Kevin Gutzman: Freedom vs the Courts

To everyone,

I am writing to inform you that the link I provided in my prior comment (Dan Goodman "The Slaughterhouse Cases") no longer works. The new location for it is:

The fact there is a citizen of the several States in law is settled1

http://www.australia.to/2010/index.php?option=com...

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There is also the following which I think would be appropriate.

Comment on Petitioner's Brief: McDonald v. City of Chicago

http://www.australia.to/2010/index.php?option=com...

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/13...

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The Slaughterhouse Cases is best known for reading the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment out of the Constitution. However, the case is also known for deciding that citizenship of a State was to be separate and distinct from citizenship of the United States. This, of course, has a direct bearing on citizenship under the Constitution. As before this case, citizenship of a State and citizenship of the United States were considered one in the same.

In addition, "[t]he Supreme Court, however, adopted a narrower view when it first interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment in 1873 in the Slaughter-House Cases. These consolidated cases addressed several butchers' constitutional challenges under the Reconstruction Amendments to a Louisiana statute granting a monopoly on the butchering of animals in New Orleans to a single slaughtering company. Justice Miller, writing for the five Justices in the majority, rejected each of the butchers' constitutional claims, holding that the statute did not violate the guarantees of the Thirteenth Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause, (fn 86) Equal Protection Clause, or Due Process Clause, all of which he believed were concerned predominantly with the protection of the recently freed slaves. . . .

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fn 86: Id. at 72-80 The Court divined a purported distinction in the text of the Fourteenth Amendment between the 'privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States' and those 'of citizens of the several states.' Id. at 74. The Court then expressed that the clause only protected 'the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States,' which it limited to those owing 'there existence to the Federal government, its National character, its Constitution, or its laws.' Id. at 79. . . ."

Source: Rhodes, Charles W. (Rocky), "Liberty, Substantive Due Process, and Personal Jurisdiction", Tulane Law Review, Vol. 82, No. 2, 2007. This paper can be downloaded at the Social Science Research Network at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_i... .

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There is a desire, by many, to overturn the Slaughterhouse Cases. The reason centers on the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Those who wish to overturn Slaughterhouse Cases believe: a) that there is only one citizen under the Constitution since the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Slaughterhouse Cases, b) that the privileges and immunities of this citizenship; that is citizenship of the United States, should be those described in Corfield v. Coryell. They do not know that there is a second citizenship now under the Constitution (and not the Fourteenth Amendment), and that this citizenship has those privileges and immunities described in Corfield v. Coryell. This citizenship is citizenship of the several States.

The fact there is a citizen of the several States in law is settled!

http://www.australia.to/index.php?option=com_cont... . [Footnote]

The privileges and immunities of citizens of the several states are those described by Corfield, cited in the Slaughterhouse Cases. This is reaffirmed in Hodges v. United States:

“In the Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 76, in defining the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States, this is quoted from the opinion of Mr. Justice Washington in Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Wash. Cir. Ct. 371, 380.” Hodges v. United States: 203 U.S. 1, at 15 (1906).

The Supreme Court does not have to "restore" the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. People need to understand that there are now two citizens under the Constitution, each with a different set of privileges and immunities.

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Footnote

So there are now two citizens under the Constitution of the United States. One needs to find out information on both. For a citizen of the United States that is easy. Just about anywhere. For a citizen of the several States one will have to begin here:

http://citizenoftheseveralstates.webs.com/index.h...

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The Slaughterhouse Cases is best known for reading the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment out of the Constitution. However, the case is also known for deciding that citizenship of a State was to be separate and distinct from citizenship of the United States. This, of course, has a direct bearing on citizenship under the Constitution. As before this case, citizenship of a State and citizenship of the United States were considered one in the same.

In addition, "[t]he Supreme Court, however, adopted a narrower view when it first interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment in 1873 in the Slaughter-House Cases. These consolidated cases addressed several butchers' constitutional challenges under the Reconstruction Amendments to a Louisiana statute granting a monopoly on the butchering of animals in New Orleans to a single slaughtering company. Justice Miller, writing for the five Justices in the majority, rejected each of the butchers' constitutional claims, holding that the statute did not violate the guarantees of the Thirteenth Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause, (fn 86) Equal Protection Clause, or Due Process Clause, all of which he believed were concerned predominantly with the protection of the recently freed slaves. . . .

