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"The Right to Self-Defense"
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"A covenant not to defend myself from force, by force, is always void. For, as I have showed before, no man can transfer, or lay down his right to save himself from death, wounds, and imprisonment, the avoiding whereof is the only end of laying down any right; and therefore the promise of not resisting force, in no covenant transferreth any right; nor is obliging. For though a man may covenant thus, unless I do so, or so, kill me; he cannot covenant thus, unless I do so, or so, I will not resist you, when you come to kill me. For man by nature chooseth the lesser evil, which is danger of death in resisting; rather than the greater, which is certain and present death in not resisting. And this is granted to be true by all men, in that they lead criminals to execution, and prison, with armed men, notwithstanding that such criminals have consented to the law, by which they are condemned."
- Thomas Hobbes, The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, vol. 3 (Leviathan), Chap. XIV.: of the first and second natural laws, and of contracts.
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Letters of Delegates to Congress: Volume 4
John Hancock to the ColoniesGentlemen, Philada. June 7th. 1776. I am commanded by Congress to transmit you the enclosed Resolves, and to request your immediate Attention to the same.(1)
The Article of Lead is so essentially necessary to us at this Juncture, and is withall so scarce, that no Pains should be spared to procure it. The Situation of the United Colonies will be extremely deploreable if we depend entirely upon the Importation of it. Every People should have, within themselves, all the Means of Self Defence. To the Bounty of Providence we owe it, that America has these in the greatest Plenty. Let us not therefore be wanting to ourselves, but faithfully and dilligently cultivate those Means; and I trust we shall, ere long, baffle the most malicious Schemes of our enraged & implacable Enemies.
You will readily perceive the great Importance of the enclosed Resolve, wherein the Congress earnestly recommend to you to remove every Thing out of the Way, that could enable our Enemies to prosecute their Plans of Violence agt. us. It is indeed so apparently the Advantage of Individuals to remove their Stock & grain, that in this Instance, their Interest, & that of the Public are one & the same.
I have the Honour to be, Gentlemen, you most obed. & very hble Svt. J. H. Prest.
LB (DNA: PCC, item 12A).
1 See the June 3 resolves respecting lead mines and the removal of "stocks, grain, and meal" from areas threatened by British invasion in JCC, 4:413-14.**********
"...I am no way discouraged, but I am grieved to find our councils and our public deliberations conducted in the manner they are at present. The very name of Congress was a great while sacred almost as that of the Divinity in these States. You as well as I know how much weakness, to say nothing more, lay concealed from the first behind the sacred vail from the view of the public. I tremble for the consequences when Americans, who have served their country with the highest reputation at home and abroad, shall be forced by the injuries and abuse which they receive, in vindication of themselves, to draw this vail and hold up to the open view of their countrymen certain individuals who have by one circumstance or another greatly influenced the deliberations of Congress. Self-defense is the first law of nature. I hope and am sure I shall not be driven to this extremity whilst so many appear resolved to see justice done me...."
- Silas Deane, Sept. 14, 1778 letter to John Hancock. [The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, Vol. 2. Library of Congress - American Memory.]
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"Excusable homicides are in some cases not quite unblamable. These should subject the party to marks of contrition; viz., the killing of a man in defence of property; so also in defence of one's person, which is a species of excusable homicide; because, although cases may happen where these are also commendable, yet most frequently they are done on too slight appearance of danger; as in return for a blow, kick, fillip, &c., or on a person's getting into a house, not animo furandi, but perhaps veneris causa, &c. Excusable homicides are by misadventure, or in self-defence."
- Thomas Jefferson, Note to Crimes Bill.
Washington ed. i ,152. Ford ed., ii, 209. (1779). [5579. MURDER, Excusable. -- JCE5579. The Modern English Collection at the University of Virginia Electronic Text Center.] **********
"Mason--The Executive negatives both Brs of the Legislatr and each Br. has a negative on the other--and the Genl. Gov. have a neg. on the State Legislature--these regulations are necessary on the principles of self Defence--it is an instinctive principle in nature, and in a proper degree every being professes this power. If the State Legislatures are deprived of the Election of the 2d. or 1st Br. of the natil. Legislature the States are destitute of this principle of self protection--I wish them to continue & I shall not agree to deprive them of the power of a constitutional self Protection..."
- The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, [Farrand's Records, Volume 1] YATES. June 25th, 1787.
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"...Self defence is a primary law of nature, which no subsequent law of society can abolish; this primæval principle, the immediate gift of the Creator, obliges every one to remonstrate against the strides of ambition, and a wanton lust of domination, and to resist the first approaches of tyranny, which at this day threaten to sweep away the rights for which the brave sons of America have fought with an heroism scarcely paralleled even in ancient republicks...."
- Elbridge Gerry, Observations On the new Constitution, and on the Federal and State Conventions. By a Columbian Patriot. Sic transit gloria Americana. [Boston: 1788.]
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"An assault and battery may, indeed, be resisted and repelled, by a battery more violent; but the life of a fellow creature must not be taken, unless in self-defence."
