| WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT |
The following quotes and words of encouragement are provided for those who are honorably in jail because they tried to exercise their Constitutional Rights. "Never give in; never give in; never, never, never, never--in nothing great or small, large or petty--never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy." Sir Winston Churchill, speech to students at Harrow, his old preparatory school. ************************************************************** "If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." Winston Churchill ************************************************************** "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin, 20 years before the Bill of Rights ************************************************************** Solon (594 B.C.), when asked how social justice could be achieved in Athens, said, "We can have justice whenever those who have not been injured by injustice are as outraged by it as those who have been." ************************************************************** "Liberty can neither be got nor kept, but by so much Care that Mankind are generally unwilling to give the Price for it." The Complete Works of George Savile, First Marquess of Halifax, 1912, 224. "A Man that should call every thing by its right Name, would hardly pass the Streets without being knocked down as a common enemy." The Complete Works of George Savile, First Marquess of Halifax, 1912, 246 "If none were to have Liberty but those who understand what it is, there would not be many freed Men in the World." George Savile, Political Thoughts and Reflections, 1750. ************************************************************** There is nothing so fearful as ignorance in action." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Criticisms, Reflections and Maxims. ************************************************************** Penn was a leader of the quakers in London. The sect was not recognized by the government and was forbidden to meet in any building for the purpose of worship. In 1670 William Penn held a worship service in a quiet street which was attended by a peaceful group of fellow Quakers. Penn and another Quaker, William Mead, were arrested on a charge of disturbing the King's peace and summoned to stand trial. As the two men entered the courtroom, a bailiff ordered them to place their hats, which they had removed, back on their heads. When they complied, they were called forward and held in contempt of court for being in the courtroom with their hats on. That was only the beginning. Penn demanded to know under which law they were charged. The court refused to supply that information and instead referred vaguely to the common law. When Penn protested that he was entitled to a specific indictment, he was removed from the presence of the judge and jury and confined in an enclosed corner of the room known as the bale-dock. From there, he could neither confront the witnesses who accused him of preaching to the Quakers nor ask them questions about their charges against him. Several witnesses testified that Penn had preached to a gathering which included Mead, but one showed some hesitancy as to whether Mead had been present. The judge turned to Mead and questioned him directly. In essence, he was asking Mead if he were guilty. Mead invoked the common-law privilege against self-incrimination which provoked hostile comment from the judge. The court then sent Mead to join Penn in the bale-dock out of the sight of the jury and witnesses. After the testimony the court instructed the jury to find the defendants guilty as charged. Penn tried to protest, but was silenced and again sent out of the courtroom. The jury, for its part, proved sympathetic to the two defendants, and refused the judge's command to find the defendants guilty. The judge was furious and sent them away to reconsider. When they returned with the same verdict, the court criticized the jury's leader, one Bushnell, and demanded "a verdict that the court will accept, and you shall be locked up without meat, drink, fire, and tobacco. . . . We will have a verdict by the help of God or you will starve for it." Three more times the jury went out and returned with the same verdict. Finally, they refused to go out any more. The judge fined each of them forty marks and ordered them imprisoned until the fine was paid. Penn and Mead went to prison anyway for obeying the bailiff's order that they put on their hats. Later a writ of habeas corpus won freedom for the jurors while Penn and Mead left jail to come to America. Earl Warren, "A Republic, If You Can Keep It", pp. 113-115 ************************************************************ Penn: I desire you would let me know by what law it is you prosecute me, and upon what law you ground my indictment. Rec.: Upon the common-law. Penn: Where is that common-law? Rec.: You must not think that I am able to run up so many years, and over so many adjudged cases, which we call common-law, to answer your curiosity. Penn: This answer I am sure is very short of my question, for if it be common, it should not be so hard to produce. Rec.: The question is, whether you are Guilty of this Indictment? Penn: The question is not, whether I am Guilty of this Indictment, but whether this Indictment be legal. It is too general and imperfect an answeer, to say it is the common-law, unless we knew both where and what it is. For where there is no law, there is no transgression; and that law which is not in being, is so far from being common, that it is no law at all. Rec.: You are an impertinent fellow, will you teach the court what law is? It is "Lex non scripta," that which many have studied 30 or 40 years to know, and would you have me tell you in a moment? Penn: Certainly, if the common-law be so hard to understand it is far from being common. Trial of William Penn. 6 How. St. Trials (1670) 951, 958. Penn was refused admittance to the Quaker Meeting Hall and in protest began to preach in the street. He was indicted under the common law for taking part in an unlawful and tumultuous assembly. The jury refused to render a verdict of guilty and were taken into custody. ************************************************************** "No! No! Sentence first--verdict afterwards." Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, ch. 12 ************************************************************** A swallow had built her nest under the eaves of a Court of Justice. Before her young ones could fly, a serpent gliding out of his hole ate them all up. When the poor bird returned to her nest and found it empty, she began a pitiable wailing. A neighbor suggested, by way of comfort, that she was not the first bird who had lost her young. "True," she replied, "but it is not only my little ones that I mourn, but that I should have been wronged in that very place where the injured fly for justice." Aesop, Fables ************************************************************** "Everybody is presumed to know the law except His Majesty's judges, who have a Court of Appeal set over them to put them right." WILLIAM HENRY MAULE (Judge, Common Pleas), attributed to. See Williams, "Criminal Law (1953) 386. ************************************************************** "Public wrongs are but popular rights in embryo." LORD DARLING, Meditations in the Tea Room, VII ************************************************************** "The law in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." ANATOLE FRANCE, Le Lys Rouge (The Red Lily), ch. 7. ************************************************************** The law doth punish man or woman ************************************************************** "Taxation: The art of so plucking the goose as to procure the most feathers with the least possible amount of hissing." 18th century French Maxim. Attributed to Jean Baptiste Colbert, also to Talleyrand. ************************************************************** "The power to tax involves the power to destroy." MARSHALL, C.J., McCulloch v. Maryland (1819,US) 4 Wheat 316, 431, 4 LEd. 579, 607 ************************************************************** "It is true that taxes are the lifeblood of any government, but it cannot be overlooked that that blood is taken from the arteries of the taxpayers and, therefore, the transfusion is not to be accomplished except in accordance with the scientific methods specifically prescribed by the sovereign power of the State, the Legislature." MUSMANNO, J., Urban Redevelopment Condemnation Case, 406 Pa. 6, 11 (1962). ************************************************************** "When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income." PLATO, Republic, bk 1, 343-d ************************************************************** "The only protection of every citizen from such deprivation of rights is a strict adherence to the Bill of Rights by everyone for everyone. This should be self-evident but the danger of erosion of rights stems largely from the fact that so many citizens of the majority, who have never been deprived of any of these rights, find it difficult to understand what the deprivation of them means in the lives of others." Earl Warren, A Republic, If You Can Keep It, p. 48 ************************************************************** "The law has not the need of special language most laymen think it has. The law has not the need, but lawyers tend to act as though it did. This is in part incompetence--it is easier to repeat a baggy formula than find words that really fit--and in part exploitation of man's liability to magic. For centuries our lawyers, a priestly caste, used a mysterious tongue, composed of Latin, French, English, incantation and a bit of mumbling. These continue, more or less, to the present day--Latin less, English more, French absorbed, incantation down a bit, mumbling steady. " Charles Rembar, Attorney; The Law of The Land ************************************************************** Interesting statistics about the American adult population: 46% do not know that the original purpose of the Constitution was to create a Federal Government and define its powers 26% confuse the Constitution with the Declaration of Independence and think its purpose was to declare our national separation from England 59% do not know what the Bill of Rights is 27% believe the Bill of Rights is a preamble to the Constitution 49% incorrectly think the President can suspend the Constitution. Compiled in 1986 by Hearst Corporation telephone poll of 1,004 randomly selected adults across the Country. ************************************************************** Education is the best security for maintaining liberties, and, "a nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny reigns." Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography 1 Timothy 1: "5 Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned; 8 But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; 9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane...." ------------------------------------- "For our friends: everything. For strangers: nothing. And, for our enemies, the Law!" Latin-American saying. ------------------------------------- "It is organized violence on top which creates individual violence at the bottom." Emma Goldman (1869-1940) ------------------------------------- "I needed the good will of the legislature of four states. I 'formed' the legislative bodies with my own money. I found that it was cheaper that way." Jay Gould (1836-1892) American capitalist. ------------------------------------- (Hiram) Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) 18th President of the United States. "I know of no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution." ------------------------------------- "Justice is the sum of all moral duty." William Godwin (1756- 1836) English novelist, biographer, philosopher ------------------------------------- "Since government, even in its best state is an evil, the object principally to be aimed at is that we should have as little of it as the general peace of human society will permit." William Godwin (1756-1836) English novelist, biographer, philosopher ------------------------------------- "Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence; Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear." William E. Gladstone (1809-1898) English statesman ------------------------------------- "National injustice is the surest road to national downfall. " William E. Gladstone (1809-1898) English statesman ------------------------------------- "I say, with Waite of Colorado, that the rivers of America will run with blood filled to their banks before we will submit to them taking the Bible out of our schools." William A. (Billy) Sunday (1862-1935) American evangelist. ------------------------------------- "It is a maxim among lawyers, that whatever hath been done before may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities, to justify the most iniquitous opinions; and the judges never fail of directing accordingly." Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) Gulliver's Travels ------------------------------------- "We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another." Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English satirist ------------------------------------- "It is not from top to bottom that societies die; it is from bottom to top." Henry George (1839-1897) American economist, reformer, champion of the single land tax ------------------------------------- "When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income." PLATO, Republic, bk 1, 343-d ------------------------------------------------- "A jury trial is a fight and not an afternoon tea." RIDDELL, J., Dale v. Toronto R. W. Cjo. (1915) 34 Ont. L. R. 104, 108 ------------------------------------------------- "The law itself is on trial, quite as much as the cause which is to be decided." HARLAN F. STONE, The Common Law in the United States, 50 Harv. L. Rev. 4 (1936). ------------------------------------------------- "The United States Supreme Court has wittily been called the 'court of ultimate conjecture.'" JEROME FRANK, Law and the Modern Mind 46n. (1930). ------------------------------------------------- "O judge not a book by its cover Or else you'll for sure come to grief, For the lengthiest things you'll discover Are contained in what's known as a Brief." J.P.C., 116 Just.P. 640 (1952) ------------------------------------------------- "He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met." ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Hill, 'Lincoln, the Lawyer' 218 ------------------------------------------------- "The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the State to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the State." McREYNOLDS, J., Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) 268 US 510, 535, 69 L.Ed. 1070, 1078, 45 SCt 571, 39 ALR 468 ------------------------------------------------- "The whole history of English justice and police might be brought under this rubric." The Decline and Fall of the Sheriff. FREDERIC WM. MAITLAND, Justice and Police, 69 (1885) ------------------------------------------------- The law is a bright light which blinds all reasonable men. She offered her honor A page of history is worth a volume of logic. Justice Holmes "A republic is not an easy form of government to live under, and when the responsibility of citizenship is evaded, democracy decays and authoritarianism takes over." Earl Warren, "A Republic, If You Can Keep It", p 13 "The only protection of every citizen from such deprivation of rights is a strict adherence to the Bill of Rights by everyone for everyone. This should be self-evident but the danger of erosion of rights stems largely from the fact that so many citizens of the majority, who have never been deprived of any of these rights, find it difficult to understand what the deprivation of them means in the lives of others." Earl Warren, A Republic, If You Can Keep It, p. 48 ------------------------------------------------------------ The Constitution of the U.S.S.R., adopted in 1936, and as amended in 1965, contains the following provisions: "Article 125. In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to strengthen the Socialist system, the citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed by law; (a) freedom of speech; (b) freedom of the press; (c) freedom of assembly including the holding of mass meetings; (d) freedom of street expressions and demonstrations." "Article 124. In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church in the U.S.S.R. is separated from the state, and the school from the church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of antireligious propaganda is recognized for all citizens." "Article 127. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed inviolability of the person. No person shall be placed under arrest except by decision of a court of law or with the sanction of a procurator." "Article 122. Women in the U.S.S.R. are accorded all rights on an equal footing with men in all spheres of economic, government, culture, politics and other social activity." "Article 123. Equality of rights of citizens of the U.S.S.R., irrespective of their nationality or race in all spheres of economic, government, culture, politics and other social activity is an indefeasible law." How similar these sections are to our Bill of Rights, with its guarantees of freedom of speech, of the press, of association, of the right to petition the government, the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Yes, how similar these constitutional privileges are, but how different the quality and the reality of the life of the two peoples living under them. The reason, of course, is apparent. In the U.S.S.R. the government is supreme and omnipresent in every respect, with the rights of individuals subordinated to it. The people have no way to enforce the language of their Constitution. Most of the declared freedoms are inaccessible to them. In the United States the people are sovereign. The powers of the government are only those delegated to it by the people. The democratic process, by definition, is one in which "The supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system." Earl Warren, "A Republic, If You Can Keep It", pp. 60-61 ------------------------------------------------------------ "'Dissent,' then, should be an honored word, and all citizens should be encouraged to engage in it. The opposite of dissent is conformity, and nothing could be more deadly than to have conformity for the sake of conformity." Earl Warren, "A Republic, If You Can Keep It", pp. 104 ------------------------------------------------------------ "The law has not the need of special language most laymen think it has. The law has not the need, but lawyers tend to act as though it did. This is in part incompetence--it is easier to repeat a baggy formula than find words that really fit--and in part exploitation of man's liability to magic. For centuries our lawyers, a priestly caste, used a mysterious tongue, composed of Latin, French, English, incantation and a bit of mumbling. These continue, more or less, to the present day--Latin less, English more, French absorbed, incantation