Article. III.
SECTION. 1
The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
-
The United States Constitution, unlike the condition by which Members of the House or Senate are appointed, and unlike the offices of the President, imposes no such boundary upon any kind of term limit or any other bound limit upon Supreme Court Justices. A Justice of the Supreme Court, appointed by the President in cahoots with a Senate which whom they must be cartelled with now by newly established convention, has the position for life.
For a nation which had just fought a war over what it asserted was arbitrary power being imposed with no restraint, to then hand arbitrary power with no restraint to someone who has no mechanism for removal other than impeachment which itself is a political process, is stupid.
SECTION. 2
Clause 1
The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;
- to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;
- to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;
- to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;
- to Controversies between two or more States;
- [between a State and Citizens of another State;-]* between Citizens of different States,
- between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, [and between a State, or the Citizens thereof;- and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.]*
-
As the United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land, then the judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in this Supreme Court by Clause 1, which has judicial power which extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, is original judicial law. SCOTUS itself has claimed that power for itself, then confirmed that power for itself; to change that position would require SCOTUS to rule against itself in a similar situation to the 1921 Queensland Legislative Council which at law abolished itself.
All of the sub-clauses here which basically involve stating cases where the United States has standing, or where the States as parties have standing, is a functional statement that yes, SCOTUS is a court.
Clause 2
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
-
Generally speaking when rights cases are decided, the usual course of events to hand original Jurisdiction (that is the right to invent the law without the legislature), they are fought between some Joe Public and a State. This is purely legal trickery making use of the legal fictions in place but there you go. It is what it is.
Otherwise SCOTUS exists as the top appellate court in the United States; which usually only happens if an aggrieved party can make a case that the law itself was applied incorrectly or that there was some fault within the legislation itself; not as an appeal on the grounds of a dispute of facts.
Clause 3
The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment; shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.
-
This clause has been taken to mean the crimes that are the purview of the Federal Government and not crimes which are committed under the various State laws. Thus, for most cases where a crime has been committed, the relevant law and courts under which the crime is tried and tested are State laws and State courts.
The right to a Trial By Jury which is often claimed by people, thinking that they have some 7th Amendment right, even according to the words of this clause and the words of that amendment is not an absolute right. For there to be a right to be claimed, there has to be a Crime under a US Title and/or a common law suit where the value is more than twenty dollars; when you consider that the vast majority of crimes are in fact torts against property and person, then the alleged criminals are not charged under common law but statute law.
SECTION. 3
Clauses 1 & 2
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
-
Now obviously treason is a serious act which requires the full force of the law but this limits the scope of what the definition of treason is to the point of practical irrelevance in Clause 1, and then assigns a phrase which is nonsensical. The phrase "no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood" has been argued about in the Supreme Court and mostly has come to the conclusion that nobody really knows what the jinkies "Corruption of Blood" is supposed to mean.
In my country the Acts Interpretation Act says that words have their usual meaning, or a meaning that can be derived from a dictionary in common usage, with reference to the context that those words are being used in. Words mean what you think that they should mean. In this clause though "Corruption of Blood" is capitalised, which means that you are likely supposed to know that this is a formally defined thing; then the clause fails to formally define the thing. This is horrendously stupid.
Article. IV.
SECTION. 1
Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.
-
Before this Section starts to cloud the others below it, reading it by itself seems reasonable and just. The Acts, Records, and Judicial Proceedings should be given Full Faith and Credit in other states because if the states do not trust each other's rule of law, then the whole project of the Union breaks at the seams.
One of the unspoken things about the rule of law is that faith and credit in the law although it is ultimately backed by who can control the most swords, is still essentially a fiduciary agreement. Money, Law, Government, Institutions, are all faeries and if you don't believe in faeries, they all die. The various Laws, public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings, are like the sticks in the game of Kerplunk. If you start removing the little sticks, the marble falls and you lose.
SECTION. 2
Clause 1
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
-
Some Citizens of various States were absolutely not entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in those States. If they were, the 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th, and 26th Amendments would have never needed to be passed. The phrase "shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of" or variations thereof exists five times in the Amendments. I do not know how in one clause the Constitution can state that "Full Faith and Credit shall be given" when in the very next clause, the Constitution openly demonstrates bad faith. In practice, this clause was a lie from the outset.
Ever since the beginning of the world, it is the rich and powerful who have ruled and dictated what kinds of rights and privileges have been deigned to be afforded to common folk. Rights and privileges have never been given away freely but have always been won by people working together to win those rights and privileges with collective power.
This is yet another clause in the United States Constitution to which my initial reaction was a cuss.
Clause 2
A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.
