WEBVTT NOTE The Supreme Court as Accomplice: Judicial Backing for Executive Power 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:24.000 Good afternoon. I've never really had the opportunity to introduce myself, so I was thinking about some nice things I could say about myself and then it dawned on me, rather than saying who I am, for our purposes this afternoon, it might be more beneficial to say what I am. 2 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:35.000 And I am, unabashedly, a anti-Federalist, neo-Confederate. 3 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:43.000 Gee, I didn't expect that type of response. 4 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:48.000 I thought I'd experience a brooding omnipresence fall over the room. 5 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:53.000 But, let me tell you why that's the case. 6 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:58.400 Many of the problems that we're discussing at this conference would be non-problems 7 00:00:58.400 --> 00:01:05.600 had the Confederate principles prevailed from 1789 onward. 8 00:01:05.600 --> 00:01:12.240 And my talk this afternoon is going to have a dash here and there of those principles. 9 00:01:12.240 --> 00:01:17.520 And for those of you non-believers, don't give me the slavery trump card. 10 00:01:17.520 --> 00:01:19.440 I just don't buy it. 11 00:01:19.440 --> 00:01:47.440 I am convinced, and I just finished another paper along these lines, that had the Confederacy survived intact, that slavery probably would have been dealt with much more genuinely, certainly much more constitutionally, and the problems that have loaded us down since the Civil War would probably have been resolved in a much more genuine procedural fashion. 12 00:01:47.440 --> 00:01:57.040 My title, the title of my paper, the paper is rather academic and stuffed full of technical terms in Supreme Court cases and such as that. 13 00:01:57.040 --> 00:02:04.960 And I'm going to simply shoot from the hip and I'll be scrambling with papers up here, so please bear with me. 14 00:02:04.960 --> 00:02:09.280 But the paper's title, the new title of the paper is, 15 00:02:09.280 --> 00:02:19.080 Supreme Court as Accomplice, Judicial Backing for a Despotic Presidency. 16 00:02:19.080 --> 00:02:27.380 And the subtitle of that subtitle is, You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, when it comes to despotism. 17 00:02:27.380 --> 00:02:33.580 And I focus on the presidency as an institution rather than a particular individual. 18 00:02:33.580 --> 00:02:36.680 The problem is systematic in the national government. 19 00:02:36.680 --> 00:02:42.720 had the appropriate constitutional checks been left in place or put in place when the occasion 20 00:02:42.720 --> 00:02:53.480 arise, it wouldn't matter who's in the White House. But even if, even if we simply, we 21 00:02:53.480 --> 00:02:59.480 happen to have a law-abiding president who believes in the rule of law, I think that 22 00:02:59.480 --> 00:03:05.480 will have a very nominal influence on the overall direction of political constitutional 23 00:03:05.480 --> 00:03:35.480 Development. And the reason I say that, I got interested in the Civil War constitutional principles in graduate schools, just by coincidence, as a matter of fact, my father's from Connecticut, my mother's from Germany, I really have no ties to the South, and for the most part, intellectual ties. But I just was realizing that there's something's wrong here, that the more I read in the Secondary 24 00:03:35.480 --> 00:04:05.480 The literature that the Confederate Constitution was simply a carbon copy of the U.S. Constitution just didn't make sense so I started to investigate this a bit more and it led me to one project into another and a couple of projects ago I was researching the Ninth Amendment and I am absolutely convinced and I wasn't at the time but over the last couple of years that the written constitution at one time was a good idea, it is probably 25 00:04:05.480 --> 00:04:15.480 is a very bad idea. There's no such thing as the rule of law or a constitution in the strict sense of the word. 26 00:04:15.480 --> 00:04:27.480 The jurisprudence of the Ninth Amendment has convinced me that it is fraudulent, it is a ruse, that the incrementalism of leading us in a particular direction is irrefutable. 27 00:04:27.480 --> 00:04:32.120 And what I've done in this paper that I'm going to talk about briefly this afternoon 28 00:04:32.120 --> 00:04:37.720 is I've looked at where our constitutional development has led 29 00:04:37.720 --> 00:04:43.160 from the earliest periods up until the Civil War into contemporary jurisprudence 30 00:04:43.160 --> 00:04:48.000 and what I'm going to talk about this afternoon is what's ahead, what's in the future 31 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:52.640 and how does that tie into significant constitutional law cases, 32 00:04:52.640 --> 00:05:07.640 My conclusions, even though at this point, being a political scientist, I have to say they are strictly speculative, but I am not very optimistic. 