Political mobs are always in an uproar during the confirmation of a new chief justice. The Kavanaugh circus highlights that. But why so serious? The main reason is the Court’s betrayal of its constitutional role. American citizens view court nominees as the ultimate arbiters of whether they will be forcibly disarmed, stripped of their property, treated like prisoners when traveling, or denied sovereignty over their own bodies.
The Court’s post-9/11 apathy allowed for dubious government conduct.
The Supreme Court shirked ruling on the National Security Administration illegal wiretapping, instead rejecting a challenge in 2013 because the defendants could not prove the feds secretly spied on them. Edward Snowden released a deluge of documents proving vast illicit surveillance of millions of Americans. But because the Court never stood up for Americans’ constitutional rights, a 2015 appeals court decision, authored by Brett Kavanaugh declared that “the Government’s metadata collection program is entirely consistent with the Fourth Amendment.”
In 1990, in the case of Michigan vs. Sitz , the Supreme Court upheld drunk driving checkpoints because the searches were equally intrusive on all drivers, so no individual had a right to complain. This stood the Bill of Rights on its head, requiring government to equally violate the rights of all citizens. The same legal mindset sanctifies Transportation Security Administration to treat all travelers like terrorist suspects.
In 2001, in the case of Atwater vs. Lago Vista , the Court upheld the arrest of any citizen accused of violating any picayune local, state, or federal ordinance. This case involved a Texas woman who was driving slowly in a residential area; because her children were not wearing seatbelts, she was handcuffed and taken away. The Court declared that police can arrest anyone believed to have “committed even a very minor criminal offense.” This ignores the criminalization of everyday life that has occurred at every level of government, thus giving law enforcement pretexts to detain almost anyone they choose. The police can find a reason to pull over almost any driver.
In 2005, in the case of Kelo vs. New London , the Supreme Court approved local politicians confiscating private property as long as they believe that some other private use of the land would generate more tax revenue. Scuttling the Fifth Amendment’s Takings clause (which restricted the use of eminent domain), the Court instead empowered governments to commandeer any land for almost any purpose so long as government officials promised net benefits to society sometime in the future. This bizarre decision makes private property rights contingent on political candor.
What would make people behave this way?
One explanation is that the left’s visceral disdain for the president translates into absolute opposition to his nominees. Nearly 80 percent Trump’s nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals, for example, received a “well qualified” rating from the American Bar Association, higher than the previous four presidents of both parties. And yet, these nominees have received an average of 33 negative votes in the Senate, compared to only 11 for President Barack Obama’s “well qualified” nominees, six for President George W. Bush’s, and just five for President Bill Clinton’s.
Another, more profound explanation is that the conflict over judicial appointments is really a conflict over judicial power. How much power should unelected, life-tenured judges have in our system of government?
Judges have two basic tasks. First they interpret, and then they apply written law—such as statutes or the Constitution—to decide individual cases. You can tell what kind of judge someone is by whether he or she interprets and applies the law impartially or politically. An impartial judge deliberately takes his own priorities or views out of the equation; a political judge deliberately inserts them.
So the conflict over a nominee like Kavanaugh is a conflict over the kind of judge America needs on the bench. Do we need impartial judges who let the American people and those they elect make the law, or do we need judges who make the law for them?
If the Constitution is the rulebook for government, do judges have to follow it too or can they manipulate the rules and do as they please?
Our system of government comes by design, not by accident, and it is designed with an impartial judiciary in mind. That’s the only way that our system of government works the way it is supposed to. It also means that certain political forces are not going to get what they want.
But rather than persuade the American people to adopt their political agenda, the left has tried to change the system by installing political judges.
America’s founders designed the judiciary to be the weakest of the three branches, yet the steady appointment of political judges has transformed it into the most powerful branch. Political judges have been, to use Thomas Jefferson’s description more than two centuries ago, twisting and shaping the Constitution into any form they choose.
In 1937, about the time this trend toward a more political judiciary began, Justice George Sutherland warned about judges who appear to be interpreting the law but are really amending it “in the guise of interpretation.”
That’s exactly what is happening today. Those who can’t get the American people to support their political agenda want the kind of judges who will force it upon the American people.
There’s a lot at stake in the kind of judges a president appoints. Impartial judges let the people run the country; political judges do it for them.
