Month: April 2018

Regarding Article V:

“It moreover equably enables the general and the state governments to originate the amendment of errors as they may be pointed out by the experience on one side or on the other.”

But, of course the state governments are not treated equably by the language of Article V.  Congress needs a simple majority for a quorum and a 2/3 majority to propose.  But the states need 2/3 for a quorum.  If it was truly equitable in practice, as well as theory, how is it that Congress has proposed 33 amendments, and the states have produced none?

 

The market is rocking right along this morning.  The problem with putting  money in this market is the Tweeter-in-Chief.  No one knows what comes next.

Trump is a demagogue, and tweeting is an aspect of his unpresidential populist appeal.  It’s policy by tweet.  The Framers would be appalled.

He’s a one term President.  You read it here first.  The system devised by the Framers was designed to deal with demagogues.  And it will deal with Trump.

John Stevens Jr. was prominent in New Jersey commerce and politics, and was elected Vice-President of Council when New Jersey adopted its first state constitution.  The seventh of his letters to the Daily Advertiser (New York), under the pseudonym “Americanus”, appeared on January 21, 1788.

“If there really are any ambiguous expressions contained in this Constitution, I am persuaded, the good sense of my fellow countrymen, will dictate to them the necessity of expunging them, the moment they shall feel the least inconvenience arising from them.  The full discovery of these inaccuracies must necessarily be left to time.”

From his grave, Americanus calls out, “What are you waiting for?”

 

Joseph Barrell was a Boston merchant whose fleet of ships were converted to privateers during the Revolutionary War.  And he was an American patriot.

In a December 20, 1787 letter to his brother Nathaniel concerning the proposed Constitution, he wrote, “. . . I think this one consideration alone will induce you to adopt it, vizt. because the present Confederation cannot be altered, unless all the 13 States agree and I was going to say Heaven and Earth may pass away before that event will take place!  While the Constitution now proposed may be alterd when ever Nine States shall require it, Is it not therefore better to adopt this Constitution (even as it was not the best) which may be alterd rather than to retain the present Wretched System wch. never can? –

From The Debate on the Constitution, Part One, p. 588.  The great American historian Bernard Bailyn selected the contents and wrote the headings and notes for this volume,  copyright 1993 by Literary Classics of the United States, New York, N. Y.

The only credentials I offer are my law degree from UCLA, my experience as a state legislator and political activist, and my bachelor’s degree in Political Science from UC Berkeley.

As to the latter, it doesn’t sound like much, and it isn’t, except for the fact that I had the great good fortune to study under Professor Jacobus tenBroek, the smartest man I ever met.

He was a law professor at the Boalt School of Law, located on the Berkeley campus.  He taught one undergraduate course a year, and I was fortunate to get in it.  Only sixty students got to take it, because Professor tenBroek didn’t lecture.  He used the Socratic method, and everyone in class was a participant, rather that a spectator.

TenBroek, completely blind since childhood, came to class with 60 separate 4×6 cards, each containing the name of a student in braille.  He’d finger through his deck, find a student he wished to interrogate, and called upon them to answer a question.  Your answer was followed by another question, and another.

TenBroek himself took no position on the political theories that we discussed.  He wanted everyone to come to their own conclusions.  I absolutely loved it.  I had never been exposed to a mind like his.  My own political convictions were based on shallow thinking.  Ten Broek forced me to justify them, intellectually..

A year after I graduated I got in some trouble.  My mother asked me who she could turn to for help.  The only person I could think of was Professor tenBroek.  I wasn’t even sure he’d remember me.  But when my mother called him, he did remember, and he did help me.  He died just weeks later,

A great man, but more importantly a good one.