When Judges interpret the Constitution by their preferences, we must ask: Is their preference what our Founders and Framers intended? Think about it: If today’s judges insert their preferences, they, in effect, change the law based on what they want it to say, not on what the law and the facts intend.
Interpreting the Constitution By Our Preferences
We may not like the original intent of the law. We may prefer a rendering that agrees with our present-day shifting sands of cultural drift. However, this is not the intention of the Founders and Framers of our country and our Constitution. Where do we discover the law and the facts? By carefully studying the law and accurately interpreting legal terms at the time of our founding. Might I add, thinking is hard work. We live in a culture of lazy minds. Such carelessness leads to more chaos and lawlessness.
The argument goes something like this: “The Founders are dead, old white men. They don’t live in today’s times.” The rebuttal is this: “The Founders’ skin color, in this case, is irrelevant. Their legal and scholarly expertise in the law (and they had plenty more than we do) is what matters. If we don’t like the law, we must follow Article V’s amendment process, not insert our wishes and motives without We the People’s consent.”
Americans at the time of the founding were far more versed in legal conversation and terms than we are. There is no undercover agenda or meaning. The law says what it says. Judges (and citizens) are to discover the law and the facts, not their personal preferences or prejudices.
Interpreting the Constitution Requires Study
Let’s use a few examples from the Fourteenth Amendment (1):
“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same….”
Notice:
-An elector of President and Vice-President is NOT the President or Vice-President.
-“Civil or military under the United States or any State” does not mean elected office holders.
-In Article II, the President commissions officers of the United States. He does not commission himself. In reviewing the Constitution’s use of the term “officers of the United States, the President and Vice-President are not listed. Usually, such “officers” are appointed, not elected.
-The Fourteenth Amendment is a part of the Civil War Amendments, and its original intent is essential to accurate interpretation.
Interpreting the Constitution: Look Into the Law and the Facts
I learned the above information by reading the Constitution for myself and seeking the meaning of these words from scholars like Rob Natelson, Josh Blackman, and Seth Barrett Tillman. I repeat, thinking is hard work. Reading and digging for the original intent takes time. I had to re-read things over and over to “get it.”
Now, re-read the Fourteenth Amendment, Sec. 3. Learning the language interpretation changes what we hope it means to what it actually says.
May Judges and We the People look into the law and the facts to interpret the Constitution.
This is Common Sense Civics and Citizenship. 🇺🇸
(1) Natelson, Rob. Epoch Times, January 3-9, 2024, p. A18
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