''We the People'': A Mandate or a Motto?     10/15/2003
By Janet M. LaRue, Esq.

The ''original intentions of the authors of the Constitution'' are revealed in the text of the Constitution

INTRODUCTION

"We the People" ratified the United States Constitution as the supreme law of the land. The Constitution separates the legislative, executive and judicial power into three separate co-equal branches, so that, as President John Adams emphasized, "it might be a government of laws, and not of men."

Article V of the Constitution provides the process by which the Constitution may be amended. That process does not permit the judiciary to do so by issuing rulings that contradict the Constitution or by creating "constitutional" rights that do not exist in the Constitution. When that happens, as can be seen in some of this year's Supreme Court decisions, it is a government of men and not of laws. Consequently, "We the People" ceases to be a mandate and is reduced to a mere motto bereft of meaning.

Recent polls indicate that the majority of the public has a favorable impression of the Supreme Court. A majority of those polled disagree with two of the biggest decisions issued by the Court this term, permitting race to be a factor in a college admission policy and overturning a Texas law that prohibited same-sex sodomy.

The polling also includes a very disturbing response. The majority of Americans (54 percent) want the Court to "consider changing times and current realities" in making decisions, and only 39 percent want the Court to "consider the original intentions of the authors of the Constitution."

The "original intentions of the authors of the Constitution" are revealed in the text of the Constitution, not in "changing times and current realities." When the Court decides cases based on changing times and current realities rather than the text of the Constitution, it acts as a legislature rather than a court and violates the Constitution. [more ...]

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