Kavanaugh’s opponents are doing everything to defeat his nomination for the very reason America needs him on the Supreme Court: He is an impartial judge, not a political one.
If there are protests, one would assume it would be Americans demanding that the Supreme Court should return to its long-lost role as a bulwark against tyranny. Instead, we have have morons dressed up like characters on A Handmaid’s Tale, not having any clue what the real problems are.
Paul Plante says
One thing is for sure here – you won’t be reading analysis of reality in modern America like that in the New York Times or the Washington Post, nor will you be hearing it from insipid, pretty-boy airheads like Chris Cuomo, son of Mario, brother of Young Andy, likely our next president in 2020, who is a star of CNN precisely because he is a pretty face, which comforts people who do watch him on CNN, known locally anyway as the Cuomo News Network.
Well done, as always, Cape Charles Mirror!
Paul Plante says
As to the intent of the framers of the Constitution with regard to the federal judiciary, reading through the Federalist Papers, it is not until FEDERALIST No. 78, “The Judiciary Department” by Alexander Hamilton to the People of the State of New York in McLEAN’S Edition, New York, an earlier version of the Cape Charles Mirror, that we come across the subject, as follows:
WE PROCEED now to an examination of the judiciary department of the proposed government.
In unfolding the defects of the existing Confederation, the utility and necessity of a federal judicature have been clearly pointed out.
It is the less necessary to recapitulate the considerations there urged, as the propriety of the institution in the abstract is not disputed; the only questions which have been raised being relative to the manner of constituting it, and to its extent.
To these points, therefore, our observations shall be confined.
The manner of constituting it seems to embrace these several objects: 1st. The mode of appointing the judges.
2d. The tenure by which they are to hold their places.
3d. The partition of the judiciary authority between different courts, and their relations to each other.
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From that introduction, it is as yet hard to tell if America’s founders designed the judiciary to be the weakest of the three branches, so we need to delve further then, into Federalist No. 78, to see if their intent might become more clear.
As to the mode of appointing the judges, Hamilton more or less blows that subject off by simply stating that this is the same with that of appointing the officers of the Union in general, and has been so fully discussed in the two last numbers, Federalists No. 76 and No. 77, that nothing can be said here which would not be useless repetition.
So much for the modern spectacle of these “confirmation hearings,” which are scripted drama made for television audiences.
Hamilton then moves to the subject of the tenure by which the judges are to hold their places, by stating that this chiefly concerns their duration in office; the provisions for their support; the precautions for their responsibility.
Getting down to brass tacks, Hamilton tells us across the gulf of time that according to the plan of the Constitutional Convention, all judges who may be appointed by the United States are to hold their offices DURING GOOD BEHAVIOR; which is conformable to the most approved of the State constitutions and among the rest, to that of this State.
Hamilton continues by stating that the standard of good behavior for the continuance in office of the judicial magistracy is certainly one of the most valuable of the modern improvements in the practice of government, telling us therein that in a republic it is an excellent barrier to the encroachments and oppressions of the representative body, which would imply to me, anyway, that the framers of the Constitution saw the federal judiciary as a check on the legislative branch, with good reason, as anyone who has read the early history of the United States and all the preceding Federalist papers would know.
Thus, the federal judiciary, at least in the eyes of the framers of the Constitution, would have to be equal in power to the legislative branch, if not actually stronger, as we see from Hamilton’s statement that it is the best expedient which can be devised in any government, to secure a steady, upright, and impartial administration of the laws.
As to the federal judiciary being the “weakest branch,” I think Hamilton disposes of that in this next sentence, to wit:
“Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them.”
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Based on my own extensive study of the federal judiciary from the time of its founding, including reading the bios of each Supreme Court justice from the beginning up to the present time, coupled with actual experience as a plaintiff in civil rights matters directly involving the political rights of the Constitution, which are quite ephemeral in actual practice, which experience includes a face-to-face confrontation with now-Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, I think Hamilton was being quite idealistic and/or naïve there with that statement, as the federal judiciary today is the greatest enemy we have as citizens concerning our rights as American citizens.
I think Hamilton was completely unaware of how party politics would enter into that equation, as it has in our times today, where it is political reliability, not good behavior, that counts.
Getting back to the perceived role of the federal judiciary at the time of the framing of the Constitution in 1787, this is how Hamilton tells us the framers saw the relationship between the three branches of government at the federal level in this country, to wit:
The Executive not only dispenses the honors, but holds the sword of the community.