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fn 86: Id. at 72-80 The Court divined a purported distinction in the text of the Fourteenth Amendment between the 'privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States' and those 'of citizens of the several states.' Id. at 74. The Court then expressed that the clause only protected 'the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States,' which it limited to those owing 'there existence to the Federal government, its National character, its Constitution, or its laws.' Id. at 79. . . ."

Source: Rhodes, Charles W. (Rocky), "Liberty, Substantive Due Process, and Personal Jurisdiction", Tulane Law Review, Vol. 82, No. 2, 2007. This paper can be downloaded at the Social Science Research Network at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_i... .

------------

There is a desire, by many, to overturn the Slaughterhouse Cases. The reason centers on the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Those who wish to overturn Slaughterhouse Cases believe: a) that there is only one citizen under the Constitution since the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Slaughterhouse Cases, b) that the privileges and immunities of this citizenship; that is citizenship of the United States, should be those described in Corfield v. Coryell. They do not know that there is a second citizenship now under the Constitution (and not the Fourteenth Amendment), and that this citizenship has those privileges and immunities described in Corfield v. Coryell. This citizenship is citizenship of the several States.

The fact there is a citizen of the several States in law is settled!

http://www.australia.to/index.php?option=com_cont... . [Footnote]

The privileges and immunities of citizens of the several states are those described by Corfield, cited in the Slaughterhouse Cases. This is reaffirmed in Hodges v. United States:

“In the Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 76, in defining the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States, this is quoted from the opinion of Mr. Justice Washington in Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Wash. Cir. Ct. 371, 380.” Hodges v. United States: 203 U.S. 1, at 15 (1906).

The Supreme Court does not have to "restore" the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. People need to understand that there are now two citizens under the Constitution, each with a different set of privileges and immunities.

________________________

Footnote

So there are now two citizens under the Constitution of the United States. One needs to find out information on both. For a citizen of the United States that is easy. Just about anywhere. For a citizen of the several States one will have to begin here:

http://citizenoftheseveralstates.webs.com/index.h...

---

Actually, Brian - the 2nd amendment, and the rest of the constitution, except in specific places, applies solely to the federal government. The 2nd isn't a delegation of power or rights or anything of the sort. It's not a reservation of power or rights or anything of the sort either. It's a limitation on action or exercise of powers by the federal government. Gun laws in your state are the responsibility of you and other people living near you - and you should deal with your state government and state constitution to ensure that those rights are codified in law. Well, unless of course you actually trust the criminals in D.C. to protect your rights. I trust them even less than my state government.

Unfortunately, courts interpret the Constitution in a post-bellum context, i.e. that the United States is a NATION rather than a federal republic of nations; and therefore the term "People of the United States" does not refer to the stats respectively anymore, but COLLECTIVELY; and hence "the right of the People" technically means NOTHING. The federal courts have thus interepreted the 2nd Amendment to refer only to prohibitions against FEDERAL infringement-- while STATE GOVERNMENTS are given a carte blanche to "infringe" all they want.

Apparently, Dr. Gutzman adheres to the warning in "Resolutions" about "the federal government being the judge of its own powers--" but strangely has no problem with STATE governments doing the same.
To date, virtually all infringements of firearm rights are STATE laws, not federal; and crime-rates are shown to vary in direct proportion to gun-rights.
Simply put, Dr. Gutzman either does not understand constitutional meanings, or does not want to stick his neck out due for fear of public ridicule or his professional reputation.

Dr. Gutzman makes a major mistake here, in confusing a state's People, with its GOVERNMENT.
For example, he says that the 2nd Amendment is all about keeping control of firearms in state GOVERNMENTS.
However, the 2nd Amendment expressly says that the right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed-- not the STATES.
Likewise, the 10th Amendment says that "any powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the states thereby, are reserved to the states respectively, OR TO THE PEOPLE."
Since the 2nd Amendment EXPRESSLY reserves this right to the PEOPLE of the states, then it is PROHIBITED to the states to infringe against the right to keep and bear arms. (Likewise, the power is NOT delegated to the United States).

