An oath is supposed to be a solemn promise made in
the presence of God. Before becoming a legislator, the
candidate places his left hand on the Bible
and raises his right toward heaven, and
promises to bind himself with the chains of
the Constitution.
Most people who have taken a similar oath have never read the
Constitution, and don't really feel themselves obligated to ask
the Framers of the Constitution what the
Constitution means.
Probably 90% or more of our government's budget goes to functions
which are unconstitutional. The only powers which the
federal government has are those expressly
delegated to it in the Constitution. The federal government
has no constitutional power in the area of religion, education,
medicine, or vitamins.
The General
Welfare Clause is no exception to this rule.
| If an irresponsible son
is intentionally given only one dollar
in his wealthy father's will, the intent
of the drafter of the will takes
precedence over the desires of the lazy
son. |
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Those who say they believe in a "living constitution"
are failing to observe the most basic principles of legal
interpretation. The idea of a "living constitution"
allows anyone to decide what the Constitution "means" to
them, rather than what the Framers of the Constitution
intended it to mean for America.
If we study the ratifying debates, the Federalist Papers, and
other public writings of the Founders, we can discern the
"original intent" of those who gave us the
Constitution. As Jefferson admonished Supreme Court Justice
William Johnson:
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. (June 12, 1823)
We must use their understanding of terms if we are to
understand the Constitution. Madison wrote:
I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in
which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation.
In that sense alone it is the legitimate
Constitution. And if that be not the guide in expounding it,
there can be no security for a consistent and stable, more than
for a faithful, exercise of its powers. . . . What a
metamorphosis would be produced in the code of law if all its
ancient phraseology were to be taken in its modern sense. [emphasis
added] (to Henry Lee, June 25, 1824)
US Supreme Court Justice James Wilson, who signed both the
Declaration of Independence and Constitution, said:
The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute
is to discover the meaning of those who made it.
(Works, "Lectures on Law Delivered in
the College of Phila.; Introductory Lecture: Of the Study of the
Law in the United States.")
Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, founder of the Harvard Law
School and one of the foremost American constitutional
commentators:
The first and fundamental rule in the interpretation of all
instruments is to construe them according to the sense of the
terms and the intention of the parties.
Commentaries on the Constitution, (Boston:
Hilliard, 1833) vol. III, p. 383, sec. 400
To say that the thoughts and intentions of the men who drafted the
Constitution take second place to the way WE "interpret"
the Constitution is to abandon our "government of laws, not
of men" to one of arbitrary whim based on the shifting views
of political correctness.
But most law schools today teach tomorrow's politicians that we
can never really know what the Founding Fathers intended.
By proposing campaign finance laws,
many legislators today are admitting that they can't be trusted to
keep their solemn oath to "support the Constitution" if
someone gives them money to violate it.
"It's Just an Oath"
| And this is due in part
to the myth of "the
Separation of Church and State."
While the Constitution supports the
separation of churches and
state, the modern myth of separation is
a separation of God and
State. But America is a nation "under
God." |
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Today the oath to "support the Constitution" is not
taken seriously. This is because oaths in general are not taken
seriously. At the time the Constitution was written, an oath
was understood to be a solemn declaration made to and in the
presence of God. In 1961 the
US Supreme Court ruled God out of the oath of office. But
removing God from an oath is like removing water from a swimming
pool: all that is left is an empty shell. The
Court in Cole v. Richardson correctly noted that the oath
had been reduced from a solemn and weighty act of eternal
consequence to a mere "amenity."[1]
No one takes an "amenity" seriously. The rise of
Secularism has meant the decline of oaths. Prof. Sanford Levinson,
having been admitted to practice in California, suspects that
many of us did not reflect with any great seriousness on the[]
meaning [of the loyalty oaths we have signed]. Assuming that we
noticed them at all, many of us probably treated them roughly
the same way my law students responded to part of a document
that they are required to submit to the Bar Association as part
of the process of becoming a lawyer. All applicants must sign a
statement indicating that they have read the Code of
Professional Responsibility and pledge their adherence to its
demands. The overwhelming majority of my students freely
indicated that they had perjured themselves: They
had not in fact read the Code, and they treated the affirmation
that they had as a mere formalism, not to be taken seriously . .