The legislature not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated.
The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever.
It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.
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And how wrong subsequent history was to prove Hamilton, for the federal judiciary indeed has a great deal of direction as to the wealth of the society.
Getting back to Hamilton’s idealistic view of things back in 1788, he states that this simple view of the matter suggests several important consequences, to wit:
1) It proves incontestably, that the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power – that it can never attack with success either of the other two; and that all possible care is requisite to enable it to defend itself against their attacks.
2) It equally proves, that though individual oppression may now and then proceed from the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter; I mean so long as the judiciary remains truly distinct from both the legislature and the Executive.
3) For I agree, that there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers.”
4) And it proves, in the last place, that as liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have every thing to fear from its union with either of the other departments; that as all the effects of such a union must ensue from a dependence of the former on the latter, notwithstanding a nominal and apparent separation; that as, from the natural feebleness of the judiciary, it is in continual jeopardy of being overpowered, awed, or influenced by its co-ordinate branches; and that as nothing can contribute so much to its firmness and independence as permanency in office, this quality may therefore be justly regarded as an indispensable ingredient in its constitution, and, in a great measure, as the citadel of the public justice and the public security.
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As I say, in his time, if someone would have told him of the absolute power the Republican and Democrat parties in this country hold over our federal judiciary as well as the executive and legislative branches in our times today, Hamilton would have thought they were pulling his leg.
Then, Hamilton went on to say this, to wit:
The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution.
By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ex-post-facto laws, and the like.
Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.
Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.
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And there is where I will rest for the moment, because thanks to partisan politics infecting the federal judiciary, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges do amount to nothing, and I am the living proof of that.
Paul Plante says
So we are in agreement that America’s founders designed the judiciary to be the weakest of the three branches, but that has to be kept in the context of being a threat to our liberty as citizens – the founders thought, quite erroneously, that they had designed a frame of government where the federal judiciary would in fact be independent of the political branches of our national government, and hence, would be a check on the legislative branch, especially the popular branch, the House of Representatives, which was deemed the biggest threat to our liberty – hence the Senate as a counterpoise to the passions of the people in the House.
We today forget, or more likely, probably never knew that at the time the Federalist Paper above on the judiciary was written, America was on the verge of collapse, as can be seen from a review of FEDERALIST No. 15, “The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union,” for the Independent Journal to the People of the State of New York, by Alexander Hamilton, as follows:
“It must in truth be acknowledged that, however these may differ in other respects, they in general appear to harmonize in this sentiment, at least, that there are material imperfections in our national system, and that something is necessary to be done to rescue us from impending anarchy.”
“The facts that support this opinion are no longer objects of speculation.”
“They have forced themselves upon the sensibility of the people at large, and have at length extorted from those, whose mistaken policy has had the principal share in precipitating the extremity at which we are arrived, a reluctant confession of the reality of those defects in the scheme of our federal government, which have been long pointed out and regretted by the intelligent friends of the Union.”
“We may indeed with propriety be said to have reached almost the last stage of national humiliation.”
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Ah, yes, national humiliation!
How familiar that sounds, does it not?
So the new Constitution, including the role of the federal judiciary, was intended to save us from national humiliation and impending anarchy.
With respect to that national humiliation, Hamilton stated further in Federalist No. 15, as follows:
Is respectability in the eyes of foreign powers a safeguard against foreign encroachments?
The imbecility of our government even forbids them to treat with us.
Our ambassadors abroad are the mere pageants of mimic sovereignty.
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For the record, I am one of those reactionaries here in America, even worse, I suppose, than a Conservative, who thinks that if one truly wants to understand the Constitution, then one has an obligation to read each and every Federalist Paper word for word, and draw one’s justifications for their interpretation from each and every one of those documents, which cover that subject and that period of our history from soup to nuts.
If you don’t know where you started, and you are clueless as to where you are going, then any direction you go off in is as good as any other, but then that is applied to government, the result is chaos, which is the distinct message to us across the gulf of time from Alexander Hamilton at the birth of this nation we know as the United States of America today, which nation Hamilton described as follows in Federalist No. 15, to wit:
This is the melancholy situation to which we have been brought by those very maxims and councils which would now deter us from adopting the proposed Constitution; and which, not content with having conducted us to the brink of a precipice, seem resolved to plunge us into the abyss that awaits us below.
