Interpreting Our US Constitution

                                          

In the context of United States law, originalism is a concept regarding the interpretation of the Constitution that asserts that all statements in the constitution must be interpreted based on the original understanding "at the time it was adopted".


Textualism is a mode of interpretation that focuses on the plain meaning of the text of a legal document. Textualism usually emphasizes how the terms in the Constitution would be understood by people at the time they were ratified, as well as the context in which those terms appear.

US CONSTITUTIONAL FACTS:

1. James Madison wrote the Constitution in 1787
2. Of the 55 Convention delegates, about 25 owned slaves. Many of the framers harbored moral qualms about slavery. Some, including Benjamin Franklin (a former slave-owner) and Alexander Hamilton (who was born in a slave colony in the British West Indies) became members of antislavery societies.
3. The Northern delegates and others opposed to slavery wanted to count only free persons, including free blacks in the North and South. ... Minimizing the percentage of the slave population counted for apportionment reduced the political power of slaveholding states.
4. Of our FOUNDING FATHERS:  Samuel Adams, John Adams, & Thomas Paine NEVER OWNED SLAVES
5. Slave/Slavery was only mentioned indirectly in the US CONSTITUTION
6. THE US CONSTITUTION WAS RATIFIED ON SEPTEMBER 17 1787...
7. When did the US get independence from Great Britain?  JULY 4, 1776...
8. It took 11 years for ALL THE STATES to RATIFY the US CONSTITUTION
9. All US SLAVES were freed January 1, 1863
10. In 1870, the 15th Amendment was ratified to prohibit states from denying a male citizen the right to vote based on “race, color or previous condition of servitude." "Black suffrage" in the United States in the aftermath of the American Civil War explicitly referred to the voting rights of black men only.
11.  In 1920, the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution gave WOMEN the right to vote

QUESTIONS:   

1. Is it FAIR to use the concepts of textualism and and originalism when interpreting the US CONSTITUTION since our BLACK population was not given RIGHTS until 75+ years later? 
2. Is it fair to use the concepts of textualism and originalism when interpreting the US CONSTITUTION since it was UNDERSTOOD AT THE TIME OF THE WRITTING of the US Constitution that half of the delegate to the Constitutional Convention did not own slaves and were struggling with the slavery issue?
3. Is it fair to use the concepts of textualism and originalism when interpreting the US CONSTITUTION when it comes to understanding how our Founding Father felt towards women when it comes to interpreting what rights do women actually have under the US Constitution?
4. Is it fair to use the concepts of textualism and originalism when interpreting the US CONSTITUTION when it come time to decide whether or not we should as nation whether or not we should regulate firearms, especially since our Founding Father had just formed a new country and had not yet built up a military or a National Guard?

Personal Comments:

It simply does not seem fair or logical for our Court System to use how our Founding Fathers were thinking in their minds and how the words they used were interpreted back in 1787 to decide ALL ISSUES coming before the courts because there have been substantial changes like gun violence, abortion, discrimination, and equal rights with which our FOUNDING FATHERS never had to deal with at the time the Constitution was written, therefore their mental thoughts and word usages seems rather pointless and meaningless in today's world.

What Did Our Founding Fathers Believe?

According to Nicholas Rathod who wrote an article published by the Center For American Progress stated the following:  "In recent years, we have been told by a variety of conservatives that America’s founding fathers established the country under Christian doctrine—that we are a “Christian nation” and should operate accordingly.

This notion—that our country’s roots are explicitly Christian—is both foolish and wrong, for it devalues the Christian faith and disrespects the genius of the founding fathers. Christianity does not need to be endorsed by law or some fantasized re-interpretation of the Constitution in order to have meaning in people’s lives."

And while this is his personal opinion, he went on to write that:  The genius of the founding fathers is they understood that Christianity could not only stand on its own but would thrive without being written into the laws and founding documents of the country. 

Many of the founding fathers—Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison and Monroe—practiced a faith called Deism. Deism is a philosophical belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems. Deists believe in a supreme being who created the universe to operate solely by natural laws—and after creation, is absent from the world. 

And because of this absence our Founding Fathers adopted SLAVERY and created a Constitution and Bill of Rights that did not include the African Americans that had been stolen and sold to the wealthy in a NEW LAND as SLAVES...

One could construe that it was the SLAVES that built America not the white man...

It is true that our Founding Fathers created a UNIQUE EXPERIMENT of Democracy and drafted documents around which a great nation was built, but they did so by not treated everyone as equals under MAN'S Law or under GOD'S Law...

Celebrating JULY 4

For Americans
On July 4th, the Continental Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence, which had been written largely by Jefferson. Though the vote for actual independence took place on July 2nd, from then on the 4th became the day that was celebrated as the birth of American independence.

What does July 4th mean to/for AMERICAN BLACKS?

Well...  the best way to answer that is to take a looksee at Thomas Jefferson...

According to WIKIPEDIA:  "Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, owned more than 700 African-American slaves throughout his adult life. Jefferson freed two slaves while he lived, and seven more after his death. Jefferson consistently spoke out against the international slave trade, outlawed while he was President, while he advocated gradual emancipation and colonization of domestic slaves.  

Jefferson believed black people were inherently inferior to white people and thought it was best the two races remained segregated."

NOT BEING BLACK MYSELF, I cannot fully grasp nor can I fully appreciate what this means for our American Black Communities...  Our great country is BASED UPON the US CONSTITUTION and it is the same US CONSTITUTION, written by the slave owner Thomas Jefferson who believed blacks were inferior... that saw BLACKS as 2/3 of a person...

How in the hell can someone actually be TWO THIRDS OF A PERSON?

It is also INTERESTING, at least to me how AMERICAN BLACKS refer to themselves as African Americans when that is not actually ACCURATE especially since they were born in the USA...  You are AMERICAN BLACKS with African Heritage...

BUT, that is really a minor point when it comes to our 4th of JULY CELEBRATIONS and how AMERICAN BLACKS participate in those celebrations because there is really no CELEBRATION for them at all until the Emancipation Proclamation which was an Executive Order of Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1962...

This is the date that AMERICAN BLACKS should be celebrating and this date should be a NATIONAL HOLIDAY... 

But, what is even more interesting is the fact that while Abraham Lincoln did not directly own slaves, his wife owned slaves while they were married...

If I was an AMERICAN BLACK IN TODAY'S WORLD,  I would be just as pissed off at Abraham Lincoln as I am with all of the Founding Fathers that owned slaves and would want his statue removed along with all the other statues.

IN FACT, I would arrange an HUGE PROTEST MOVEMENT on the 4th of July because it is not really a Day of Independence FOR AMERICAN BLACKS...