The Bill of Rights; A Failure for the People

Preamble to the Bill of Rights – THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution. 

A year and a half after the states created the federal charter of the United States of America they decided that it was well enough time to add distinct restrictions on the power of the newly created federal government. The Constitution was ratified on 9/17/1987 and the Bill of Rights on 3/4/1789. The preamble to the Bill of Rights states clearly the purpose; to prevent the federal government from abusing its power and misconstruing the meaning of the Constitution itself. It is important to note that the Constitution created the federal executive, legislative, and judicial and defined their respective powers. The Constitution is the whole federal banana! The Bill of Rights was to prevent abuse by all of these branches of federal government as no distinction is made in the preamble between the branches of government but the entire creation of it; the Constitution. Interestingly enough the judicial branch became the assassin of this intent as Thomas Jefferson predicted and witnessed when he said,

For experience has already shown that the impeachment it has provided is not even a scare-crow… The Constitution on this hypothesis is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.” –Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1819

 

But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, makes the Judiciary a despotic branch.” –Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820

“This member of the Government was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt.” –Thomas Jefferson to Edward Livingston, 1825 

I agree with Thomas Jefferson on this point. He knew it in 1825. I guess this makes me a Jeffersonian patriot; not too bad of company! But you might say, “the failure of the Bill of Rights to prevent the abuse of power by the federal government doesn’t really seem to have made much difference in our country.” This does seem true enough up to now, and it has served us well in several regards, but may I suggest that the larger “chickens have yet to come home to roost” in this matter? After all, it is the federal governments, specifically the federal courts, “twisting” (Jefferson’s word) of the Constitution which will not allow the states to constrain Islamic revolutionary Jihad by placing reasonable restrictions on this ill-fated sect of “religion”. This “wax in the hands of the judiciary” approach to the First Amendment may well be the crossing of the Rubicon for the safety of the American people; ālea iacta est. My sad prediction; a major catastrophic terror event, which could have easily been prevented by the people (states) protecting themselves by necessary means, will be the turning point on the federal governments “sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution” (Jefferson again) and as the great founding statesman said, “the Judiciary a despotic branch.” Let me be wrong on the outcome of this failure of the Bill of Rights in harnessing the power of the federal government, the corresponding abuse of power by the federal judiciary, and the destruction it may well bring.