Here, my countrymen, impelled by every motive that ought to influence an enlightened people, let us make a firm stand for our safety, our tranquillity, our dignity, our reputation.
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There is what the federal courts are supposed to be safeguarding – our safety as a people, our tranquility as a people, our dignity as a nation among nations, and our reputation as a people – not the whims of the Democrat party, and not the whims of the Republican party, either.
But as we are told The Honorable Stephen R. McCullough, Judge, Court of Appeals of Virginia, in the political essay “A Vanishing Virginia Constitution?” on January 13, 2012, the federal Supreme Court has been all over the board since its creation, literally pulling “history” from out of its *** to justify political positions, to wit:
The Supreme Court can and does overrule its own precedent, expressly or in practical effect.
More broadly, throughout its history, the Court has engaged in significant philosophical realignments, moving from natural law to positivism, and transitioning from Lochnerist invalidation of congressional acts to the New Deal accommodation of very broad assertions of federal power.
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As the lede to this thread states, political judges have been, to use Thomas Jefferson’s description more than two centuries ago, twisting and shaping the Constitution into any form they choose.
Getting back to Hamilton and Federalist No. 15 and what it was supposed to be, as opposed to the putty the federal courts have turned our history into, we have:
Let us at last break the fatal charm which has too long seduced us from the paths of felicity and prosperity.
It is true, as has been before observed that facts, too stubborn to be resisted, have produced a species of general assent to the abstract proposition that there exist material defects in our national system; but the usefulness of the concession, on the part of the old adversaries of federal measures, is destroyed by a strenuous opposition to a remedy, upon the only principles that can give it a chance of success.
While they admit that the government of the United States is destitute of energy, they contend against conferring upon it those powers which are requisite to supply that energy.
They seem still to aim at things repugnant and irreconcilable; at an augmentation of federal authority, without a diminution of State authority; at sovereignty in the Union, and complete independence in the members.
They still, in fine, seem to cherish with blind devotion the political monster of an imperium in imperio.
This renders a full display of the principal defects of the Confederation necessary, in order to show that the evils we experience do not proceed from minute or partial imperfections, but from fundamental errors in the structure of the building, which cannot be amended otherwise than by an alteration in the first principles and main pillars of the fabric.
The great and radical vice in the construction of the existing Confederation is in the principle of LEGISLATION for STATES or GOVERNMENTS, in their CORPORATE or COLLECTIVE CAPACITIES, and as contradistinguished from the INDIVIDUALS of which they consist.
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To me, an admitted reactionary, with all that that entails, that last sentence is key to understanding what it is the federal courts were intended to exist for, as the federal constitution as law of the land was supposed to apply to each and every one of us, regardless of “social class” or “social standing” or political persuasion, but as the federal courts have subsequently warped and twisted out history to the point of making it unrecognizable, but obviously doesn’t.
That the laws of the United States were supposed to apply to each of us as a citizen is further supported by Federalist No. 15, as follows:
Abandoning all views towards a confederate government, this would bring us to a simple alliance offensive and defensive; and would place us in a situation to be alternate friends and enemies of each other, as our mutual jealousies and rivalships, nourished by the intrigues of foreign nations, should prescribe to us.
But if we are unwilling to be placed in this perilous situation; if we still will adhere to the design of a national government, or, which is the same thing, of a superintending power, under the direction of a common council, we must resolve to incorporate into our plan those ingredients which may be considered as forming the characteristic difference between a league and a government; we must extend the authority of the Union to the persons of the citizens, the only proper objects of government.
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Now, how many different ways can the phrase “we must resolve to incorporate into our plan those ingredients which may be considered as forming the characteristic difference between a league and a government; we must extend the authority of the Union to the persons of the citizens, the only proper objects of government” be interpreted?
Is there a liberal interpretation of that, that is different from a conservative interpretation?
A reactionary like me says no way in hell.
Getting back to Federalist No. 15, Hamilton continues as follows:
Government implies the power of making laws.
end quotes
But does it, anymore, as we watch the spectacle of these Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, which make it today that “government” implies a farce, and nothing else.
Hamilton then states as follows concerning the laws the federal courts are supposed to uphold, if they are constitutional:
It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience.
