On John Adams

July 2, 2013August 13, 2013 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

July is a pivotal month for America. It marks the culmination of many years’ labor to bring thirteen discordant colonies around one solemn purpose, united in the essentials of independence, self-government and liberty under law. It was on this day that the Continental Congress actually voted, without dissent, for independence, accepting the resolution proposed by Richard Henry Lee back on June 7. Two days later, the day we now observe to mark the occasion, those gathered approved the Declaration drafted by Jefferson and presented to the Congress by its principal author (Jefferson), alongside John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston. At the center of this difficult task, at nearly every phase, was the tenacious John Adams of Massachusetts. It is perhaps not an overstatement to say that he truly was the driving force behind independence. Prodding, pushing, resolving, shouting above the din of opposition, John Adams deployed all of his energies and abilities to persuade his fellow colonists that nothing less than a complete and total independence is our future.

Free men and women, not only enjoying our God-given liberties, but exercising our moral obligations to keep them was the vision of Adams and those who stood in defiance of tyranny on this day, two hundred and thirty-seven years ago. It was a repudiation of permanent servitude to a distant authoritarian government, subsisting on what it deigns to allow us. It was an advance beyond the old, failed system of absolute monarchs who dictated the terms of life and death to subjects. It was also a summons to restore the rights and obligations of a people already free to stand on their own, free in their lives, property and persons…a freedom given, not by the approval of government, but by the Creator and Supreme Lawgiver.

It would be another son of Massachusetts, President Calvin Coolidge, who would offer a fitting tribute to this tireless and brave champion of ordered liberty. Delivered in Cambridge, July 3, 1925, to commemorate John Adams’ nomination of George Washington as commander of the Army, Coolidge said,

“I suppose if we were to pick any two men out of that gathering, to be set down as something other than politicians, Washington and sturdy old John Adams would be well toward the top of the polling. Though they approached the matter from utterly different angles, they were both led by the sagacity of great politicians to the same conclusion. To both, the crisis was essentially national. A nation must be created to deal with it…All this we look back upon as illumined statesmanship. But statesmanship is nothing more than good, sound politics, tested and proven. That is what it was when John Adams conceived the great strategy of calling a man of the South to the chief command. A more provincial man might have dreamed of Massachusetts, aided by the other colonies, taking and holding the lead and garnering the lion’s share of glory. But Adams was planning in terms of a nation, not of provinces…It was a stroke of political genius that Adams, soul of Puritanic idealism, should have moved the adoption of the army by Congress and the selection of Washington as commander in chief.

“…Let it ever be set down to the glory of Massachusetts that John Adams made George Washington Commander in Chief of the Continental Armies and John Marshall Chief Justice of the United States. Destiny could have done no more.”

It was Adams, at this critical juncture, who placed the righteous prospects of a United States before his own ambitions, the narrow passions of the moment or the instant gratification of anyone’s ambitions, and carried the day triumphant for the self-determination of every one of us down to modern time. The bold action taken by Adams exemplifies that our independence rests on character, the selfless sacrifice of his and every generation, to ensure that true freedom continues.

On Judges

June 27, 2013August 12, 2013 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

The announcement by the Court’s majority yesterday in United States v. Windsor broadcasts a fundamental departure from the proper role of judges. As Justice Scalia forecasts in his dissent, this is a judicial majority which is willfully abandoning the limited authority granted in Article III of the Constitution. It is an attempt to grasp the power of deciding abstract issues, instead of cases, with nothing but the policy preferences of five individuals. It is only a matter of time before their casual reference to federalism disappears and the Court “drops the other shoe,” building on this precedent to dictate to all situations what “democratically adopted” laws meet with the Court’s approval. This is not mere judicial review of Congressional acts, like in the past. This is exercising an authority to determine outcomes based on nothing more than whether they accord with the political views and social sympathies of community activists wearing robes. The language of law merely covers this assumption of control.

The Court’s majority is so lost when it comes to what judges are supposed to be doing that those who do not agree with their predetermined conclusion are branded as hate-filled homophobes with a “bare…desire to harm,” “disparage,” “injure,” “demean,” “impose inequality” and a “stigma,” denying “equal dignity,” branding same-sex couples as “unworthy,” and to “humiliate” their children. Such absurd accusations have no place being uttered by the highest Court in the land. As Justice Scalia observes, it is the Court’s majority behaving in so prejudicial and demeaning a fashion with this kind of rhetorical venom masquerading as legal authority. So much for a judge’s duty to impartially and “blindly” apply the appropriate law to the facts of each case that comes before it.