33 00:05:07.640 --> 00:05:21.160 The framers of our constitution, none other than Publius himself, certainly no anti-federalist, 34 00:05:21.160 --> 00:05:28.040 but he wrote during the constitutional debate that the zeal for the rights of the people 35 00:05:28.040 --> 00:05:33.640 and efficiency in government have been the rhetorical materials in successfully overturning 36 00:05:33.640 --> 00:05:56.640 The President, as representative of the American people, as opposed to the representative of the collective interest of the state in their corporate character, is a very serious problem in contemporary politics. 37 00:05:56.640 --> 00:06:06.640 The previous speaker, Dr. Holcomb, made reference to the U.S. Senate. Let me digress for a moment that it's the least democratic of institutions. 38 00:06:06.640 --> 00:06:21.640 And I was thinking, well gee, you know, I always thought of the Senate as the most democratic of institutions in the sense that it was designed and structured to protect the states and the corporate character. 39 00:06:21.640 --> 00:06:29.380 that it was designed to protect the states, the democracy within the states, from an overbearing national government. 40 00:06:29.380 --> 00:06:35.180 Of course, that was a miscalculation on the part of the framers, especially in light of the 17th amendment. 41 00:06:35.180 --> 00:06:43.180 In a recent Supreme Court case, the Thornton case, where the justices said the U.S. senators do not have a state constituency. 42 00:06:43.180 --> 00:07:04.180 Their constituents are national and indeed international, and that's why the court said you cannot have term limits on U.S. senators, because they represent everyone, and a state such as Arkansas has no right to deny the people of Massachusetts of electing someone from Arkansas essentially. 43 00:07:04.180 --> 00:07:08.180 It's sort of a circular argument, but it's in the case. 44 00:07:08.180 --> 00:07:21.180 Now originally, under the national system that was established, there were some implicit, unwritten policies that protected the states and their corporate character. 45 00:07:21.180 --> 00:07:33.180 One of which was interposition and nullification. We are all familiar with the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, and also of secession, state secession. 46 00:07:33.180 --> 00:07:48.180 and anyone who thinks that secession is unconstitutional, read the Supreme Court case on that issue, Texas v. White, 1869, and you'll see that it is a very weak argument indeed. 47 00:07:48.180 --> 00:08:08.180 But without these options, the President, as representative of the people, has the political, the constitutional capacity and the motives to utilize and indeed maximize the powers of his office to achieve his policy objectives. 48 00:08:08.180 --> 00:08:22.180 And I use the word his, the phrase his policy objectives to represent a particular momentum, an inclination towards a particular development in the national growth. 49 00:08:22.180 --> 00:08:36.180 And if you think back about even with President Clinton and his problems today, even the Republicans, they're criticizing Clinton primarily for being ineffective. 50 00:08:36.180 --> 00:08:45.180 And I think that speaks volumes. They want somebody who is an effective leader to represent the nation, to move the nation forward. 51 00:08:45.180 --> 00:08:54.180 And any short-term gains from an incapacitated presidency, I think, are strictly that short-term. 52 00:08:54.180 --> 00:09:02.180 I think the powers that be will get somebody up there who will not have the same problems and will be much more efficient 53 00:09:02.180 --> 00:09:07.180 in pushing through a national, indeed an international agenda. 54 00:09:07.180 --> 00:09:11.180 But my focus will be on the constitutional capacity. 55 00:09:11.180 --> 00:09:15.180 What is the constitutional capacity of the U.S. presidency? 56 00:09:15.180 --> 00:09:23.180 Within this framework, the constitutionally sanctioned presidency has at his disposal 57 00:09:23.180 --> 00:09:27.180 a tremendous, tremendous amount of coercive powers. 58 00:09:27.180 --> 00:09:51.180 Powers, powers that I consider to be tantamount to despotism. Now the despotism might be soft in one instance, it might be very hard in another, but it's despotism nonetheless, and it's a potentiality that can very easily be activated if the circumstances require it. 59 00:09:51.180 --> 00:10:04.180 The transition from states' rights to a unitary nationalism with an actual or potential despot at its head was the most significant development in American history. 