If there be no penalty annexed to disobedience, the resolutions or commands which pretend to be laws will, in fact, amount to nothing more than advice or recommendation.
This penalty, whatever it may be, can only be inflicted in two ways: by the agency of the courts and ministers of justice, or by military force; by the COERCION of the magistracy, or by the COERCION of arms.
The first kind can evidently apply only to men; the last kind must of necessity, be employed against bodies politic, or communities, or States.
It is evident that there is no process of a court by which the observance of the laws can, in the last resort, be enforced.
Sentences may be denounced against them for violations of their duty; but these sentences can only be carried into execution by the sword.
In an association where the general authority is confined to the collective bodies of the communities, that compose it, every breach of the laws must involve a state of war; and military execution must become the only instrument of civil obedience.
Such a state of things can certainly not deserve the name of government, nor would any prudent man choose to commit his happiness to it.
There was a time when we were told that breaches, by the States, of the regulations of the federal authority were not to be expected; that a sense of common interest would preside over the conduct of the respective members, and would beget a full compliance with all the constitutional requisitions of the Union.
This language, at the present day, would appear as wild as a great part of what we now hear from the same quarter will be thought, when we shall have received further lessons from that best oracle of wisdom, experience.
It at all times betrayed an ignorance of the true springs by which human conduct is actuated, and belied the original inducements to the establishment of civil power.
Why has government been instituted at all?
Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.
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And that last statement by Hamilton there takes us right back to the beginning of this thread, to wit: Political mobs are always in an uproar during the confirmation of a new chief justice.
And yes, the Kavanaugh circus does highlight that the passions of men and women of the Democrat party today will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, period.
Paul Plante says
As to this CIRCUS Dianne Feinstein and her pack of Democrats are treating us and the candid world to with respect to this Kavanaugh Kerfuffle, in FEDERALIST No. 76, “The Appointing Power of the Executive,” from the New York Packet to the People of the State of New York on Tuesday, April 1, 1788, Alexander Hamilton wrote as follows on the subject of federal judges, to wit:
THE President is to NOMINATE, and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States whose appointments are not otherwise provided for in the Constitution.
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Reading that, one truly has to wonder exactly what advice Senator Dianne Feinstein has provided to anyone, starting with the American people, with this CIRCUS she has started, centered of Dr. Blasey Ford and her last-minute allegations that she thought an incoherently drunk Brett Kavanaugh was going to rape and kill her back in 1982, when she was just fifteen, while Kavanaugh buddy Mark Judge looked on and laughed, having fun at her expense, which is very dramatic.
In Federalist No. 76, Hamilton continued as follows, to wit:
It has been observed in a former paper, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.
If the justness of this observation be admitted, the mode of appointing the officers of the United States contained in the foregoing clauses, must, when examined, be allowed to be entitled to particular commendation.
It is not easy to conceive a plan better calculated than this to promote a judicious choice of men for filling the offices of the Union; and it will not need proof, that on this point must essentially depend the character of its administration.
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And there is where the whole system put in place by the so-called “founders” breaks down in our sorry times today – with people like Democrat Dianne Feinstein in our Senate, the aptitude of our national government to produce a good administration is now very low, and this Feinstein CIRCUS is the proof of that, right before our eyes.
It is incandescently clear from her actions in this matter that Feinstein never intended to even make an effort to fulfill her Constitutional obligation as a U.S. Senator to give advice concerning Kavanaugh, who already is a federal judge who has gone through some six background checks prior to this, all while Feinstein has been a member of the Senate.
So why is she pulling this political stunt now, given that none of this information about Kavanaugh should be new to her today.
And the answer is that she is playing at partisan politics in the hopes that her Democrat party can gain control of our national government and God help the nation if that should happen.
With respect to those political games Feinstein is playing here, Hamilton went on as follows:
Hence, in every exercise of the power of appointing to offices, by an assembly of men, we must expect to see a full display of all the private and party likings and dislikes, partialities and antipathies, attachments and animosities, which are felt by those who compose the assembly.
The choice which may at any time happen to be made under such circumstances, will of course be the result either of a victory gained by one party over the other, or of a compromise between the parties.
In either case, the intrinsic merit of the candidate will be too often out of sight.
In the first, the qualifications best adapted to uniting the suffrages of the party, will be more considered than those which fit the person for the station.
