothing more, nothing less.  Just look to the people who created the states.

This entry was posted on 5. February 2010 at 00:19 and is filed under politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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