60 00:10:04.180 --> 00:10:12.180 The transition from unitary nationalism towards the global hegemony is in progress. 61 00:10:12.180 --> 00:10:15.180 So think about what's happened to the states. 62 00:10:15.180 --> 00:10:20.340 The states in many instances, and I know this has almost become cliché, are for the most 63 00:10:20.340 --> 00:10:26.900 part administrative age extensions of the national government. Now they certainly have 64 00:10:26.900 --> 00:10:32.820 constitutional mechanisms in place where they can re-assert their authority, but for cultural 65 00:10:32.820 --> 00:10:39.820 and political reasons that isn't done. But I'm convinced that the nation state is going 66 00:10:39.820 --> 00:10:50.820 in the same way as the American state, that soon the nation-state will be an extension of some transnational, international governing body. 67 00:10:52.820 --> 00:11:06.820 The importance of relative case law with the confluent themes of human rights and efficiency, uniformity, will be used to substantiate my position. 68 00:11:09.820 --> 00:11:25.820 I'm going to take a look very briefly at, I'm not going to bore you with the details of a case in 1816, Martin v. Hunter, to just give you an idea as to what we could have been, as to what we have become. 69 00:11:25.820 --> 00:11:34.320 This goes back to 1812, the case actually did, but essentially, just to paraphrase it in very general terms, 70 00:11:34.320 --> 00:11:43.820 the facts of the case were that the state of Virginia had a land dispute case that went back to two treaties of the 1780s and 1790s 71 00:11:43.820 --> 00:11:47.820 with Great Britain as a result of the Revolutionary War. 72 00:11:47.820 --> 00:11:54.820 Anyway, Martin, who after the land passing on to a couple parties in the interim, 73 00:11:54.820 --> 00:12:02.820 Martin sues Hunter. Hunter wins the case at the Virginia Court, and in the highest court that had jurisdiction at the time. 74 00:12:02.820 --> 00:12:13.820 Martin, dissatisfied with the high court of Virginia's decision, appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Virginia simply refuses to participate. 75 00:12:13.820 --> 00:12:21.820 There is another case similar to this, Cohen versus Virginia, but Martin refuses to participate, or Hunter, Virginia refuses to participate. 76 00:12:21.820 --> 00:12:38.020 They ignore the writ of error. They said, we don't care what the Supreme Court says. We have jurisdiction. We tried the case. We are a sovereign nation, a sovereign state within the national orbit. And we're not going to subject ourselves to national judicial supremacy. 77 00:12:39.780 --> 00:12:49.140 Now think of the options of that. Think if, just for a moment, that if each state court, now I know the states have their own problems. I know the states can be tyrannical and everything else. 78 00:12:49.140 --> 00:12:54.780 But the Anti-Federalist position is at least the proximity of those leaders are reachable. 79 00:12:54.780 --> 00:12:55.780 You can get to them. 80 00:12:55.780 --> 00:12:56.820 They can be your neighbors. 81 00:12:56.820 --> 00:12:57.820 You know who they are. 82 00:12:57.820 --> 00:12:58.820 You know where they live. 83 00:12:58.820 --> 00:13:03.620 Try to take that same approach to the members of the U.S. Supreme Court. 84 00:13:03.620 --> 00:13:08.260 And most state courts are in some way tied into the democratic process, whether it's 85 00:13:08.260 --> 00:13:12.460 a mere retention election or whatever. 86 00:13:12.460 --> 00:13:19.020 Virginia Court lifted up to the state court to decide what was and was not in pursuance 87 00:13:19.020 --> 00:13:27.100 of the U.S. Constitution. Now the basis of the Supreme Court's argument against Virginia 88 00:13:27.100 --> 00:13:37.500 was the possibility of abuse, the possibility of abuse. And writing for the court, Joseph's 89 00:13:37.500 --> 00:13:45.260 story, I mean it's a beautiful exposition of nationalism. Everything you think of Lincoln 90 00:13:45.260 --> 00:14:14.260 and you could put into the jurisprudence of Joseph's story. But in 1860 he said essentially that the possibility of abuse is not an argument for denying the power to the U.S. Supreme Court. The possibility for abuse is not a reason to deny the power of judicial review over state courts to the U.S. Supreme Court. 91 00:14:14.260 --> 00:14:44.260 What's peculiar about that is three years later in McCulloch v. Maryland, and by the way, Marshall didn't write the opinion to this case because he had an interest in the property, which came out his way, by the way, but in McCulloch v. Maryland, Marshall says the potential for abuse is a reason for denying the taxing power to the state governments. So you have two cases within three years of each other based upon two different judicial axioms. 