The Rights of the People

THE NATURAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT

This is also the natural right of every man. On this read again paragraph 1 of the “Memorial and Remonstrance of the People of Virginia,” page 95; the “Act Establishing Freedom of Religion in Virginia,” page 90; and the points on pages 52-55. ROP 253.2

This is also the constitutional right of every man in the United States. This has been demonstrated in chapter 5. ROP 253.3

Here, however, is where the issue is joined. Here is where the crisis is reached. Because the Supreme Courts of all the States that have such laws have declared them to be constitutional; ⁵¹ a Circuit Court of the United States has declared that “persecution” in the States accordingly is “due process of law;” and the United States Supreme Court has declared that “the establishment of the Christian religion,” is the meaning of the national Constitution, and that, accordingly, “this is a Christian nation.” So far, therefore, as Supreme Courts are concerned-State and national-this constitutional right has been swept away. ROP 253.4

As for the inferior courts in the States-the judges, justices, prosecuting attorneys, etc.-instead of reading the Constitution for themselves and supporting it, as they have taken a solemn oath to do, they take somebody else’s reading of it and support somebody else’s interpretation of it, while their own conscience, their own sober judgment, and the plain word of the Constitution, all tell them that such interpretation is clearly wrong. ⁵² They argue that as “the Supreme Court has decided that the law is constitutional, it is not for us to decide differently, whatever our own views of the case may be,” etc. ROP 254.1

General Jackson, when President of the United States, recognized no such doctrine. The Supreme Court declared to be constitutional a law which, as such, fell to him for enforcement. Stern Old Hickory refused to enforce it. He argued, and rightly, that he had taken no oath to support Supreme Court decisions, or other people’s interpretation of the Constitution, but the Constitution itself, and declared the American fundamental principle that- ROP 254.2

“Each public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution, swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others.” ROP 255.1

The nation stood by General Jackson in this, and completely killed that decision, and the law which it pronounced constitutional. Again, the soundness of this principle, and the unsoundness of this position taken by the inferior courts, is seen from the following:- ROP 255.2

“To whom does it belong to interpret the Constitution?-Any question arising in a legal proceeding as to the meaning and application of this fundamental law will evidently be settled by the courts of law. Every court is equally bound to pronounce, and competent to pronounce, on such questions, a State court no less than a Federal court; but as all the more important questions are carried by appeal to the Supreme Federal Court, it is practically that court whose opinion finally determines them.” ⁵³ ROP 255.3

“The so-called ‘power of annulling an unconstitutional statute’ is a duty rather than a power, and a duty incumbent on the humblest State court when a case raising the point comes before it, no less than on the Supreme Federal Court at Washington. When, therefore, people talk, as they sometimes do, even in the United States, of the Supreme Court as ‘the guardian of the Constitution,’ they mean nothing more than that it is the final court of appeal, before which suits involving constitutional questions may be brought up by the parties for decision. In so far the phrase is legitimate. But the functions of the Supreme Court are the same in kind as those of all other courts, State as well as Federal. Its duty and theirs is simply to declare and apply the law; and when any court, be it a State court of first instance, or the Federal court of last instance, finds a law of lower authority [the legislature] clashing with a law of higher authority [the Constitution], it must reject the former as being really no law, and enforce the latter.”-Bryce, American Commonwealth, Vol. I, pp. 374, 252. ROP 255.4