. . How many of us who have taken loyalty oaths are any
different?[3]
I have read and heard many Professors of Constitutional Law
admit that they do not require their students to read the
Constitution from "We the People" to "ratifying the
Same." Indeed, with the current controversy
over "originalism"
or "original intent," it may be academically
unfashionable to require students to read the complete text of the
Constitution.[4] The great constitutional
scholar E. S. Corwin was
told that Professor Powell of Harvard carefully warns his class
in Constitutional Law each year against reading the
Constitution, holding that to do so would be apt to
"confuse their minds." Certain it is that of the
6,000-odd words of the constitutional document, at least 39
out of every 40 are totally irrelevant to the vast majority, as
well as to the most important, of the problems which the Court
handles each term in the field of constitutional interpretation.[5]
It is not stretching credulity to claim that a
large proportion of law students who have successfully passed a
Constitutional Law class in law school have never actually read
the Constitution.[6] And as the quest for high
salaries in legal practice begins (to pay off school loans) the
likelihood of taking time to read the increasingly-irrelevant
Articles of the Constitution becomes even smaller. As a result, no
one can seriously doubt that a large percentage of people who have
been admitted to the Bar or have assumed public office and have
taken a solemn oath to "support the Constitution" have
never even read the Constitution in its entirety.
This fact is not unknown to "the man on the street." Among
lawyers and politicians, promises seem to be easily made; few are
treated as sacred and eternally binding[7] -
especially if rich clients or new voting blocs emerge. The
crumbling edifice of the Legal Profession's integrity has left its
dust in everyone's eyes, and popular "lawyer
jokes" are just the tip of an iceberg of skepticism Americans
have about the legal system.[8]
Can Kevin Craig take an oath to "support the
Constitution?" Some
will say "No!" He passed the California Bar Exam but
was not given a license to practice law because he is a Christian,
and the U.S.
Supreme Court has held that Christians are prohibited from
taking the oath to "support the Constitution" which is
required of Attorneys. The Court reasoned as follows:
The Apostle Peter said that Christians "must obey God
rather than man" (Acts
5:29). This means that if the Office of
Homeland Security determines that Muslims are "a threat
to our national security," and orders all non-Muslim
Americans to shoot all Muslims on sight, Christians will disobey
the order of the Office of Homeland Security. The Supreme Court
said this proves that Christians are not loyal to the
Constitution; their ultimate allegiance is to God.
Of course, this ruling is totally contrary to the Original
Intent of America's
Founding Fathers, who believed that this is a nation "under
God." The reasoning of the Court is seen in the
exclusion of many Christians from jury duty because they vote according
to their conscience, refusing to enforce immoral laws,
voting "not guilty" in such cases, regardless of
"the law" or "the facts." (more)
I have actually read the entire Constitution(!). I
can honestly say I have a great deal of affection for the
document, a passionate interest in its history, a love of the
academic legal literature, and a great desire to practice law.[9]
I believe I would be more justified in saying "I support the
Constitution" than many, many people who have taken a solemn
oath to that effect. And yet, the
Court has ruled that I cannot do so.
The Oath and America's "Organic Law"
The U.S. Supreme Court has said that taking an oath to
"support the Constitution" was "simply. . .
an affirmation of 'organic
law'. . . ."[14] The "Organic
Law" is the fundamental law of the State, its constitutive
principles. It is the legal foundation upon which all statutes and
decisions are to be grounded. In West's edition of the U.S. Code,
the section on "The Organic Laws of the
United States of America" contains such documents as the Declaration
of Independence, the Constitution, and the Northwest
Ordinance.[15]
One part of America's Organic Law makes a stunning declaration
about the purpose of education. In his concurring opinion in Engel
v. Vitale, 370 US 421 at 443, the case which removed
voluntary prayer from public schools, Justice Douglas admitted:
- Religion was once deemed to be a function of the
public school system. The
Northwest Ordinance, which antedated the First
Amendment, provided in Article III that
- Religion, morality, and
knowledge being necessary to good government
and the happiness of mankind, schools and
the means of education shall forever be
encouraged.[16]
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I agree emphatically that "Religion, morality, and
knowledge [are] necessary to good government and the happiness of
mankind," so I could certainly affirm the
"organic law" to that extent.[17] An
1892 Supreme Court decision (Holy
Trinity v. U.S) lists other "organic
utterances." I am generally in agreement with these organic
laws. They are clearly supportive of a nation "under
God."
So swearing to "support the Constitution" is not a
difficult task for me. It's not like I'm some kind of Communist
revolutionary.
But if I want to be a Congressman, maybe I'd better be. The
U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Communists and Nazis
can take the oath to "support the Constitution," but
people with my religious beliefs cannot take the oath to
"support the Constitution" in "good faith."
That is, says the Court, we would be lying if we took that oath.
How could the Court come to this conclusion?