92 00:14:44.260 --> 00:15:14.260 But the cases, the reason why it's so interesting within this context is that it talks about treaties and the importance of treaties and that treaties must be enforced and that states must be in compliance and that states cannot drag their feet and that the power of the national government can be brought, that coercive powers of the national government can be used to bring the states into line with a treaty because of the national interest argument. 93 00:15:14.260 --> 00:15:22.060 Justice Curtis, a few years later, when talking about jurisdiction, he wrote, let it be remembered, 94 00:15:22.060 --> 00:15:28.980 this is court jurisdiction, because I think we tend to lose sight of the checks that could 95 00:15:28.980 --> 00:15:33.660 have been in place, but because of the Supreme Court interpreting the Constitution in a particular 96 00:15:33.660 --> 00:15:39.740 way, when it came to jurisdictional issues, we've lost the very essence of our federal 97 00:15:39.740 --> 00:15:41.540 system. 98 00:15:41.540 --> 00:15:46.740 Let it be remembered, Justice Curtis wrote, also, for just now we may be in some danger 99 00:15:46.740 --> 00:15:53.860 of forgetting it, that questions of jurisdiction were questions of power as between the U.S. 100 00:15:53.860 --> 00:15:59.900 and the several states. Questions of power. 101 00:15:59.900 --> 00:16:08.140 Now let me take a quantum leap to 20th century jurisprudence. In a couple of cases, I have 102 00:16:08.140 --> 00:16:37.140 In Missouri v. Holland, the opinion was written by Oliver Wendell Holmes, and he took the position that the 10th Amendment, it had to do with migratory birds, and the state of Missouri wanted to have those migratory birds, those Canadian birds accessible to us, accessible to us, accessible to us, accessible to us, accessible to us. 103 00:16:37.140 --> 00:16:45.140 Accessible to its hunters during hunter seasons. The Canadians were upset because the birds weren't returning on the migratory flight back to Canada. 104 00:16:45.140 --> 00:16:50.140 So they signed a treaty with Great Britain, which had jurisdiction over Canada at the time. 105 00:16:50.140 --> 00:16:59.140 And Missouri said, forget it. We have 10th Amendment powers, and we're using these powers to regulate our hunting policy. 106 00:16:59.140 --> 00:17:11.140 There's nothing in the U.S. Constitution that allows the national government to intrude upon the reserve powers of the states. 107 00:17:11.140 --> 00:17:27.140 And just, I have a paragraph here, let me just simply state that the, what, I'll read a line of what Marshall, what Oliver Wendell Holmes said to that position. 108 00:17:27.140 --> 00:17:37.140 The only question is, the case before us must be considered in light of our whole experience and not merely in that of what was said a hundred years ago. 109 00:17:37.140 --> 00:17:43.140 The treaty in question does not contravene any prohibitory words to be found in the Constitution. 110 00:17:43.140 --> 00:17:51.140 The only question is whether it is forbidden by some invisible radiation from the general terms of the Tenth Amendment. 111 00:17:51.140 --> 00:17:58.140 We must consider what this country has become in deciding what that amendment has reserved. 112 00:17:58.140 --> 00:18:04.140 A very fluid interpretation of a key constitutional provision. 113 00:18:04.140 --> 00:18:06.140 And by the way, that's nothing new. 114 00:18:06.140 --> 00:18:12.140 Chief Justice John Marshall says exactly the same thing in Gibbons v. Ogden in 1824, 115 00:18:12.140 --> 00:18:18.140 that the commerce powers of the Congress are contingent upon circumstances, 116 00:18:18.140 --> 00:18:25.140 and that the necessary and proper clause will expand and contract depending upon the interest and the needs of the country. 117 00:18:25.140 --> 00:18:31.140 But to say that the 10th Amendment doesn't have a reservoir of powers that reserves to the states, 118 00:18:31.140 --> 00:18:37.140 that those powers can be decreased depending upon what's in the national interest, 119 00:18:37.140 --> 00:18:40.140 is an important point that I want you to keep in mind. 120 00:18:40.140 --> 00:18:47.140 The second case I want to take a look at is US v. Curtis Wright, 1936. 121 00:18:47.140 --> 00:18:52.140 and its companion case in 1937, U.S. versus Belmont. 122 00:18:52.140 --> 00:19:01.140 The 1937 case essentially says that when the president signs an executive agreement with a foreign country, 123 00:19:01.140 --> 00:19:10.140 it doesn't need Senate ratification, but it has the same legal status as a treaty that had Senate treaty ratification. 