“Our Founders designed a system that makes it more difficult to bring about change than I would like sometimes.” Barack Obama, President of the United States, February 6, 2012.
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Like many other Americans, for years I’ve been deeply concerned about our nation’s future. My fears have been exacerbated in the past three years because of the often lawless, anti-American and incompetent reign of Barack Obama. Worse, his presidency will continue for another year. Even worse, he might be reelected.
In light of that possibility, consider a recent report in The Weekly Standard that a survey commissioned by the American Revolution Center found “when it came to a simple test of knowledge about the founding [of the United States of America], nearly 83 percent of . . . Americans failed.”Many of our fellow citizens believe that the founding principles of this nation are passé, that the Declaration of Independence’s ringing endorsement of republican institutions, individual rights and limited government is outdated, that the Constitution’s creation of a representative republic belongs to a time gone by, and that the Bill of Rights is not a restraint on government but rather a source of newly invented “rights.”
Along with this woeful ignorance, and largely because of it, the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights—rooted in republican institutions, individual rights and limited government—are under an unprecedented attack by Barack Obama and his far left Democratic Party, aided and abetted by the complicit mainstream media, unions, academia, and entertainment industry. To say nothing of many courts, and in too many cases even by the Supreme Court of the United States itself.
Employing and legitimizing the exercise of statist power, the Supreme Court of the United States has facilitated Congress and state legislatures in their sacrifice of individual rights to the common good, and made a mockery of the Founder’s creation of a limited government.
With few notable exceptions, there is hardly any knowledgeable, explicit and principled defense of our Constitution and Bill of Rights to be found anywhere.
Not on radio, television, or in Hollywood. Not in the press. Not at the grassroots. Certainly not in academia. Nor, sadly, by many Republicans, Conservatives or Libertarians. Most of the media’s pontificating so-called constitutional experts, especially those on national television, usually do more harm than good because they spread disinformation that is neither knowledgeable nor principled. Note, for example, the Republican presidential candidates’ pitiful and embarrassing “debates.”
While many Tea Party activists and other patriots have been valiantly trying to fight for core constitutional values, many of them are disarmed because they’ve been taught little about American constitutional law. Everyone fighting for America today, in order to defend the Constitution and Bill of Rights, is obliged to know as much as possible. But most don’t.
Those who are committed to fighting for America’s future are obligated to acquire at least a basic understanding of the Constitution’s origins and birth, its written text, the manner in which it has been deliberately violated, and the consequences of how it has been misinterpreted by its enemies.
Because of the importance of our struggle, about eighteen-months ago I put aside most of my writing and legal work to offer a twenty-hour, ten lecture Internet course on American constitutional law.[*] (Those unfamiliar with my credentials and my commentaries on legal and political issues are welcome to peruse my blog (www.henrymarkholzer.blogspot.com) and my website (www.henrymarkholzer.com)). Although my Internet course was successful, some of the listeners expressed disappointment that the lectures weren’t available in a permanent text form.
They are now.
I have had the entire twenty hours of lectures transcribed, and have edited them for a less extemporaneous, more polished presentation, and added new material.
The result of my labors is this new, approximately 200-page,book Constitutional Law 101, for the American Patriot published by Madison Press. It will be available within six weeks from the following sources, with more to be added in the future. Because my goal is to maximize readership—especially during the nine months before the November 2012 election—Constitutional Law 101, for the American Patriot will be priced at close to the cost of production.
E-BOOKS
Kindle
Smashwords
Barnes & Noble
SONY
Diesel
Aldiko
KOBO
Stanza
HARDCOPIES/POD
Amazon
If you find Constitutional Law 101, for the American Patriot worthwhile, I have two requests. One is that you inform everyone you know that it exists and how to obtain it, and ask them to do the same so that we can make the book known to as many Americans as possible. This goes double for all Tea Partiers you know, because most of them have their own lists containing the names of like-minded folks. Second, write a positive review on Amazon.
Extended Table of Contents
Preface
Fear of the future.
How to fight that fear.
Introduction
Why I’ve written Constitutional Law 101, for the American Patriot.
The underlying leitmotif running through American political philosophy and jurisprudence.
What led to my discovering and experiencing the consequences of that leitmotif, as law student, lawyer and law professor.
My formulation of the central question: What subverted America’s founding principles of individual rights and their corollary, limited government?
And the brilliant answer provided by the late Ayn Rand.
What is “constitutional law”?
1. Formation of the American Republic
Genesis of the American Republic, before the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration of Independence, as moral and political statement.
The text and meaning of the Declaration of Independence, with some little-discussed emphases.
Our Founding Fathers, among them some surprising figures.
First Continental Congress, an important but troubled beginning.
Constitutional Convention of 1787, off in another direction.
Structure and content of the Constitution, a brilliant conception.
The ratification battle in the Federalist and elsewhere, revealing amazing foresight by leading Founders.
James Madison’s monumental achievement in the first Congress.
Debates over the Bill of Rights’ ratification, and the sometime narrowness of its approval.
2. The American Constitutional System: Judicial review, federalism, separation of powers
John Marshall the judicial giant, and the genesis of judicial review.
