26 May 2005
Our Constitution’s 10th Amendment
In the Wall Street Journal on May 24, 2005, Lino A. Graglia, in association with Robert Bork, compliments the Framers of the Constitution for precluding “very few policy choices that legislators, at least as committed to American principles of government as judges, would have occasion to make.” None of the branches of government is more committed to liberty than the people themselves. Indeed without the 10th Amendment, the Constitution would not have been ratified. It reserves the powers not expressly delegated by the Constitution to the federal government to the states or the people.
It is only up to the people themselves, through the amendment process, to further give their elected officials permission to violate their private rights. In a democracy, the judgment of elected legislators must be carefully circumscribed in order to preserve the people’s power. Thus, the role of constitutional law is not to make policy, but precisely to prevent policy from being made by unbridled legislators.
The nine lawyers charged with protecting our democracy from legislation run amok are not directly elected, but must be approved by the same legislators whose actions they keep within the Constitution’s limits. Thank goodness for the minority rights that remain in the Senate to protect us from a Supreme Court dominated by judicators like Mr. Bork, who would dispense with its responsibility for reserving rights to the people not expressly delegated by the Constitution to our government.
In the Wall Street Journal on May 24, 2005, Lino A. Graglia, in association with Robert Bork, compliments the Framers of the Constitution for precluding “very few policy choices that legislators, at least as committed to American principles of government as judges, would have occasion to make.” None of the branches of government is more committed to liberty than the people themselves. Indeed without the 10th Amendment, the Constitution would not have been ratified. It reserves the powers not expressly delegated by the Constitution to the federal government to the states or the people.
It is only up to the people themselves, through the amendment process, to further give their elected officials permission to violate their private rights. In a democracy, the judgment of elected legislators must be carefully circumscribed in order to preserve the people’s power. Thus, the role of constitutional law is not to make policy, but precisely to prevent policy from being made by unbridled legislators.
The nine lawyers charged with protecting our democracy from legislation run amok are not directly elected, but must be approved by the same legislators whose actions they keep within the Constitution’s limits. Thank goodness for the minority rights that remain in the Senate to protect us from a Supreme Court dominated by judicators like Mr. Bork, who would dispense with its responsibility for reserving rights to the people not expressly delegated by the Constitution to our government.
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