down a bit, mumbling steady." Charles Rembar, Attorney; The Law of The Land ========================================== Quote to be checked: The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part II, Act iv This said to be taken out of context; its meaning is supposed to be quite different when quoted IN context. ========================================== "Four sheep, a hog and ten bushels of wheat settled an Iowa breach of promise suit where $25,000 damages were demanded. The lawyers got all but the hog, which died before they could drive it away." Article in the Cheyenne Leader, January 14, 1888 ========================================== "Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers." -- Socrates ========================================== Ratification by Pennsylvania In Pennsylvania a most unusual event is reported to have taken place. The state convention had progressed through the arguments and a date was set on which a vote on ratification was to be taken. The majority were in favor of ratification but a quorum was needed in order to conduct business. It is said that the Anti-Federal delegates, knowing that they would lose if a quorum were present and knowing that the presence of two of them would be needed for a quorum, agreed to boycott the meeting. They, therefore, met in a local tavern to pass the hours that day. But some of the citizens, becoming aware of their strategy, marched upon the tavern, seized two of their number and transported them to the convention hall. There they were detained against their will, making a quorum for business, while the proponents passed the resolution of ratification by 63-43. Some of the opposition votes were not counted because they absented themselves, although it is said that the resolution would have carried had they been present. Thus Pensylvania became the second state to ratify. ------------------------------------------ If you blot out from your statute book, your Constitution, your family life, and all that is taken from the Sacred Book, what would there be left to bind society together? Benjamin Franklin ------------------------------------------ "The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man's spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure, and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions, and their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone--the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men." Louis D. Brandeis. Olmstead v. the United States. ------------------------------------------ Interesting statistics about the American adult population: 46% do not know that the original purpose of the Constitution was to create a Federal Government and define its powers 26% confuse the Constitution with the Declaration of Independence and think its purpose was to declare our national separation from England 59% do not know what the Bill of Rights is 27% believe the Bill of Rights is a preamble to the Constitution 49% incorrectly think the President can suspend the Constitution. Compiled in 1986 by Hearst Corporation telephone poll of 1,004 randomly selected adults across the Country. ------------------------------------------ "Education is the best security for maintaining liberties, and, 'a nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny reigns.'" Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography ------------------------------------------ MASONIC FOUNDERS 65 delegates chosen 55 served behind closed and guarded doors 13 of 39 of the signers of the Constitution were Masons John Marshall, Supreme Court Chief Justice George Washington, Grand Master Gunning Bedford, Jr. (1747-1812), served in Second Continental Congress. Delegate from Delaware, appointed by Washington as first judge on the United States District Court of Delaware; first Grand Master of Delaware John Blair (1732-1800) Member of Virginia legislature. Justice of first Supreme Court of the United States. First Grand Master of Virginia, 1778-84 David Brearley (1745-1790), arrested by English on charge of high treason, but was set free. Chief Justice of New Jersey (1779), United States District Judge (1789). Helped compile the Protestant Episcopal Prayer Book of 1785. First Grand Master of New Jersey. Jacob Broom (1752-1810) member of Delaware legislature (1784-88), first postmaster of Wilmington (1790-92), schoolteacher, real estate dealer and surveyor. Two weeks before the battle, he drew a map of the area around Brandywine for the use of General Washington. Served as Secretary, Treasurer, and Junior Warden of his Masonic lodge. Daniel Carroll (1730-1796), signed Declaration of Independence, owned the farm which now is the present site of Wash. D.C. Member of Continental Congress (1780-84), signer of the Articles of Confederation. Became a Mason in 1781 Jonathan Dayton (1760-1824) served as paymaster in the Revolution under his father, General Elias Dayton. Congressman (1791-99), Speaker of the House of Representatives, U.S. Senator (1799-1805), arrested for alleged conspiracy with Aaron Burr, but was not tried. Member of Pennsylvania Assembly of 1764, Colonial Congress of 1765, first Continental Congress, signer of the Articles of Confederation. A Quaker, he opposed the adoption of the Declaration of Independence and refused to sign it. During the Revolution he served as a private. In 1777 was commissioned a brigadier general in the Delaware militia. Founder of Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. President of Delaware (1781-82), President of Pennsylvania (1782-85). Wrote a series of letters signed "Fabius" which were greatly responsible for Delaware and Pennsylvania were the first two states to ratify the Constitution. Benjamin Franklin, (1706-1790) printer, scientist, philosopher, statesman, and author. While Grand Master of Masons in Pennsylvania in 1734, he printed Anderson's Constitutions, the first Masonic book printed America. As a member of the Second Continental Congress of 1775, he helped draft the Declaration of Independence and signed it. While serving as Minister to France (1776-85) he assisted at the Masonic initiation (April 1778) of Voltaire, and officiated at the writer's funeral (November 1778). Oldest man at the Convention (82 years), his mind was that of a 25-year- old. Had the ability to tell a story in a most impressive style, but frequently asked another delegate to read a statement which he had previously prepared. Nicholas Gilman (1755-1814) |