The Court is exercising a power greater than mere legislators when the future of law depends upon what a majority feels like allowing Congress, the states, individuals and other “enemies of the human race” to pass in future. It is precisely why the Founders wisely separated the judiciary from the executive and legislative powers. Now the Court’s majority seeks to return to a time when absolute sovereigns determined what law is and when it applied…to subjects. To some, this decision is a victory for “equality,” but when results are chosen after removing Justice’s blindfold by judges who do not accept their role as impartial triers of facts, no one’s liberties are secure any longer. It is the basis for equality, an equality under law, that has lost.

It is significant that a growing public opposition to the courts and a disrespect for the rule of law, not unlike now, was unfolding when Calvin Coolidge spoke these words in Boston, January 7, 1914, “Men do not make laws. They do but discover them. Laws must be justified by something more than the will of the majority. They rest on the eternal foundation of righteousness…Courts are established, not to determine the popularity of a cause, but to adjudicate and enforce rights. No litigant should be required to submit his case to the hazard and expense of a political campaign. No judge should be required to seek or receive political rewards…The electorate and judiciary cannot combine. A hearing means a hearing. When the trial of causes goes outside the court-room…constitutional government ends.”

Ten years later, he was observing the danger of using legal language to justify the assumption of power at the expense of liberty, “The Constitution of the United States has for its almost sole purpose the protection of the freedom of the people. We must combat every attempt to break down or to make it easy, under the pretended guise of legal procedure, to throw open the way to reaction or revolution. To adopt any other course is to put in jeopardy the sacred right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.”

He would reiterate the Constitution’s soundness into modern time, providing for stability as well as amendment. The course to amend, though deliberately long (to ensure the people consent to its changes), is ever open to those who seek improvements. It is not the place of the courts to amend it by judicial rule. “Our Constitution has raised certain barriers against too hasty change. I believe such provision is wise. I doubt if there has been any change that has ever really been desired by the people which they have not been able to secure. Stability of government is a very important asset. If amendment be made easy, both revolution and reaction, as well as orderly progress, also become easy. The nation has lost little, but has gained much, through the necessity of due deliberation. The pressing need of the present day is not to change our constitutional rights, but to observe our constitutional rights.

“A deliberate and determined effort is being made to break down the guarantees of our fundamental law…In this contest there is but one place for a real American to stand. That is on the side of ordered liberty under constitutional government…The time for Americans to range themselves firmly, squarely, and uncompromisingly behind American ideals is now…Those who want to continue to enjoy the high estate of American citizenship will resist all attempts to encroach upon their liberties by encroaching upon the power of the courts.”

On Equality

June 21, 2013October 5, 2013 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

When Coolidge spoke of the “American ideal” being that of equality, he had something very distinctive in mind. He was not talking about a communal utopia with perfect conformity, no property ownership, no borders, no religious, political or economic disparities. He was not endorsing our current slavery to “political correctness,” where any sensible standards of behavior, speech or thought deemed “insensitive” or “offensive” to someone somewhere sometime must be repeatedly apologized for and repaid with deserved ostracism. He lived in reality. He was not self-deluded or so naive to feel an equality of outcome was both possible or desirable in the real world. We are all equal before our Creator, but to expect an equality of results, especially built on the shifting sands of our morally confused culture, is the height of self-deception.

Coolidge understood that equality is only possible with fixed standards of conduct, established by our traditions, our customs and our morality. Without being anchored in Christ’s standard: treating each person as we would expect to be treated in mutual respect with God-given value, we are powerless against every cultural wind pulling us here and there. We are experiencing that anchor-less existence now, groping for some kind of authority that will take the place of what we have discarded.

When Coolidge spoke of equality, he had something more essential that the superficial differences of appearance, gender, upbringing. It was an appeal to rise above the artificial and work to attain higher standards. “Not that all are equal in degree, — there are differing glories, as of sun, and moon and stars, — but all are equal in kind, tolerating no class distinction, no privilege, save that which comes from service; no plutocrat, no proletariat, no authority, save that which is derived from the consent of the people.”

The George Orwell description of socialism as “equality, with some more equal than others,” was repugnant to Coolidge not because we all deserved to share equally in stuff, or we all deserved to be equally miserable. Coolidge knew the victim mentality was destructive, always empowering a few to use authority in fostering dependence and eroding self-reliance. The American ideal was a society built on the merit of service, not the authoritarian enforcement of what the people must accept as normal, fair or for their own good. The basis for equality under law is not dispensed by government, it comes from the consent of the governed. Anything less will always fail.

“The sovereignty of the people means the sovereignty not of a self-selected few. It means the supremacy of the matured convictions of all the people. Our franchise is not granted to class or caste. It is the acquired right of all Americans.”