They first had to conclude that the Constitution was meant to
establish a secular nation. And the only way they could do that
was to violate the words of their oath of office. The
U.S. Supreme Court has repudiated
the nation's "organic law," though they solemnly
swore to uphold it.[18]
What a tremendous irony. Atheists have taken an oath to uphold
the "organic law" of the country, which requires
Christianity to be taught in public schools. They
have violated their oaths. Christians, on the other hand, have
been only too willing to conform to the pressure of the Secular
Humanists and promise never to let their Christianity affect
their actions as politicians.[19]
Most Americans support our organic law. Most Americans believe
America ought to be a nation "under
God."
In his famous "Farewell
Address," George Washington said:
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political
prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In
vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should
labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness - these
firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere
politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to
cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections
with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where
is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the
sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which
are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And
let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be
maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the
influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure,
reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national
morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle
Your vote for Kevin Craig will give him a chance to support
America's organic law.
"Violating" an unGodly
Oath
We've talked about keeping one's oath.
Now let's talk about consciously, deliberately, violating an
unGodly oath.
The Westminster Confession of Faith, written over 350 years
ago, declares,
Chapter
22:VII. No man may vow to do any thing forbidden in the Word
of God, or what would hinder any duty therein commanded, or
which is not in his own power, and for the performance whereof
he hath no promise or ability from God. [Acts
xxiii. 12, 14; Mark
vi. 26; Numb.
xxx. 5, 8, 12, 13.] In which respect,
popish monastical vows of perpetual single life,
professed poverty, and regular obedience, are so far from being
degrees of higher perfection, that they are superstitions and
sinful snares, in which no Christian may entangle himself. [Matt.
xix. 11, 12; 1
Cor. vii. 2, 9; Eph.
iv. 28; 1
Pet. iv. 2; 1
Cor. vii. 23.]
What about taking an oath to "support the
Constitution" when such an oath really means "support an
unconstitutional regime acting in the name of the Constitution
only"?
In "Again,
May God Forgive Us," William Norman Grigg writes:
We need to
dispense immediately with the idea that releasing the second
batch of photos depicting torture and other abuse at Abu
Ghraib and six other installations would create an
unacceptable danger to U.S. troops in the region.
Though it
seem callous of me to point out as much, we should recognize
that people who enlist in the military are paid, trained, and
equipped to confront danger. We should also recognize that we do
the cause of liberty no favors if we make it easier to invade
and occupy foreign countries; indeed, we ought to do everything
we can to accentuate the difficulty of carrying out criminal
enterprises of that sort.
While we
should focus most of our hostile attention on the policymakers
responsible for sending the military on imperial errands of that
sort, we shouldn't ignore the moral responsibility of every
individual who enlists in the military and carries out the
killing business such immoral policies entail. Given
the pervasive stench of imperial corruption exuded by all of our
public institutions, I cannot understand how anybody possessing
the moral equivalent of the sense of smell could enlist in the
military, or remain therein -- as if that particular
organization enjoys some peculiar immunity from the decadence
that afflicts the rest of the Regime.
Desertion
is a moral imperative when continued service implicates a
soldier in crimes against God and mankind.
Yes,
American enlistees
swear an oath in God's Name.
Then again, so
do Mafiosi. Nobody
outside of that criminal fraternity considers it improper for a
Mafia footsoldier to renounce
his oath. No
oath of service can sanctify participation in a criminal
enterprise. What should distinguish a republican military from
an armed gang is a sacred commitment to the rule of law --
meaning the defense of individual liberty and property, and the
enforcement of measures that limit the power of government.