124 00:19:10.140 --> 00:19:28.060 But this is what Justice Sutherland has to say about the powers of the President when it comes to national interest, if I can quickly find it. 125 00:19:28.060 --> 00:19:39.260 Justice Sutherland ruled that the investment of the Federal Government with powers of external sovereignty did not depend upon the affirmative grants of the Constitution. 126 00:19:39.260 --> 00:19:51.560 The powers of the external sovereignty passed from the Crown, that is, to King George III, to the government of the United States, and then onto the office of the President of the United States, to the office. 127 00:19:51.560 --> 00:20:05.260 So part of our case law specifically states that the President of the United States has the same powers that King George III had as King of England. 128 00:20:05.260 --> 00:20:19.160 Those previous cases say that the president can sign an executive agreement or international agreement that has the same status as a treaty, but doesn't have to go through the problem of Senate ratification. 129 00:20:19.160 --> 00:20:31.320 All of those have the power of law within the states and that the states, their reserved rights will contract as the national interests expand. 130 00:20:31.320 --> 00:21:01.320 Now, that might seem rather benign, like, so what? Big deal. We still have, as Marshall says, the only limits on congressional commerce powers, there are two of them, and one of them is the constitutional checks, but that's so expansive, there are really none there, and the other is the political process, but when you look at some recent developments, post-war developments since the 1940s, 131 00:21:01.320 --> 00:21:31.320 The United States is a party to, it becomes rather ominous, and just to very briefly give you an idea as to what I'm talking about, in 1985, the United States, now we all know about the UN Charter and all the, you know, the Charter doesn't represent nations, it represents the human family, so on and so forth, but in 1985, we agreed to the UN Charter 132 00:21:31.320 --> 00:21:37.320 U.N. General Assembly adopted what is referred to as the basic principles on the independence of the judiciary. 133 00:21:37.320 --> 00:21:42.320 And Boutrous Boutrous-Galley, when he was U.N. General Secretary, wrote about this extensively. 134 00:21:42.320 --> 00:21:48.320 He said, we have these obstacles in our path in implementing this international human family of rights. 135 00:21:48.320 --> 00:21:52.320 And they're primarily political and the nation states are in our way. 136 00:21:52.320 --> 00:21:57.320 And he admonishes and he calls upon the judiciary, especially the United States. 137 00:21:57.320 --> 00:22:08.320 He points to the United States that it is time that they incorporate these principles that the United States is a party to into case law. 138 00:22:08.320 --> 00:22:12.320 And there are two basic agreements. 139 00:22:12.320 --> 00:22:21.320 Let me just give you some of the things that, and then I'll very briefly, the basic principles of the Independence of the Judiciary, which is as follows. 140 00:22:21.320 --> 00:22:29.480 Follows, whereas the IEC, the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Civil Rights, 141 00:22:29.480 --> 00:22:33.640 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and something known as the 142 00:22:33.640 --> 00:22:38.800 Optional Protocol, all guarantee the exercise of certain rights. 143 00:22:38.800 --> 00:22:42.080 This is part of the agreement. 144 00:22:42.080 --> 00:22:46.120 Whereas frequently there still exists a gap between the vision underlying those principles 145 00:22:46.120 --> 00:22:48.520 and the actual situation. 146 00:22:48.520 --> 00:22:52.640 As the organization and administration of justice in every country should be inspired 147 00:22:52.640 --> 00:22:59.380 by those principles, an effort should be undertaken to translate them fully into reality, whereas 148 00:22:59.380 --> 00:23:04.080 roles concerning the exercise of judicial office should aim at enabling judges to act 149 00:23:04.080 --> 00:23:08.820 in accordance with those principles, whereas judges are charged with the ultimate decision 150 00:23:08.820 --> 00:23:15.280 over life, freedom, rights, duties, property, and so on and so forth, and the cause upon 151 00:23:15.280 --> 00:23:40.280 On the Judges, the Judges, just as the 14th Amendment incorporated the Bill of Rights and made them applicable to the State, the thinking of the United Nations community is that the Judges need to incorporate these fundamental rights of the human family into American and Western democracies case law. 152 00:23:40.280 --> 00:23:45.080 And as a matter of fact, some really significant developments have happened in international 153 00:23:45.080 --> 00:23:52.560 law where you could go to certain international tribunals and adjudicate a case that used 154 00:23:52.560 --> 00:23:56.320 to be only nation states could do it, but now individuals can. 155 00:23:56.320 --> 00:24:01.200 But here are some of the rights we're talking about. 