Marbury v. Madison, where Chief Justice John Marshall established the principle of Judicial Review, the Supreme Court came to be the Constitution’s final arbiter, and the Supreme Court of the United States the “more equal” branch.
“Originalism” and other methods of constitutional interpretation, pragmatic and otherwise.
The “Living Constitution.”
Federalism. The relationship and tensions between the federal and state governments, showing federal legislation affecting matters which should be within the Tenth Amendment powers of the states. How the Court thwarted Arkansas voters, and how the Court’s conservatives thwarted Congress in the Brady Law gun case of Printz v. United States.
Separation of powers. The relationship and tensions between the three supposedly co-equal branches of government — legislative, executive and judicial — showing how the “more equal” Supreme Court refereed battles between the President and Congress and, in the bargain, expanded its own powers. For example, President Truman’s seizure of the steel mills during the Korean War and the House of Representatives’ refusal to seat a playboy Congressman.
Griswold v. Connecticut, illustrating ignored federalism, violated separation of powers and run- amok judicial review.
3. Congress and its commerce and war powers
The source, nature, and scope of Congress’s seemingly unlimited power.
Early “Bank controversy,” with Washington refereeing between Jefferson and Hamilton.
Second bank of the United States, the “Necessary and Proper Clause” and birth of the Congressional-power monster.
Commerce Clause, steamboats, lottery tickets and home-grown wheat.
More Commerce Clause, Bobby Kennedy’s “moral wrongs,” hamburgers, motels, and how some Court conservatives won two small victories against the Clause’s tsunami.
Still more Commerce Clause, and buying health insurance or going to jail.
Congress’s war powers, including draftees dying in World War I trenches and the infamous Korematsu case’s incarceration of American citizens during World War II.
4. The President’s powers: Domestic, foreign and war
The President’s “chief executive” and “faithfully execute” power, including President Obama’s appointment of “czars.”
The embargo on selling arms abroad during the Chaco War, loss of American sovereignty to the United Nations, one United States Senator's attempt to prevent the U.S. from becoming just another “state” on a planet with no individual countries, and the Supreme Court's “reassurance” that treaties and the dangerous “executive agreements” don't override domestic United States law.
The President as Commander-in-Chief, undercut by the Supreme Court in its four Twenty-First Century terrorism cases which have nearly emasculated his war-fighting powers by treating al-Qaeda terrorists like common criminals, granting them constitutional rights in defiance of controlling precedent and remaking the judiciary into America's ultimate Generalissimo.
5. The Judiciary And Its Powers
The source, nature, and scope of judicial power, as provided in the Constitution and federal statutes.
Limitations, if any, on judicial power. For example, are courts able to render opinions that are only advisory; may they simply decide not to decide; are there questions too “political” to be decided; can just anyone sue, and what do tomatoes have to do with the federal judicial power?
6. Intergovernmental relations
The “horizontal” relationship between the states.
State compacts.
The requirement of “full faith and credit” in our constitutional system of “joint sovereignty.”
Extradition.
Constitutional limitations on Congress"s power
Textual limitations on the power of Congress, including suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, to which alien terrorists now captured on the field of battle are apparently entitled.
Constitutional limitations on the power of the states
The few textual constitutional limitations of the power of the states, including the prohibition against impairment of contracts—which didn't prevent the Supreme Court from upholding the Minnesota Mortgage Death Act in the heyday of the New Deal.
Racially restrictive realty covenants.
7. Prohibitions On Both Congress And The States: The Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment
Introduction to the Bill of Rights.
By what trick of judicial legerdemain did the Bill of Rights—whose First Amendment begins “Congress shall make no law. . . .”—come to limit the powers reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment?
The “Incorporation Doctrine.”
The myth of “Substantive” Due Process, and its impact on laundresses, anarchists, killers; also, contraception, and abortion.
8. The First Amendment
Religion. Who's correct about “establishment of religion,” the Founders or the ACLU and the Supreme Court? And to know whether the “free exercise” of religion is really free, ask the Mormons.
Speech. Of the various categories of speech—political, obscene, threatening, commercial, symbolic, employee, defamatory, indecent—which are more, and which less, protected— and why? What about subversive advocacy, and political campaigns?
9. The Eighth Amendment
Cruel and Unusual Punishment, including why drawing and quartering is no longer acceptable, but vegetarian meals for murderous prisoners might be required.
Cruel and Unusual Punishment, including why drawing and quartering is no longer acceptable, but vegetarian meals for murderous prisoners might be required.
10. Equal protection of the law
The Emancipation Proclamation to the Fifteenth Amendment, including various Civil Rights.
Racial discrimination, white juries, and inter-racial marriages
The racism euphemistically called “affirmative action.”
Racial segregation, including Brown v. Board of Education (I), desegregation with “all deliberate speed,” and the dozen-year school desegregation case.
Does desegregating a school mean that it must then be forcibly integrated?
Conclusion
Political party platforms.
Final thoughts about Constitutional Law 101, for the American Patriot’s leitmotif, and the destruction wrought by the “inner contradiction.”
About the author
A brief biography of Henry Mark Holzer
[*] Much of the substance of this book derives from that series of lectures and from my essays and books.
