{"id":258744,"date":"2021-12-19T15:54:24","date_gmt":"2021-12-19T21:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=258744"},"modified":"2021-12-17T19:35:47","modified_gmt":"2021-12-18T01:35:47","slug":"constitution-glorious-liberty-document-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/constitution-glorious-liberty-document-all\/","title":{"rendered":"The Constitution should be a ‘glorious liberty document’ for all, not a covenant with death"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.<\/em><\/p>\n

In his 1852 \u201cWhat to the Slave is the Fourth of July?\u201d speech, escaped slave Frederick Douglass vehemently criticized abolitionist critics of the U.S. Constitution, including <\/span>The Liberator <\/span><\/i>editor and former friend William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison had cited the slave trade\u2019s 20-year safe harbor and \u201cthree-fifths compromise\u201d clauses as evidence that America\u2019s founding document represented \u201ca covenant with death and an agreement with Hell.\u201d Garrison even argued in favor of <\/span>northern <\/span><\/i>secession.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet Douglass proclaimed the Constitution a \u201cglorious liberty document.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

In contrast to Garrison, Douglass advocated the continuation of the Union as the surest path to slavery\u2019s eventual abolition. He relied on the spirit of both the Declaration of Independence and Constitution \u2014 the Founders\u2019 avoidance of the term \u201cslavery\u201d (believing the institution would and should fade) and several clauses that would immediately end slavery if applied to Black people (the Bill of Attainder Clause<\/a>, the Guarantee of Republican form of government<\/a>, etc.) to support these beliefs. <\/span><\/p>\n

Douglass knew all too well the realities of 19th-century life for Black people. He endured brutal slavery in Maryland and had his hand broken in a scuffle with pro-slavery, anti-abolition ruffians at a speech in Pendleton, Indiana. But despite these hardships, Douglass knew America\u2019s Founding spirit and noble destiny, and could not square these with a pro-slavery interpretation of our basic law. President Lincoln\u2019s revival of the Spirit of 1776 and the Union\u2019s victory over the forces of slavery and disunion vindicated those beliefs. In retrospect, Douglass\u2019s faith in both Divine Providence and America\u2019s national soul looks wisely, as the unshackling of four million American citizens between 1861 and 1865 attests.<\/span><\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0It\u2019s past time for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe \u2013 and this time, there\u2019s a good chance they will<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

But the victory over the pro-slavery interpretation of the Constitution expounded in <\/span>Dred Scott<\/span><\/i>\u2014which held that Black human beings were not citizens and had \u201cno rights the white man is bound to respect\u201d\u2014has proven temporary. In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled that preborn humans have \u201cno rights which the born are bound to respect,\u201d and states that want to respect the rights of preborn humans\u00a0<\/span>cannot legally respect them <\/span><\/i>without running afoul of the Court\u2019s rulings in <\/span>Roe<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/i>and <\/span>Casey<\/span><\/i><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Recently, dozens of state legislatures across America have challenged those Supreme Court decisions with heartbeat bills and restrictions on abortion at various gestational ages, demonstrating that the issue is not settled law, unlike other controversial decisions such as\u00a0<\/span>Miranda v. Arizona<\/span><\/i><\/a> or <\/span>Obergefell v. Hodges<\/span><\/i><\/a>. Among these states is Mississippi, whose 15-week abortion restriction (with limited exceptions for mother\u2019s life and health) reached the highest court in the land for oral arguments on December 1.<\/span><\/p>\n

In his presentation to the Supreme Court, Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart, representing the state that produced Jefferson Davis, connected the historical mistreatment of Black people with today\u2019s abortion jurisprudence. Stewart remarked in his closing argument:<\/span><\/p>\n