I don't think control of the House is going to restore the 10th amendment anymore then it ever has in the past.
The problem is power corrupt, and federal politicians have too much to remain un-tempted and uncorrupted by that power.

If we are to restore the rights of the People and their States, we will require that the people and their States be the active agent of retaking those rights as to establish the vital president that will keep it that way.
Government must govern within the limits of the consent of the governed In a constitutional federal republic we deny that consent in more way the simply elections.

These rights/powers are not theirs to take from we the people and our States in the first place, to the same end, theses rights/powers is not theirs to re-grant to us by their vote either. Instead as they never had any right to take it they must not be permitted to take or retain it.

Democracy is the means by which we the people control government, it is not necessarily the means by which we the people limit government to the consent of the governed. Were that the case then we would have no republican Constitutional law in the first place and instead simply a pure democracy limited only by the will of the leaders we elect and the will of the people to elect and reelect them.

We the people thou our States must resolve this problem of Constitutionalism not thou federal election but thou nullification and interposition where necessary.

We can take control of the House of Representatives to restore the 10th Amendment in the next election cycle. To see how, visit:

http://laboratoryofthestates.org/call_to_action_s...

These feds seem to be able to violate my state constitution with absolute impunity, and I for one am getting damn sick and tired of it.

What ideally needs to be done to restore state sovereignty is this, IMO. The ill-conceived, anti-state sovereignty 16th and 17th Amendments need to be repealed. This is because the 16th A. unthinkingly made it easy for the corrupt Congress to lay constitutionally unauthorized taxes on people, while state lawmakers stupidly destroyed their own representation in the federal Senate by ratifying the 17th A., allowing all voters to vote for senators.

However, a simpler way to "repeal" the 16th and 17th Amendments is to make pro-state sovereignty a campaign issue for 2010. In other words, pro-state sovereignty state and federal government leaders elected in 2010 can "repeal" these amendments by the way they vote on bills, much like the Democratic Congress is now "repealing" the rest of the Constitution by the way that they vote.

Finally, the following link should help give people an idea how state sovereignty-ignorant voters have shot themselves in the foot with big, corrupt federal government as a consequence of the 16th and 17th Amendments.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=199792

Even though our focus is on state sovereignty and nullification, if somehow someone like Ron Paul or Andrew Napolitano is elected president in 2012, I am hoping that Dr. Gutzman will be appointed to the Supreme Court.

I believe there were two incidents of potential state control during the formulation of the U.S. constitution that were unfortunately overlooked.

I believe that all congressional representatives should have been paid for and controlled by the state legislators as an employee of the state. Being able to get elected and then have no control except for the next election, with the option of approving their own pay check, is too much reliance on the moral quality of an elected bureaucrat.

The gold clause could have had much more control by a simple rewording: No state shall accept or make any thing but gold or silver coin as payment for debt or taxes. Perhaps a constitutional prohibitation of states to collect taxes in fiat currency might have perpetuated a longer Republic.

The problem with Dr. Gutzman's view, as with all liberterian critiques of federal breaches of the Constitution, is their general impotence in effecting remedy against the 900-lb. gorilla-government. Under the actual law, the People of the individual states, are the supreme ruling sovereigns of their own state-- which is a sovereign nation unto itself, just like England or France. However Big Ape Lincoln changed all this and suppressed the truth through censorship-- to the point where actual history has been suppressed for over 140 years, through indoctrinate dogma that he was preserving the Union and freeing the slaves. Poppyseeds! It was all about seizing POWER.
The only way to restore justice under the Constitution, is to restore power to the People of the individual states. I don't know why Dr. Gutzman's wants to dabble in details of the abuse, rather than adress this one fact regarding the power-dynamic relationship of the Constitution and state popular sovereignty; however in any event his approach is entirely futile, in that power will never be relinquished voluntarily by the government, if the People do not recognize and take it back by RIGHT.

