From: Rebecca O'Dell Townsend
Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2005 10:58 AM
To: RMScheffler; Dr. Vance R. Lackore
Subject: Article: Court Opinions are Not the Law; They are Merely Opinions of What the Law Is.
 
"The Congress, the Executive and the Court must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution. Each public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution swears that he will support it as he understands it, not as it is understood by others.  The opinion of judges has no more authority over Congress than the opinion of Congress has over the judges and on that point the President is independent of both."  - Andrew Jackson, 1832.

"Whoever would be obliged to obey a constitutional law is justified in refusing to obey an unconstitutional act of the legislature ... when a question, even of this delicate nature occurs, everyone who is called to act has a right to judge."  - James Wilson, 1791, Lectures on Law.

"Court opinions are evidence of Law, not law themselves."  - Sir William Blackstone.

"The law, we are discovering, is too serious a matter to be left to lawyers or even judges."  - Gertrude Himmelfarb, One Nation, Two Cultures (arguing that judges are responsible for most of the dysfunction of contemporary American life).

"[Justice] Marshall has made his ruling; now let him enforce it."  -Andrew Jackson.

"You're telling me the First Amendment will not allow me to acknowledge God in a public place.  Wrong.  Unconstitutional.  Not going to do it."  - Former Justice Roy Moore.

Our founding fathers considered the judicial branch to be the weakest and least dangerous of all three branches.  As Alexander Hamilton stated, the executive branch "dispenses the honors and holds the sword," the legislative branch "commands the purse and prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are regulated," but the judiciary "has no influence over either sword or purse."  As James Madison stated, "it is necessary that the judiciary have the confidence of the people."  "It will soon be lost," warned Madison, "if they are employed in the task of remonstrating against popular measures of the legislature.  "Well, my friends, that time has come.  Our judiciary has taken upon itself the task of "remonstrating" against vital, moral and constitutional legislation.  Our legislators are unable, despite their best efforts, to pass moral and popular legislation that can withstand the unconstitutional "veto" of our judicial branch.  Our judicial branch has taken upon itself to "prescribe the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are regulated," a task that does not belong to it.  We have been patient, but we have finally and irrevocably lost confidence in the judiciary.  Just as Madison warned.

The judiciary must be restored to its proper role within the confines of our written Constitution. Our legislators and our executive officers must learn to say "no" to the unconstitutional and immoral rulings of the judicial branch.   Our elected representatives must learn to say to the judiciary, "You have made your ruling; now you enforce it."  We must teach our electedrepresentatives that they can and that they should refuse to enforce or to comply with unconstitutional and immoral judicial decisions.  We must take away the Court's "sword" and "purse."

Court opinions are not the law; they are merely opinions.  Our legislatures make the laws.  That is in the Constitution.