Progress of the Human Mind Requires Change in Law

Republican leaders and activists are found of claiming they want to follow the constitution as the founding fathers intended it 235 years ago. Many including those in Texas even want to reverse the 17^th amendment which changed the method of selecting United States senators from being elected by the state legislatures to being elected directly by popular vote of the citizens of each state. Of course, their interpretation of the constitution and the founders’ intent is often self-serving and just cover for their own desires much as their bible interpretations so often are.

So in this week in which we celebrate the Declaration of Independence which was written but a man who, while not among those who wrote the constitution, did influence it through his discussions with those who did write it, let us consider something else he wrote. Thomas Jefferson, flawed individual and slaveholder, was a thoughtful, erudite man of his times. One of his concerns about the constitution as expressed in a 1787 letter to William Stephens Smith, son-in-law of John Adams, relates to the lifetime appointment of members of the Supreme Court. “What we have lately read in the history of Holland, in the chapter on the Stadtholder, would have sufficed to set me against a Chief magistrate eligible for a long duration, if I had ever been disposed towards one: and what we have always read of the elections of Polish kings should have forever excluded the idea of one continuable for life.” Lifetime appointments when many of us now live into our 80’s and 90’s leave us with appointees who now routinely serve for 25 years or more. In the days of the founders far fewer survived even a decade on the bench. I don’t doubt that there are some advantages to experience and wisdom but at the same time spending so much of one’s life in such an elevated position often leads to a loss of touch with the world that the rest of us live in and the changes that have moved society forward.

In an excerpt from a letter to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816 which is carved on the Southeast Portico of the Jefferson Memorial, Jefferson is quoted: "I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as a civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

Until as recently as 1986, when Antonin Scalia took his seat on the bench, even Republican Supreme Court Justices considered the constitution a living document which allowed them to address Jefferson’s concerns without the upheaval and blood-shed of a revolution. Since then more members of the misleadingly named Federalist Society have been appointed and they’re anything but federalists in that they push against federal power claiming the states should make the rules, such as in the recent case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health the six member conservative majority rejected a federal right to abortion in favor of allowing state legislatures to decide as they may. Leaving gerrymandered  and thus conservative controlled states like to Texas to essentially outlaw abortions even though the majority of Americans and likely Texans believes that abortions should be legal.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - July 6, 2022

LTE in response to a guy that thinks this is a "Christian" nation and always was

Dale Wehrle and other purported constitutionalists might want to revisit some of this nation’s history when claiming that this is or ever was an exclusively “Christian” nation.

Roger Williams who founded Rhode Island in 1635 after a run in with the Puritan government of Massachusetts over separation of church and state wrote a warning against opening “a gap in the hedge, or wall of separation, between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world”. That sounds a lot like Thomas Jefferson’s “building a wall of separation between Church & State” reference in his letter to the Danbury Baptists.

Perhaps most important to the constitutional argument though is our fourth president James Madison, lauded as the “Father of the Constitution” and primary author of the Bill of Rights. Madison was an ardent proponent of separation of church and state for decades who when opposing Patrick Henry’s efforts to merge them wrote in his Memorial and Remonstrance “[T]he Bill implies either that the Civil Magistrate is a competent Judge of Religious Truth; or that he may employ Religion as an engine of Civil policy. The first is an arrogant pretension falsified by the contradictory opinions of Rulers in all ages, and throughout the world: the second an unhallowed perversion of the means of salvation.”

If a man such as Madison thought it best to maintain separation of church and state where does Mr. Wehrle get the idea that the U.S. was ever a “Christian” nation?

Thomas Jefferson wasn't much of a political thinker according to Ken Mercer

I frequently hear from folks on the right that they admire the Founding Fathers but this only seems to apply when they agree with the particular founder. Ken Mercer, member of the State Board of Education for District 5, voted last week to remove one of the greatest of America's Founding Fathers from the World History standard regarding the influence of great political philosophers on revolutions from 1750 to today. Thomas Jefferson, a man who played a key role in the two most prominent revolutions in the history of the Western world, was removed. Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, is acknowledged around the world as an important political thinker but Ken Mercer doesn’t think he’s important enough for our high school students to study.

Mr. Mercer and his extremist cabal also rejected a proposed standard requiring students to “examine the reasons the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others.” The First Amendment specifically states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...” what else does Ken Mercer think it means?

Replacing the extremist Mr. Mercer who insists on politicizing the public school curriculum should be a very high priority with voters in District 5. Electing Dr. Rebecca Bell-Metereau would bring a breath of fresh air to a body whose reputation Ken Mercer has helped sully.