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Show Volume XXVIII Issue XI The Ogden Valley News Page 7 September 15, 2021 The Constitution & Its Original Intent—The Core of American Democracy By Shanna Francis Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia became an institution after serving for three decades in this capacity, literally “transforming the way judges and lawyers think about the law.” In the book Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived, edited by his son Christopher J. Scalia and Edward Whelan, with a foreword by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, we find a broad collection of Justice Scalia’s speeches selected from the hundreds, on a myriad of topics, he delivered during his illustrious career on the bench of the nation’s highest court—a career that “helped shape our nation” and how its laws are now interpreted. In a speech titled “What Makes an American” that was delivered in October 1986, only one month after becoming the first Italian American to sit on the Supreme Court, he addressed the audience after receiving the National Italian American Foundation’s award for public service. Here he explained that while he was proud of his rich Italian heritage, he “drew a broader lesson about what makes an American.” As Americans, and as immigrants, he noted that all should be grateful for what this nation has given us; foremost, “the belief in the principles of freedom and equality that this country stands for.” And while there have been times, as found in all countries throughout the world, where there have been failures “to live up to the principles on which this republic was founded,” this is not the norm, but a departure from it—even lapses or “aberrations” from the principles we most highly value. He stated, “If you do not believe that, you need look no further than the actions of the greatest American of them all, the Father of our Country, George Washington. During his first term in office as president, Washington wrote a letter that is a model of Americanism, addressed to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island. This blue-blooded, aristocratic Virginian assured that small community that his administration, his country, would brook no discrimination against that small and politically important community. And that the children of Abraham, as he put it, were welcome in this country, to live in peace and never to have fear.” In his speech “the Idea of the Constitution,” Scalia lays out the importance of the original intent and meaning of the Constitution, which is imperative to this nation’s very survival and the survival of the numerous groups of minorities that rely upon the protections it avows. Scalia points out that there is nowhere else in history where a constitution was developed the way the U.S. Constitution was birthed— “not by conquerors dividing up the spoils, or even by political parties parceling out the power, but by a four-month seminar consisting of many of the most erudite and politically experienced individuals in the nation.” He then quotes Clinton Rossiter, who reminds us of the true eminence found among the Founders of the Constitution, in addition to Franklin and Washington, who both claimed world-wide fame. In addition to these two renown men, the group hammering out the Constitution during the Constitutional Convention “had perhaps ten who were well-known within the bounds of the old [British] empire,” and another twelve had “continental reputations.” Others were major figures in their states, “and almost every other delegate was someone whose standing was unchallenged in his part of the country… All but two or three Framers had served as public officials of [a] colony or state.” Also, “A remarkable forty-two of the fifty-five had served in the Congress of the United States. As for education: ‘In an age when few,’ even from the richest families, ‘went to college,’ the fifty-five members of the Convention included nine graduates of the College of New Jersey (Princeton), four graduates of Yale, four from William and Mary, three from Harvard, two from King’s College (Columbia), two from the College of Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania), and one each from Oxford and St. Andres. Several others had studied law at the Inns of Court. A number of those mentioned earlier had done graduate work—and six held professorships or tutorships.” Scalia then points out that this prominent group of men met personally five or six hours a day, six days a week from mid-May to midSeptember. In addition, side groups also spent evenings with committee work or in informal discussion. Scalia notes, “Imagine getting individuals of that prominence in our national life to make that kind of a time commitment today.” Scalia’s point in bringing to light the background of the Founders and the intense time spent in critical debate by such a learned group is to highlight the degree of consideration and input that went into the original content of the Constitution to ensure the best current and future outcome for the newly established country, which now hung in the balance. Another important point Scalia brings to bear is the relationship of the Bill of Rights to the rest of the Constitution. While most people, when considering what it is from the Constitution that is of most importance that makes America, America—a land that has shone as the freest of all nations in modern time—most may quickly refer to the Bill of Rights. Scalia then names a long list of civil guarantees from another superpower’s constitution, which also, on paper, guaranteed its citizens similar freedoms: inviolability of person, or freedom from arrest