That was a good interview. We've touched on this before, but the real hang-up with the 14th and the arguments pro/con incorporation is the sentence in the 14th: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."

I recall reading some articles to the effect that a proper construction of "privileges and immunities" did not extend to the rights protected in the B of R.

I can see that argument, but IMO, the 14th is a troublesome amendment because there is not much precedent to enable a person of ordinary sensibilities to agree that a state should have the right to politically suppress women's suffrage or their rights to contract, for example.

Gutzman does honestly admit that in a Republican form of government, as intended by the Constitution, these "rights" would not exist but for the benevolence of your particular local dictators.

It is a thought-provoking issue....

There is No "Fourteenth Amendment"!

by David Lawrence

U.S. News & World Report, September 27, 1957

"A MISTAKEN BELIEF -- that there is a valid article in the
Constitution known as the "Fourteenth Amendment" -- is
responsible for the Supreme Court decision of 1954 and the
ensuing controversy over desegregation in the public schools of
America. No such amendment was ever legally ratified by three
fourths of the States of the Union as required by the
Constitution itself. The so-called "Fourteenth Amendment" was
dubiously proclaimed by the Secretary of State on July 20, 1868.
The President shared that doubt. There were 37 States in the
Union at the time, so ratification by at least 28 was necessary
to make the amendment an integral part of the Constitution.
Actually, only 21 States legally ratified it. So it failed of
ratification."

http://www.supremelaw.org/authors/lawrence/no14th...

From all I've seen the question of basis of authority remains, as Allen Tran questions it.
Using the constitutional basis in conjunction with the bill of rights, in literal form is the only equitable way.
Power is only the smaller part of the reason of its present manner of use. It is the fact that our 'representatives' do not want to be held liable for their illegal actions in violation of these two documents.
The judiciary can be held just as liable and also refuse their responsibilities for the same reasons.
The best action would seem to be to legislate the matter into all state constitutions in such a manner as to disallow any actions contrary to these two basic documents in an all inclusive way.
Then you have a base guide for all the rest.
Problems of morality on any basis, would require definition rather than precedent, and offer the return to the power of these documents. All contraries would then be repealed and rescinded accordingly at all levels.
The 'chinks' in the armor are nothing more than misuse of authority never granted and a lack of definition.
Instead of service to entities, you then regain service to, by, and for the people.
Taxes started our first revolution and the people are beginning to see the same abuse once more.
The first bailout expended our countries liquidity. Add the so called health care and we are history. The continual war expense, as a service to other interests, just puts the icing on the cake, etc.
The so called 'entitlements' are not supposed to be, depending on who you listen to. They all are in the red because they were open to theft by our representatives/government and banking/financial system.
As an example, all the 'representatives' are to be 'paid' for passage of the health care reform.
It doesn't get any simpler than that.
The bailout also offered some more time of freedom or martial law now.
The bio-weapon H1N1 is just one more in a long line of the things those behind the scenes offer through their corporate power.
Then there is a quote,'freedom comes from the barrel of a gun'...
I hope we all still have time to use what is left of our freedom to legislate. However, being organized, armed, and survival ready offers a very powerful stand against these people.
We are at the point of hoping for the best, but not expecting it, and being ready in either event.
We the people have a lot of hard and difficult work ahead of us in all these matters. Yet the glimmer of hope was seen when so many came out for those tea parties.
I suggest all those who attended, become as active as possible in order to rectify the damage already done.
How about Tenth Amendment, Constitution Party, and Tea Parties unite towards these goals?
An all inclusive coalition of all perspectives to revive our freedom through the constitution would work.
Just be aware that it may take a dictatorship in order to reset our ship of state.

I don't get it - so if he feds come down on the states for violating my right to own a gun, who comes down on the feds for doing it, the UN? Why do people want this massive central state option? Do they trust federal politicians and judges more than state ones? I don't trust either.

This is a fantastic interview! Answered a lot of questions I just couldn't understand before.