next: Scandals in the Clinton
Administration
NOTES
1. Cole v. Richardson, 405 U.S. at 685, 92
S.Ct. at 1337; 31 L.Ed.2d 593 (1972). [Return
to text]
3. S. Levinson, Constitutional Faith
183 (1988). [Return to text]
4. R. Bork, The Tempting of America: The
Political Seduction of the Law, Part II, "The
Theorists" 133-265 (1990). [Return to
text]
5. E. Corwin, Constitutional Revolution,
Ltd., 13 (1941). [Return to text]
6. One "original intent" law
professor used to assign The Federalist Papers to his
class, who regularly complained about the degree of difficulty
reading the volume. He responded sympathetically, noting that the
students could not be expected to understand The Federalist
because it was not written for post-graduate law students in the
latter years of the 20th century, but for a group of people with a
much better education and greater thirst for liberty: farmers in
upstate New York, circa 1787. D. Barton, Education and
the Founding Fathers, p. 3 (1992). [Return
to text]
7. Cf. Psalm 15:1,4. ("Who may
abide in Your Tabernacle? Who may dwell in Your Holy Hill? He who
swears to his own hurt, but does not change.") [Return
to text]
8. Philip K. Howard, The Death of Common
Sense: How Law is Suffocating America, New York: Random House,
1994. See also http://dir.yahoo.com/Entertainment/Humor/Jokes/Lawyer_Jokes/
(lengthy list of Internet "Web sites" containing
"lawyer jokes"). [Return to text]
9. without threat of prosecution for doing so
without a license. [Return to text]
14. Cole v. Richardson, 405 U.S. 676
at 682, 92 S.Ct. 1332 at 1336, 31 L.Ed.2d 593 (1972), citing Ohlson
v. Phillips, 304 F.Supp. 1152 (Colo. 1969). [Return
to text]
15. 1 U.S.C.A 17-23 (West, 1988). The
Ordinance was originally approved while the nation was still under
the Articles of Confederation, but was repassed by Congress while
it was formulating the First Amendment so that it would remain in
effect under the new Form of Government. Annals of the Congress
of the United States, Wash. D.C.: Gales & Seaton, vol. 1,
pp. 56 (Senate), 660 (House). [Return to
text]
16. Northwest Ordinance, Sec. 14, Art. III, 1
U.S.C.A 21. (West, 1988). Schools were required by the federal
government to teach religion in those states admitted into the
Union under the Northwest Ordinance. The constitutions of states
admitted as late as 1875 (Nebraska) contained almost identical
language, requiring the teaching of Christianity in the public
schools. Commended by the U.S. Supreme Court in Church of the
Holy Trinity v. U.S., 143 U.S. 457, 469. [Return
to text]
17. It is noteworthy that as Secular courts
have removed Christianity as the Theocratic base of American law,
"religion, morality and knowledge" have also been
removed from the nation's schools. See the statistics in Barton, Myth,
pp. 207-220. And as Americans learned that they were their own
gods, tribal lands were also removed from the Indians. Theology
matters; ideas have consequences. The defective theology of the
Founders (above, note
82) metamorphosed into a pseudo-christian "civil
religion" whose "manifest destiny" justified greed,
commercial imperialism, and the oppression of the Indians. The
Calvinist Christian example toward native Americans is seen in The
Life and Letters of David Brainerd, (J. Edwards, ed., c.
1750). [Return to text]
18. Oh - wait, I'm sorry; they didn't
"solemnly swear." That was just a secular oath
they took. It was just an "amenity." No biggie. [Return
to text]
19. Prof. Levinson describes the capitulation
of ostensibly Christian politicians to this secular pressure: S.
Levinson, "The Confrontation of Religious Faith and Civil
Religion: Catholics Becoming Justices." (Symposium on
Politics, Religion, and the Relationship Between Church and State)
39 De Paul Law Review 1047 (1990). See also S.
Levinson, "Taking Oaths Seriously: A Comment on Carter and
Sunstein," (Symposium: Language, Law, and Compulsion) 2 Yale
Journal of Law & the Humanities 113 (1990); see
generally J. Buckley, "Bound by Oath; The Constitution's
Emphasis on Religion Should Be Taken Seriously," 80 ABA
Journal 113 (1994). [Return to text]
20. R. Rushdoony, The Messianic Character
of American Education (1963), R. Rushdoony, This
Independent Republic: Studies in the Nature and Meaning of
American History (1964). [Return to text]
21. No, I'm not making that up; would that I
had to: M. Bruner, et. al., "The Meaning of Meaning in
a Post-Meaning Age," 46 Int'l. Soc. Sci. J. 285
(1994). [Return to text]
22. Id. It is said that [abandonment
of the Christian epistemology of the Founding Fathers] brings
"freedom" and "openness and acceptance," but
"we must also be cognizant of the possibility that these very
qualities could contribute to unusually, even radically, cynical,
nihilistic and solipsistic Weltanschauungs [world-and-life
views] among students who not only think that 'they are the world'
but who very shortly will be." Id. [Return
to text]
23. In law, see J. Whitehead, The
Second American Revolution (1982). In philosophy, see
R. Rushdoony, The Word of Flux: Modern Man and the Problem of
Knowledge (1975) ("Having dispensed with God, man has
also in effect dispensed with a knowable universe." at 6.)
[Return to text]
24. Levinson, Constitutional Faith,
"'Nihilism' and the Professing of Law," 157, citing P.
Carrington, "Of Time and the River," 34 J. of Leg.
Educ. 222 (1984), and O. Fiss, "The Death of the
Law?" 72 Cornell L. Rev. 16 (1986). [Return
to text]
25. Levinson, ibid., 183. [Return
to text]
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