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From: john@cisden.UUCP (John Woolley)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Edwin Meese
Message-ID: <355@cisden.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Dec-85 12:53:30 EST
Article-I.D.: cisden.355
Posted: Mon Dec 30 12:53:30 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 2-Jan-86 19:48:51 EST
References: <446@ssc-bee.UUCP> <4740@alice.UUCP> <1945@psuvax1.UUCP>
Reply-To: john@cisden.UUCP (John Woolley)
Organization: ConTel Information Systems, Denver
Lines: 43

In article <1945@psuvax1.UUCP> berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman) writes of
Edwin Meese:
>The guy was quoted as saying that the Bill of Rights should not
>apply to states.  
>The guy provided many times opinions to the Supreme Court which were 
>outrageously out of the bounds of the existing legal doctrine.

Until 1925, the Supreme Court had held that when the Bill of Rights said
"Congress", it in fact meant Congress, and did not limit the powers of
States.  Nobody, as far as I know, ever argued that the Bill of Rights 
itself applied to States.  But in 1925 the Court ruled that the 14th
Amendment (ratified just after the Civil War) implied that the Bill of
Rights' limitations to Federal power were also to be applied to the States.

During the Senate debates on the 14th Amendment, a clause specifying that
the States were to be held to Bill-of-Rights limitations was specifically
rejected.  That is, the people who wrote, debated, and ratified the 14th
Amendment thought it meant one thing, and the 1925 Supreme Court "interpreted"
it to mean something else.

This doesn't, of course, mean that States *should* have been left free to do
everything the Constitution allowed them to.  But let's not get so attached
to recent Court decisions that we think anyone who likes the original
meaning of the Constitution is stupid or evil.

Some people, Meese included, think recent Supreme Courts have subverted
Constitutional principle.  President Reagan was elected in part because
the electorate agrees with him on this.  Wouldn't it be pretty silly for
his Attorney General to just go along with the Court on everything?

>As far as the remark
>
>> Well, tell us what he said, not your interpretation of what he said.
>> And tell us your sources, so that we can verify it for ourselves if we wish.
>
>is concerned, I think that this newsgroup should not be a substitute
>for reading newspapers.

If you can't remember where you read it, Mr. Berman, just say so.
-- 
				Peace and Good!,
				      Fr. John Woolley
"The heart has its reasons that the mind does not know." -- Blaise Pascal