156 00:24:01.200 --> 00:24:07.080 The equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of all economic, social and cultural rights, 157 00:24:07.080 --> 00:24:13.080 Article 1, Article 2, the right to work and the right to freely choose or accept the work one does, 158 00:24:13.080 --> 00:24:20.080 Article 6, the right to favorable working conditions, fair wages, leisure, paid holidays, 159 00:24:20.080 --> 00:24:26.080 Article 7, the right of everyone to form a trade union, the right of trade unions to form national federations, 160 00:24:26.080 --> 00:24:31.080 the right of national federations to form international trade union organizations, 161 00:24:31.080 --> 00:24:36.080 the right to strike, the right of everyone to social security and social insurance, 162 00:24:36.080 --> 00:24:41.080 The right of everyone to an adequate standard of living and the fundamental right to be free from hunger. 163 00:24:41.080 --> 00:24:46.080 The right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. 164 00:24:46.080 --> 00:24:49.080 And the right of everyone to education. 165 00:24:49.080 --> 00:24:53.080 Now when we talk about these rights, at least the United Nations, 166 00:24:53.080 --> 00:24:58.080 they're not talking about the rights of Americans, the rights of Georgians, the rights of Texans. 167 00:24:58.080 --> 00:25:04.080 They're talking about the rights of human families, or the right of the human family. 168 00:25:04.080 --> 00:25:08.080 The nation-states are non-players in the theoretical sense. 169 00:25:08.080 --> 00:25:14.080 The shift has gone from the state to the nation to the human family. 170 00:25:14.080 --> 00:25:19.080 Whenever you hear the word, the New World Order, think about the human family, 171 00:25:19.080 --> 00:25:25.080 because that's how the juridical community looks at it. 172 00:25:25.080 --> 00:25:31.080 Now, in closing, because I only have a couple minutes, and I did want to have just a minute or two, 173 00:25:31.080 --> 00:26:01.080 And now the Supreme Court itself may be outflanked by international tribunals. In the concurring opinion, Justice John 174 00:26:01.080 --> 00:26:06.920 and Sanction the Use of Force Against State Courts That Failed to Comply with Supreme Court Mandates. 175 00:26:06.920 --> 00:26:12.560 The confluence of laws being formulated further and further beyond the influence of popular control, 176 00:26:12.560 --> 00:26:19.360 in this case, Washington, D.C., not to mention the obscure corridors of the United Nations 177 00:26:19.360 --> 00:26:24.560 and the centralized juridical articulation of what the law is does not bode well 178 00:26:24.560 --> 00:26:30.240 for an American jurisprudence supposedly grounded in popular control and the rule of law. 179 00:26:30.240 --> 00:26:37.280 Moreover, as American jurisprudence is the mother's milk of legitimizing the ever-expanding presidential power, 180 00:26:37.280 --> 00:26:42.300 the American presidency is the praetorian guard of the American empire. 181 00:26:42.300 --> 00:26:51.600 In short, it does not bode well for genuine community self-determination, individual freedoms and liberties within the context of the rule of law. 182 00:26:51.600 --> 00:26:59.780 As Justice Story tells us, it is the necessity of uniformity that justifies centralization. 183 00:26:59.780 --> 00:27:04.940 Uniformity, for whom and towards what objective? For story, it was the American Empire. 184 00:27:04.940 --> 00:27:10.900 For contemporaries, both here and abroad, the legal obligation is towards the human family. 185 00:27:10.900 --> 00:27:13.940 That is the global empire. 186 00:27:13.940 --> 00:27:19.180 American jurisprudence, which was originally designed to secure our liberties through the rule of law, 187 00:27:19.180 --> 00:27:25.340 may now be utilized, may now utilize the rule of law to take away the same. 188 00:27:25.340 --> 00:27:41.180 There may soon be no room for community self-determination or individual liberty within the context of the rule of law and the house that Joseph Story, Justice Marshall and other Supreme Court nationalists and internationalists helped to construct. 189 00:27:41.180 --> 00:27:51.260 Is it unreasonable to anticipate the American people to soon face the fate of the Confederate South at the hands of the despot Mr. Lincoln? 190 00:27:51.260 --> 00:28:07.260 Compliance or Death. To dismiss, mock, or ignore the question is to answer it. To paraphrase Calhoun, perhaps Americans are too depraved, ignorant, and vicious to appreciate and enjoy true liberty. Thank you.