John Engler Quotes

The national government shall have the power

It was commonly asked of Blacks applying to register. There are few people who could give a cogent response to this. What made it terrible was that the white racist registrars had the unilateral authority to determine whether or not the oral response was adequate. Recording of responses were prohibited so that no Black who was disenfranchised could ever appeal when he/she was rejected. This is one of the thousands of techniques that were used throughout the South to prevent Negro voting. They were so egregious that Lyndon Johnson was abe to force through Southern filibusters The Voting Rights Act which has eliminated the worst of the racist restrictions on Black voting. As the worst of the racist white generation has died off, Southern discrimination in voting has lessened and the situation is better each year. By 2012 there were some who claimed that the law was no longer necessary do to changes in attitude and practice, but others worried that if there were no longer any forms of discrimination in voting, why some wanted to repeal the Voting Rights Act.

at the 1787 Constitutional Convention

Most of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were aristocrats, and all were elites of different types. However, they wanted and knew that they would have to submit their work product to the people for ratification. So while each had their own views, most were heavily influenced by their perception of public opinion reaction to their draft. Even with that, in order to get the ratification votes, they had to add the first 10 amendments—the Bill of Rights in order to get the votes of the men who were NOT at the convention.

In that year Rhode Island was the only state left where only property owners (less than half the adult males) could vote and the state legislature had not been reapportioned since the original charter in 1663. The People’s Constitution was duly ratified in December 1841. The incumbents wrote a Constitution of their own and submitted it to the voters in March of 1842. It was rejected. Dorr and his followers put up a slate of candidates and were elected, Dorr as Governor. The incumbents refused to recognize the officials elected under such a “radical” system and tried to have Dorr arrested and did arrest many of his followers. Dorr then led a unsuccessful rebellion against the illegal government. Nonetheless Dorr was sentenced to life imprisonment. A new charter was submitted to the voters which expanded the voting franchise somewhat. In 1845 Governor Charles Jackson was elected having pledged to pardon Dorr, which he did immediately.

Soon after Jackson's reelection, delegates from South Carolina, led by John C. Calhoun, moved quickly to declare "null, void, and no law" the Tariff Act of 1832. The president's reaction to the Ordinance of Nullification was swift.

The first Georgia legislature had been corrupt and had been bribed to sell huge tracts of land at cheap prices to four large speculators who in turn sold smaller parcels of land to thousands at huge profits. Over a decade later a new state legislature realizing the mistake that had been made, voted to invalidate all the sales and treat the land as public land. This solution had great popular support. However, the Supreme Court in upholding private rights ruled that the State legislature could not invalidate a legal private contract. More important, it established the precedent, still argued to this day.

This constitution was written 7 years before the national constitutional convention. It shows that there was concern about the separation of powers in United States even before the Constitution was drafted. See {616750} for an even clearer statement of the separation of powers principle.

George W. Bush. See {618119} for the rejoinder to the defense.