Austin Columnist

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susanbrown wrote:


>

>

> I'd also be interested in seeing the result of a strict interpretation of

> the Constitution--help us if the result is anything like the strict

> interpretation of the bible--how many denominations and sects do we have

> now?


    Two "fundamentalist" "sects".

    There are the textualists, who think we should not go outside the actual words
of the document The Constitution means exactly what the words in their specific
context in the document mean, and nothing more and nothing less.

    This was the constitutional hermeneutic which kept the court from allowing
labor unions to organize under the theory that the union would be interfering with
the rights of individuals to freely contract.[ Article I,  section 10 paragraph 1;
"No state shall . . .pass any . . .law impairing the Obligation of Contracts"]

    And there are the "intentionalists". I.e., we should try and discern what "the
intent of the founders" was when the passage under scrutiny was adopted.

    As you might guess, it is not necessarily always a nice straightforward
process to try and determine what a bunch of guys two hundred and more years dead
meant by they adopted as the language of any particular clause. What DID they mean
by-- no STATE shall pass any law impairing "the obligation of contracts". What
about the federal government since it wasn't included in the specific prohibition?
How does the 10th amendment affect your interpretation of  I, 10, (1) ? [10th
amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the
people.]




>

>

> Comments?  Suggestions?


    If you don't already have them, go to a law book store and pick up an
Emmanuels or Gilberts outline and a Constitutional Law "hornbook".


>


    Have fun!

--
       Michael Fisher, ET1/SS USN ret., law student

       http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html

       http://home.aol.com/Mfish6994

        *               *               *

      He that would make his own liberty secure,
      must guard even his enemy from oppression;
      for if he violates this duty,
      he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

                                              Thomas Paine

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