-
Sometimes the United States Constitution contains something which is reasonable but in practice is awful and terrible. If you read this clause with the one that comes next, the colour of this clause changes.
It makes sense that the various states should work together to ensure that justice is done, right? What if Justice itself is not blind, and sees the world through very racist coloured glasses? In practice this clause allowed magistrates to charge black people, slaves, native people, et cetera, in absentia, then use this clause to have those same people who rightly feared for their lives and the very real possibility of being lynched and being dangled as strange fruit, to be captured and then returned to the state that they came from.
Who is a another state jurisdiction going to believe? The words of someone who they are ambivalent to, or the law officers of another state? Remember, taken in conjunction with Article IV, Section 1, that other state is bound by the United States Constitution to believe that other state and the officers of the law therein.
Clause 3
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.]*
-
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
Clause 3 spits in the face of the Creator, makes a mockery of certain inalienable rights, and then takes one glorious case of highly liquid diahorrea on the notion that all men are created equal. Not only did this Clause tacitly endorse slavery (by dancing around the word so that it didn't have to mention it) but it then binds the state to return a slave back to the the Party to whom such Service or Labour was claimed.
Fundamentally this clause states that even if a slave were to run away to another state where slavery wasn't a thing, that that state not only would not discharge the condition of slavery but was forced to return them back to the Slavemaster.
Most of the action of this clause was rendered null and void by the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, but it still took 77 years and the payment of blood on the battlefield to undo this stupidity. I hate this clause and everything it stands for. My first reaction upon reading this was also a single silent cuss.
SECTION. 3
Clause 1
New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
-
When wee little America was but a mere 13 little colonies and states in the top right hand corner of the map, she knew that she had space to Manifest Destiny her way across the land. After tying up her sisters Columbia and Liberty, she then got some help from her Uncle Sam, to give native peoples fast moving lead poisoning; all the while inventing new States along the way, in the space not yet claimed by Canada or Mexico.
No, this clause does not give rise to the often imagined suggestion that Texas unilaterally has the power to break itself into five because four of those new entities would need the consent of Congress to be admitted into the Union. And no, this clause also does not give rise to the idea that California could do likewise.
Also, thanks to the Insular Cases decided by SCOTUS, it doesn't matter how many times Puerto Rico, District of Columbia, Guam, or American Samoa vote, they still won't be admitted by the Congress into this Union as states, unless Congress which is self interested, decides to.
On that note, I have real doubts whether the proper judicial process was followed when admitting West Virginia as a State into the Union. The haterations and hollerations of the Confederacy and then Virginia itself, makes this particular admission look highly dubious. Still, West Virginia is not very likely to want to rejoin Virginia as that would mean that it loses autonomy; so that's that.
Clause 2
The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.
-
In relation to National Parks, unincorporated territories such as Sad Coconut Island(TM) Palmyra Atoll, and Indian Reservations with asterisks all the way down, the extent of what "needful Rules and Regulations" need to be made or allowed to be made by the Congress are so arcane, chimeral, and labyrinthine, that not even the great Sherlock Holmes could work his way out of this.
This clause is the small rocky outcrop upon which the Guano Islands Act sits upon. This strange skerrick of the US Title Code meant that the United States unilaterally declared that all islands in the world that were not owned by anyone (that is terra nullius) were now the property of the United States, provided that they had bird guano on them. The cover story for this was that the United States wanted to go phosphate mining for fertiliser but really this was about empire building.
SECTION. 4
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
-
The first part of this section is abject nonsense because it is undefined beyond not being a monarchy. The word "republic" is derived from the Latin "res public" and implies that the thing is a public thing. Of itself that it utterly useless in defining what a "Republican Form of Government" is, or why it is important.
The second part of this states that The United States as the super collective of the States in the Union, at very least (and at most) promises to protect them against invasion. Given that the first duty of government is the defence of the realm, it makes little sense to me why this would need to be stated. Is this some kind of clause which was inserted because the various states were hesitant to sign up for the project of the Union?
That this clause is likely written with the propaganda of the Declaration of Independence ringing slowly in the background. People like Hamilton wanted to install George Washington as King; which would have been somewhat ironic given that the war which had just recently ended was popularly assigned to be the fault of another King named George, when in practice it was Lord North's Government who practiced executive power. This is also ironic given that government truly was not even close to being a "res public" until the franchise was extended to most men by 1824, wasn't extended to some people who had been barred from voting upon the basis of race until 1868, wasn't extended to women until 1920, and then there were still residual cases existing until the Civil Rights Act 1965 was passed. So much for a "Republican Form of Government".
No comments:
Post a Comment