Citizen Advocates for Constitutional Principles

Citizen Advocates for Constitutional Principles

Constitutional Gems - # 643 – 10-28-06

Focusing on the Constitutional

The Preamble was placed in the Constitution more or less as an afterthought. It was not proposed or discussed on the floor of the Constitutional Convention. Rather, Gouverneur Morris, a delegate from Pennsylvania who as a member of the Committee of Style actually drafted the near-final text of the Constitution, composed it at the last moment. It was Morris who gave the considered purposes of the Constitution coherent shape, and the Preamble was the capstone of his expository gift. The Preamble did not, in itself, have any substantive legal meaning. The understanding at the time was that preambles are merely declaratory and are not to be read as granting or limiting power - a view sustained by the Supreme Court in Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905).
The Heritage Guide to The Constitution - Edwin Meese III; page 43

Question: What role did a preamble hold at the time of the Constitutional Convention?

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Focusing on Constitutional Principles - Donald Conkey

Principle of Good Government # 21: “Strong local self-government is the keystone to preserving human freedom.” In introducing this principle Skousen wrote, “Political power automatically gravitates toward the center, and the purpose of the Constitution is to prevent that from happening. The centralization of political power always destroys liberty by removing the decision-making function from the people on the local level and transferring it to the officers of the central government. This process gradually benumbs the spirit of ‘voluntarism’ among the people, and they lose the will to solve their own problems. They also cease to be involved in community affairs. They seek the anonymity of oblivion to the seething crowds of the city and often degenerate into faceless automatons who have neither a voice nor a vote.” Question: Has America reached this non-involvement stage in its on-going history?
Source: Skousen’s 5000 Year Leap

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