Oct
23
Written by:
Bob Flynn
10/23/2009 7:03 AM
“On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.” (Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William Johnson, June 13, 1823, University of Virginia on-line library).
“On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.” (Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William Johnson, June 13, 1823, University of Virginia on-line library).
It is too bad that the Supreme Court that erected a wall between church and state had not read this quote from Thomas Jefferson. For if they had we would not be in the crisis of the day where we live in a land of freedom from religion rather than freedom of religion. Where is the wall between press and state? Where is the wall between speech and state? I guess it must be lost in the "high crimes and misdemeanors."
According to Justice Joseph Story, of the U.S. Supreme Court:
“The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects [denominations] and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which would give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government.”
He also said:
“Probably, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the [First] Amendment...the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship. Any attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation.”
Since this was the original intent, it is not surprising that in 1854 the United States Congress resolve that:
“The great vital and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
But I forgot that there are those who think our Constitution is a living document. Perhaps the same folks believe that an insurance policy is a living document: you pay your premiums but cannot redeem a claim. Or perhaps it is political Darwinism. The constitution is just evolving because there are no absolutes contained therein. The real problem is that the three branches of government have forgotten, despite the warnings of the forefathers, that the Lord Jesus Christ is Lord of all. However, when the land of the free becomes a Muslim nation by virtue of immigration and procreation the ax will have fallen and the wrath will have been revealed with our fingerprints on the handle!
Copyright ©2009 Robert Flynn