In the last, the coalition will commonly turn upon some interested equivalent: Give us the man we wish for this office, and you shall have the one you wish for that.
This will be the usual condition of the bargain.
And it will rarely happen that the advancement of the public service will be the primary object either of party victories or of party negotiations.
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Reading that, one must truly wonder whether Hamilton was gifted with prescient vision, because he certainly has nailed it with regard to this on-going Feinstein CIRCUS going on right now down if the fetid swamp of Washington, D.C., where Dr. Blasey Ford is now being put forth by the Democrats as a “profile in courage” for simply doing her civic duty, as she has called it in her deposition testimony before the Senate panel Feinstein is a member of – the advancement of our public service in this country is not the primary object of the Feinstein CIRCUS, a Democrat party victory is.
With respect to the role of the Senate, Hamilton gives us this:
The Senate could not be tempted, by the preference they might feel to another, to reject the one proposed; because they could not assure themselves, that the person they might wish would be brought forward by a second or by any subsequent nomination.
They could not even be certain, that a future nomination would present a candidate in any degree more acceptable to them; and as their dissent might cast a kind of stigma upon the individual rejected, and might have the appearance of a reflection upon the judgment of the chief magistrate, it is not likely that their sanction would often be refused, where there were not special and strong reasons for the refusal.
To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate?
I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation.
It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity.
In addition to this, it would be an efficacious source of stability in the administration.
It will readily be comprehended, that a man who had himself the sole disposition of offices, would be governed much more by his private inclinations and interests, than when he was bound to submit the propriety of his choice to the discussion and determination of a different and independent body, and that body an entire branch of the legislature.
The possibility of rejection would be a strong motive to care in proposing.
The danger to his own reputation, and, in the case of an elective magistrate, to his political existence, from betraying a spirit of favoritism, or an unbecoming pursuit of popularity, to the observation of a body whose opinion would have great weight in forming that of the public, could not fail to operate as a barrier to the one and to the other.
He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.
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So, is any of that true today?
It doesn’t seem so to me, anyway.
Where Hamilton’s political theories break down is with his failure to anticipate how partisan politics could end up perverting our whole national government, as we can clearly see from this following from Federalist No. 76, to wit:
Though it might therefore be allowable to suppose that the Executive might occasionally influence some individuals in the Senate, yet the supposition, that he could in general purchase the integrity of the whole body, would be forced and improbable.
A man disposed to view human nature as it is, without either flattering its virtues or exaggerating its vices, will see sufficient ground of confidence in the probity of the Senate, to rest satisfied, not only that it will be impracticable to the Executive to corrupt or seduce a majority of its members, but that the necessity of its co-operation, in the business of appointments, will be a considerable and salutary restraint upon the conduct of that magistrate.
Nor is the integrity of the Senate the only reliance.
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Except our Senate today has no integrity, as Dianne Feinstein is so clearly demonstrating with her on-going CIRCUS centered around Dr. Blasey-Ford.
In FEDERALIST No. 77, ” The Appointing Power Continued and Other Powers of the Executive Considered,” from the New York Packet to the People of the State of New York on Friday, April 4, 1788, Alexander Hamilton continued the subject of the role of the Senate as follows:
IT HAS been mentioned as one of the advantages to be expected from the co-operation of the Senate, in the business of appointments, that it would contribute to the stability of the administration.
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That breaks down in our times today precisely because the Senate Democrats have made it patently clear that they are not there to co-operate -they are there to disrupt the process and to thereby destabilize our national government.
With respect to the stability of our national government that was to be provided by the Senate, Hamilton stated thusly:
Where a man in any station had given satisfactory evidence of his fitness for it, a new President would be restrained from attempting a change in favor of a person more agreeable to him, by the apprehension that a discountenance of the Senate might frustrate the attempt, and bring some degree of discredit upon himself.
Those who can best estimate the value of a steady administration, will be most disposed to prize a provision which connects the official existence of public men with the approbation or disapprobation of that body which, from the greater permanency of its own composition, will in all probability be less subject to inconstancy than any other member of the government.
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And how wrong subsequent history has proven Hamilton to be – the Senate is a ******* joke when it comes to integrity and constancy.
Dianne Feinstein and her made-for-TV POLITICAL CIRCUS on-going right now in Washington, D.C . featuring a cast of hundreds, if not thousands by the time this show is over, is more than adequate proof of that contention.