On Sun, 8 Jan 2006, Steve Schear wrote:
At 02:50 PM 1/7/2006, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
The upside of the coming Congressional hearings, we guess, is that Americans will get a lesson in the Constitution's separation of powers. We're confident they'll come away believing the Founders were right to the give the President broad war-fighting -- including surveillance -- powers.
Non-sense. Surveillance was almost unknown. Postal and physical searches rare and anyone desiring private conversations could just walk out into a field with the other party(s).
The Founders desired that Congress have the most authority and the President be essentially a manager. From the Washington's first term presidents have sought to broaden their powers. Until Lincoln they were mainly rebuffed by Congress, the courts and (indirectly) the states. Lincoln you should recall illegally suspended habeas corpus, threatened to jail the Chief Justice, shut down newspapers and jailed editors that in almost any way criticized Abe. It was the illegal passage of the 14th Amendments that helped put an end to whatever degree of state autonomy which had been recognized and ushered in a vastly more power federal government, including the President.
Steve
OK Steve, so you got me to thinking on this, and I went back to the source docs for some study. And I found this: http://www.usconstitution.net/constamnotes.html 13th Amendment <huge snip> slavery in all of the United States. Once the CSA was defeated, approval of the 13th Amendment was a requirement for readmittance into the United States. Proposed on January 31, 1865, it was ratified on December 6, 1865 (309 days). All of the CSA states except Mississippi ratified the 13th after the war; Mississippi ratified the amendment in 1995. is this true? Missisippi wasn't a state until 1995??? Anyone heard about this??? the mind reels at the possible judicial implications! -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin@mfn.org 0xBD4A95BF 'The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.' St. George Tucker