Shortly after the storming of the Bastille, late in the evening of 4 August, after a very stormy session of the Assemblée constituante, feudalism was abolished. On 26 August, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen) was proclaimed. One of my favorite posts here is one of my […]
For all judges, sovereign and subordinate, if they refuse to hear proof, refuse to do justice: for though the sentence be just, yet the Judges that condemn without hearing the proofs offered are unjust judges and their presumption is but prejudice…In like manner, in ordinary trials of right, twelve men of the common people are […]
If America’s founders hadn’t guaranteed the right to a jury trial in our Constitution, we might look like Canada (who inherited the same English common law and history). Early in the jury system, an accused was required to consent to be tried by a jury. However, the choice was illusory. Coercive methods were used including […]
I originally posted this on Feb. 18, 2018, titled “The Post Horn”. For here were God knew how many citizens, deliberately choosing not to communicate by US Mail. It was not an act of treason, nor possibly even of defiance. But it was a calculated withdrawal, from the life of the Republic, from its machinery. […]
I accept reality and dare not question it. Walt Whitman, The Bard of Democracy
The sentence is weak. The weakness is deliberate. Madison couldn’t afford, on the one hand, to let the amendment seem to contradict the hard-won federal military power in the Constitution’s main body. He couldn’t afford, on the other hand, to underscore too strongly for the states’ comfort the overwhelming nature of that federal power. The […]
Are we supposed to believe that the Justices who have signed on to the draft opinion shouting that Roe was “always” “egregiously wrong” – since it was decided in 1973 (almost fifty years ago) – were truth-telling during their confirmations when they praised Roe as “important” precedent that they’d never really thought about? If so, […]
Thomas Jefferson had no idea about the internet. Thanks, Zuckerberg.
