Part 17 (1/2)

In South Carolina, neither the yeas nor nays are given. (Elliot, Vol. 1, p. 325.)

In Georgia, the yeas were 26; _nays not given_. (Elliot, Vol. 1, p.

324.)

We can thus see by what meagre votes the const.i.tution was adopted. We can also see that, but for the prospect that important amendments would be made, specially for securing the natural rights of the people, the const.i.tution would have been spurned with contempt, as it deserved to be.

And yet now, owing to the usurpations of lawmakers and courts, the original const.i.tution--with the worst possible construction put upon it--has been carried into effect; and the amendments have been simply cast into the waste baskets.

Marshall was thirty-six years old, when these amendments became a part of the const.i.tution in 1791. Ten years after, in 1801, he became Chief Justice. It then became his sworn const.i.tutional duty to scrutinize severely every act of congress, and to condemn, as unconst.i.tutional, all that should violate any of these natural rights. Yet he appears never to have thought of the matter afterwards. Or, rather, this ninth amendment, the most important of all, seems to have been so utterly antagonistic to all his ideas of government, that he chose to ignore it altogether, and, as far as he could, to bury it out of sight.

Instead of recognizing it as an absolute guaranty of all the natural rights of the people, he chose to a.s.sume--for it was all a mere a.s.sumption, a mere making a const.i.tution out of his own head, to suit himself--that the people had all voluntarily ”come into society,” and had voluntarily ”surrendered” to ”society” all their natural rights, of every name and nature--trusting that they would be secured; and that now, ”society,” having thus got possession of all these natural rights of the people, had the ”unquestionable right” to dispose of them, at the pleasure--or, as he would say, according to the ”wisdom and discretion”--of a few contemptible, detestable, and irresponsible lawmakers, whom the const.i.tution (thus amended) had forbidden to dispose of any one of them.

If, now, Marshall did not see, in this amendment, any legal force or authority, what becomes of his reputation as a const.i.tutional lawyer? If he did see this force and authority, but chose to trample them under his feet, he was a perjured tyrant and traitor.

What, also, are we to think of all the judges,--forty in all,--his a.s.sociates and successors, who, for eighty years, have been telling the people that the government has all power, and the people no rights? Have they all been mere blockheads, who never read this amendment, or knew nothing of its meaning? Or have they, too, been perjured tyrants and traitors?

What, too, becomes of those great const.i.tutional lawyers, as we have called them, who have been supposed to have won such immortal honors, as ”expounders of the const.i.tution,” but who seem never to have discovered in it any security for men's natural rights? Is their apparent ignorance, on this point, to be accounted for by the fact, that that portion of the people, who, by authority of the government, are systematically robbed of all their earnings, beyond a bare subsistence, are not able to pay such fees as are the robbers who are authorized to plunder them?

If any one will now look back to the records of congress and the courts, for the last eighty years, I do not think he will find a single mention of this amendment. And why has this been so? Solely because the amendment--if its authority had been recognized--would have stood as an insuperable barrier against all the ambition and rapacity--all the arbitrary power, all the plunder, and all the tyranny--which the ambitious and rapacious cla.s.ses have determined to accomplish through the agency of the government.

The fact that these cla.s.ses have been so successful in perverting the const.i.tution (thus amended) from an instrument avowedly securing all men's natural rights, into an authority for utterly destroying them, is a sufficient proof that no lawmaking power can be safely intrusted to any body, for any purpose whatever.

And that this perversion of the const.i.tution should have been sanctioned by all the judicial tribunals of the country, is also a proof, not only of the servility, audacity, and villainy of the judges, but also of the utter rottenness of our judicial system. It is a sufficient proof that judges, who are dependent upon lawmakers for their offices and salaries, and are responsible to them by impeachment, cannot be relied on to put the least restraint upon the acts of their masters, the lawmakers.

Such, then, would have been the effect of the ninth amendment, if it had been permitted to have its legitimate authority.

SECTION XXVI.

The tenth amendment is in these words:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the const.i.tution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, _or to the people_.

This amendment, equally with the ninth, secures to ”the people” all their natural rights. And why?

Because, in truth, no powers at all, neither legislative, judicial, nor executive, had been ”delegated to the United States by the const.i.tution.”

But it will be said that the amendment itself implies that certain lawmaking ”powers” had been ”delegated to the United States by the const.i.tution.”

No. It only implies that those who adopted the amendment _believed_ that such lawmaking ”powers” had been ”delegated to the United States by the const.i.tution.”

But in this belief, they were entirely mistaken. And why?

1. Because it is a natural impossibility that any lawmaking ”powers”

whatever can be delegated by any one man, or any number of men, to any other man, or any number of other men.

Men's natural rights are all inherent and inalienable; and therefore cannot be parted with, or delegated, by one person to another. And all contracts whatsoever, for such a purpose, are necessarily absurd and void contracts.

For example. I cannot delegate to another man any right to _make_ laws--that is, laws of his own invention--and compel me to obey them.

Such a contract, on my part, would be a contract to part with my natural liberty; to give myself, or sell myself, to him as a slave. Such a contract would be an absurd and void contract, utterly dest.i.tute of all legal or moral obligation.