Charles Evans Hughes Quotes
If by the statement that what the Constitution meant at the time of its adoption it means today, it is intended to say that the great clauses of the Constitution must be confined to the interpretation which the framers, with the conditions and outlook of their time would have placed upon them, the statement carries its own refutation. It was to guard against such a narrow conception that Chief Justice Marshall uttered a memorable warning— ‘We must never forget that it is a Constitution we are expounding ... a constitution intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs.’
The quotation he gives from the first Chief Justice is from McCulloch v. Maryland, 1819. The issue is one that has divided jurists and politicians ever since the Constitution was ratified was should it be interpreted literally giving credence only to that which the framers specifically intended or as Hughes, Marshall and most modern interpreters believe that the principles should be interpreted in the light of the times. The Founding Fathers never envisaged an Internet or a potential enemy who could kill millions of Americans without sending large contingents of soldiers to our shores.
Charles Evans Hughes, 1862-1948, Chief Justice, U. S. Supreme Court, U. S. Secretary of State, Governor of New York (Republican), Republican Presidential Candidate, Home Building & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell, 1934
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From this quotation, {615902} and {615901} it is clear that the framers of the Constitution intended the treaty making powers to be shared by the President and the Senate. In practice, in modern times treaties are usually initially negotiated by diplomats under the supervision of the President and the Senate gets to concur or not in the ratification process. However, there have been a number of treaty failures including the League of Nations where the lack of coordination has resulted in a situation where the Senate had to accept or reject something which the President had negotiated and the Senate rejected the treaty.
The Chief Justice at the time was an ultra-conservative judge, who together with his 8 colleagues—all conservative—had blocked much of the democratic and progressive legislation that the Congress had passed. FDR had a much different legal and philosophical view of the Constitution than the Chief Justice, and the court would declare much of his New Deal legislation, passed in the emergency of the Great Depression, unconstitutional. Almost all of those “unconstitutional” things were years later passed again and this time a more modern court found they were Constitutional.
This quotation is an excellent statement of the argument of interpreting a constitution—in this case Wisconsin’s—in light of modernity or to only interpreted consistent with the original intent and mindset.
The argument was Prohibition, the 18th Amendment.
There are some conservatives who accused Brennan of altering the Constitution from the bench by his opinions. However, there is an unending debate as to how the constitutional interpreters should deal with concepts and reality that did not exist at the time of the Constitutional Convention and were unconcieved of. Some justices like Brennan believe that the principles of the Constitution should be extended and extrapolated to modernity. Others believe that in the absen?ce of specific language even Supreme Court just should not try and extrapolate. Both are reputable views and as time and technology march ahead, the issue is joined more frequently. For example, the Founding Fathers did not conceive of atomic weapons. But they insisted that Americans have the right to bear arms. An atomic bomb is a type of arm—a weapon of war and defense. Does an individual American have the right to have his own atomic bomb?
The Chinese had a custom of binding the feet of female young children so that they would never grow large. Small feet were considered beautiful. However, the woman was almost crippled by the process and could barely walk.
Charles Evans Hughes Sr. was an American statesman and politician who served as the 11th Chief Justice of the United States from 1930 to 1941. A member of the Republican Party, he was also the 36th Governor of New York, the Republican nominee in the 1916 presidential election, and the 44th United States Secretary of State.