without a court decision or a warrant; inviolability of home; privacy of correspondence and communication; and freedom of religion. These were all guarantees in the Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Why were these rights sustained in one country and not the other? If it wasn’t each country’s bill of rights that made the difference between the actual rights of the citizens of these two superpowers, what was it? Scalia holds that, in America’s Constitution, it is “the part that really ‘constitutes’ the organs of government—establishes a structure that is likely to preserve, against the ineradicable human lust for power, the liberties that the bill of rights expresses. If the people value those liberties, the proper constitutional structure will likely result in their preservation even in the absence of a bill of rights; and where that structure does not exist, the mere recitation of the liberties will certainly not preserve them…. [I]t is those other humdrum provisions—the structural, mechanistic portions of the Constitution that pit, in James Madison’s words, ‘ambition against ambition,’ and make it impossible for any element of government to obtain unchecked power—that convert the Bill of Rights from a paper assurance to a living guarantee. A crowd is much more likely to form behind a banner that reads ‘Freedom of Speech or Death’ than behind one that says ‘Bicameralism or Fight’; but the latter, in fact, goes much more to the root of the matter.” Scalia, in explaining the importance of the core of the Constitution and the solid thought that went into its development, is telling his audience that it is the Constitution’s wellthought-out fundamental basis that assures for adequate checks and balances on power that is vital to the continued survival of America and her traditional democratic values and all that this nation encompasses. It is these values that have attracted millions to her shores and to her heartland over the last 245 years. When these core principles begin to be eaten away or eroded due to Supreme Court “politicized” decisions—decisions swayed by changing cultural subjective and normative values foisted upon the highest court in the land, placing political pressure on the black-robed judges to rule on what the Constitution “ought” to mean in contrast to what it objectively says, as historically recorded by a myriad of documents, such as the telling Federalist Papers, then this country moves to the precarious position where the Constitution can no longer withstand the pressures of the majority who can then begin imposing and asserting their political will on the multitudes of minority classes, and where freedom will no longer be guaranteed for all but only to the most powerful. Scalia concludes by stating, “In the last analysis… the Court cannot save the society from itself—because in the last analysis the Court is no more than the society itself. The compromises of principle, the misperceptions of liberty, that are believed in the homes, learned in the schools, and taught in the universities will ultimately be the body of knowledge and belief that new justices bring with them to the bench. The Constitution will endure, in other words, only to the extent that it endures in your understanding and affection.” As the reader taking counsel from one of America’s top legal minds, let it be our final analysis, and determination, to ensure that we take the time to study the basic original tenets and concepts of the Constitution, and ensure they are taught and conveyed to our young people across America—in our homes, primary schools, and universities. For it is the fundamental ideas of the Constitution that will keep all Americans free—not just the most powerful. • asthma, • heart disease, • Make the air healthier by cutting down • chronic bronchitis and on hazardous pollutants in your town or • cancer. community. Children, the elderly, and those with asthma • Help the environment. For every 10 minutes and other chronic health problems are especialyour engine is off, you’ll prevent one pound of carbon dioxide from being released (carbon ly vulnerable to the health dangers of exhaust. Pollution from Idling Contributes to dioxide is a primary contributor to global Global Warming - Idling cars and trucks emit warming). carbon dioxide (CO2), a main heat-trapping • Keep money in your wallet & save fuel. gas. In New York City alone, idling cars and Save between 1/5 to 7/10 of a gallon of fuel trucks each year produce 130,000 tons of for every hour of not idling. carbon dioxide, a new EDF report shows. To What harm does idling do? There are offset this amount of global warming pollution, we would need to plant an area the size of three main problems with idling: Manhattan with trees every single year. 1. Idling pollutes the air & harms health. Idling Wastes Fuel & Money - An idling Idling tailpipes spew out the same pollutants car uses between 1/5 to 7/10 of a gallon of fuel that form unhealthy smog and soot as those an hour. An idling diesel truck burns approxifrom moving cars. Nitrogen oxide, particulate mately one gallon of fuel an hour. With average matter, carbon monoxide and volatile organic U.S. prices for diesel fuel nearing $4 a gallon, compounds are the main health-harming of fall 2021), turning engines off instead of pollutants in vehicle emissions. Diesel engines (as idling makes economic sense. emit more than 40 hazardous air pollutants. Note: Reprinted by permission of the Environmental These pollutants have been linked to serious Defense Fund. To learn more, visit their web site at human illnesses, including: DRIVERS cont. from page 1 www.edf.org/transportation/reports/idling. |
