During a heated portion of the debate, Holder said, "reading the Constitution is retarded". Her statement was missed by Mr. Hannity and Mr. Sekulow had been in the middle of explaining why Congress should be familiar with the Constitution and did not call Ms. Holder on her ignorance. The 112th Congress has made history today. They became the first Congress in the history of America to read the Constitution to start the session. After years of feeling like our government was the furthest away from the founders, I'm suddenly feeling like our founders are getting closer and closer. I don't want to jump the gun but, in honor of the current Congress, allow me to present quotes from our founders that might explain to Ms. Holder, why they read the Constitution today:
George Washington
"The Constitution is the guide which I shall never abandon.”
"If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield."
"This Government… adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support."
Thomas Jefferson
"The Constitution... is unquestionably the wisest ever yet presented to men."
"In questions of power let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution."
"Tho' written constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion, yet they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the people: they fix too for the people the principles for their political creed."
"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."
"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."
"On every question of construction [let us] 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 Paine
"A constitution defines and limits the powers of the government it creates. It therefore follows, as a natural and also a logical result, that the governmental exercise of any power not authorized by the constitution is an assumed power, and therefore illegal."
James Madison
"I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation... If the meaning of the text be sought in the changeable meaning of the words composing it, it is evident that the shape and attributes of the Government must partake of the changes to which the words and phrases of all living languages are constantly subject. What a metamorphosis would be produced in the code of law if all its ancient phraseology were to be taken in its modern sense. And that the language of our Constitution is already undergoing interpretations unknown to its founders, will I believe appear to all unbiased Enquirers into the history of its origin and adoption." - In a letter to Henry Lee, June 25, 1824
"Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government."
Alexander Hamilton
"The present Constitution is the standard to which we are to cling. Under its banners, bona fide must we combat our political foes - rejecting all changes but through the channel itself provides for amendments."
"There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid."
"The Constitution ought to be the standard of construction for the laws, and that wherever there is an evident opposition, the laws ought to give place to the Constitution."
"While the Constitution continues to be read, and its principles known, the states, must, by every rational man, be considered as essential component parts of the union; and therefore the idea of sacrificing the former to the latter is totally inadmissible."
Still not ready to forgive Ms. Holder? Me either... Please, give her a call:
| toll free: 1.877.XPUNGED phone: 312-981-1414 fax: 312-332-4629 |
Send her a letter:
The Law Firm of Tamara N. Holder, LLC
| 19 South La Salle St. Suite 1500 Chicago, Illinois 60603 |
And make sure you drop by her website and leave her a comment or two:
http://www.theholderposition.com/
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