In his dissent in <\/span>Plessy v. Ferguson<\/span><\/a>, Justice Harlan emphasized that there is no caste system here. The humblest in our country is the pure, the most powerful\u2026 It took the Court 58 years to recognize the truth of those realities in a decision (<\/span>Brown<\/span><\/a>), and that was the greatest decision this Court ever reached. We\u2019re running on 50 years of <\/span>Roe<\/span>\u2026 It is an egregiously wrong decision that has inflicted tremendous damage on our country.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Stewart hit the nail on the head. The justices in <\/span>Roe<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Casey<\/span><\/i> only inflamed a social battle they hoped to defuse, as Chief Justice Taney did with slavery in <\/span>Dred<\/span><\/i> and the Court did with segregation in <\/span>Plessy v. Ferguson<\/span><\/i>. The Court must admit its error and re-affirm the people\u2019s sovereignty<\/span> over the abortion issue. Those who value unborn life should be allowed to act without the Court slandering our Founders and misrepresenting our history by telling them that the Constitution disallows it.<\/span><\/p>\n

In June, the Supreme Court will decide a legal question: should they adhere to precedent, pretending that the people created a positive right to abortion upon ratifying the Bill of Rights in 1791 and the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, or not? But behind this purely legal question is a moral one touching our nation\u2019s heart: is America founded on \u201ca covenant with death, an agreement with Hell,\u201d wherein rights to extinguish others\u2019 basic liberties wait for interested partisans to discover in the Constitution? Or are we founded on the opposite principle — that of equal justice before the law and of guaranteeing the rights of even our most vulnerable citizens? Our shame upon remembering <\/span>Dred Scott <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Plessy<\/span><\/i> reveals the answer.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no \u201cright to do wrong\u201d at the heart of our fundamental law. There was not in 1857, and there is not in 2021. For the sake of both the Court\u2019s legitimacy and the nation\u2019s soul, the Court should bury that myth. It has already bruised, beaten, and buried too many of us. The Court\u2019s responsibility is clear: overrule <\/span>Roe <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Casey <\/span><\/i>and begin restoring Americans\u2019 faith in the Supreme Court\u2019s impartiality. The Constitution is a glorious liberty document for even our most powerless citizens, not a covenant with death for the convenience of the powerful.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bio:\u00a0<\/em>Nathan Richendollar is a summa cum laude economics and politics graduate of Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA. He lives in Southwest Missouri with his wife Bethany and works in the financial sector.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cLike\u201d Live Action News on Facebook<\/a>\u00a0for more pro-life news and commentary!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. In his 1852 \u201cWhat to the Slave is the Fourth of July?\u201d speech, escaped slave Frederick Douglass vehemently criticized abolitionist critics of the U.S. Constitution, including The Liberator editor and former friend William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison had cited the slave trade\u2019s 20-year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":858,"featured_media":258070,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[7077,3],"tags":[14616,253,14778,14777,2934,885,12453,5773,180,197],"yoast_head":"\nThe Constitution should be a 'glorious liberty document' for all, not a covenant with death<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Is America founded on \u201ca covenant with death...\u201d or are we founded on the opposite principle... of equal justice before the law...?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/constitution-glorious-liberty-document-all\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Constitution should be a 'glorious liberty document' for all, not a covenant with death\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Is America founded on \u201ca covenant with death...\u201d or are we founded on the opposite principle... of equal justice before the law...?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/constitution-glorious-liberty-document-all\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-12-19T21:54:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-12-18T01:35:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/pro-life-fetal-model-e1687628616527.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1191\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"558\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nathan Richendollar\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nathan Richendollar\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/constitution-glorious-liberty-document-all\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/constitution-glorious-liberty-document-all\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Nathan Richendollar\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/6a807d4819928a6f6f9fccbdb383ccae\"},\"headline\":\"The Constitution should be a ‘glorious liberty document’ for all, not a covenant with death\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-12-19T21:54:24+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-12-18T01:35:47+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/constitution-glorious-liberty-document-all\/\"},\"wordCount\":943,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"Casey\",\"Constitution\",\"Dobbs\",\"Dred Scott\",\"Frederick Douglass\",\"Mississippi\",\"Plessy v. 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