- Chief Justice [Thomas] M'Kean, U.S. Supreme Court, [RESPUBLICA v. MULATTO BOB, 4 U.S. 145 (1795) (Dall.)]. Decided Sept. Term, 1795. (Mr. M'Kean had also signed the original Declaration of Independence, but it his signature was omitted in the published copy in the Congressional Journal.)
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"Also, the conditions and circumstances of the period require a finding that while the stated purpose of the right to arms was to secure a well-regulated militia, the right to self-defense was assumed by the Framers."
- John Marshall, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice. [As quoted in Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. 243, 251 (1846); State v. Dawson, 272 N.C. 535, 159 S.E.2d 1, 9 (1968).]
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"THE Commander in Chief takes the earliest opportunity of calling the attention of his Fellow Citizens to the Military security of the Commonwealth. The Militia, the natural defence of all free States, is our best hope on every occasion of sudden or unexpected danger--that of Massachusetts, whether in the field of Hostility, or on the domestic Parade, has ever been distinguished for its good Order, Subordination and Discipline; without these essential qualifications, all its efforts would have been feeble, and all its strength but a shadow: But so long as they shall be recognized as habitual traits in the Military Character of our Citizens, the power of the State will be respected, and appear formidable in the eyes of military Men.
"Self-defence is the first law of nature, and applies to nations as well as individuals; and to provide for that defence is the duty of every nation, even when in the most profound Peace..."
- William Donnison, Adjutant general, General orders. Head-quarters, Boston, June 13th, 1797.
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"The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Whenever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction."
- St. George Tucker, United States District Court Judge, Blackstone's Commentaries, (1803).
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"Whatever the great principle of self defence in its reasonable and necessary exercise will sanction in an individual in a state of nature, nations may lawful perform upon the ocean. This principle, as well as most others, may be carried to an unreasonable extent; it may be made the pretence instead of the real ground of aggression, and then it will become a just cause of war. I contend only for its reasonable exercise."
- Justice [William] Johnson, U.S. Supreme Court, ROSE v. HIMELY, 8 U.S. 241 (Cranch), February Term, 1808.
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"The right of self-defence never ceases. It is among the must sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals."
- President James Monroe, Nov. 16, 1818 message to the U.S. House and Senate. [Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, November 17th, 1818..]
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"...Resolved, That, in cases of gross and intolerable oppression, which, in a Government like that of the United States can be little else than a hypothesis, the natural right of self-defence remains; but which must, in the nature of things, be an appeal to arms, and subject to all the consequences of resistance to the constituted authorities. In such a case, the measure is revolutionary, and the result remains in the hands of the A. Almighty.
"Resolved, That the Convention of South Carolina can have no other or greater right to annul or resist the laws of Congress, than any assemblage of an equal number of individuals in any part of the United States; nor can any assemblage, however large, have any other or greater right for such a purpose, than belongs to each individual citizen, considered as a constitutional measure...."
- Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, February 4, 1833.
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"'[T]he fundamental principle [is] that a government and its agents are under no duty to provide . . . police protection, to any particular individual citizen.'
. . . The duty to provide public services is owed to the public at large, and, absent a special relationship between the police and an individual, no specific legal duty exists."
- Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App. 1981).
"As a general principle, state actors cannot be held liable for private acts of violence under
a substantive due process theory. DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 196 (1989); see also Castle Rock, 545 U.S. at ___, 125 S. Ct. at 2810. We recognize two exceptions to this rule: (1) when the state has a special relationship to the victim, and (2) when the state creates the danger that led to the victim’s harm. Jones v. Union County, 296 F.3d 417, 428 (6th Cir. 2002)."- Hudson v. Hudson, United States Court of Appeals - 6th Circuit, Jan. 16, 2007.
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Self-Defense and the United States Supreme Court:
"It was demanded by a great and overruling necessity. ..... This great law of necessity-of defence of self, of home, and of country-never was designed to be abrogated by any statute, or by any constitution."
- Mr. [(Formerly Major-General), Benjamin Franklin] Butler, ON THE SIDE OF THE UNITED STATES, EX PARTE MILLIGAN, U.S. Supreme Court, Dec. Term, 1866.
"The court, in effect, said-or the jury may, not unreasonably, have understood the court as declaring-that preparation by arming, although for self-defense only, could not be followed, in any case, by manslaughter, if the killing, after such arming, was not, in fact, in necessary self- defense. Such we understand to be the meaning of the charge. In our opinion, the court erred in so charging the jury. If the accused was justified in the eye of the law in arming himself for self-defense,[Page 153 U.S. 183, 192] and if, without seeking, but on meeting, his adversary, on a subsequent occasion, he killed him, not in necessary self-defense, then his crime was that of manslaughter or murder, as the circumstances, on the occasion of the killing, made it the one or the other. If guilty of manslaughter, looking alone at those circumstances, he could not be found guilty of murder by reason of his having previously armed himself solely for self- defense."
- Mr. Justice HARLAN, U.S. Supreme Court, Gourko v. U.S., April 16, 1894."...The principal question in the case arises out of those parts of the charge in which the court instructed the jury as to the principles of the law of self-defense..."
"...'A man may repel force by force in defense of his person, habitation, or property against one who manifestly intends and endeavors, by violence or surprise, to commit a known felony, such as murder, rape, robbery, arson, burglary, and the like, upon either. In these cases he is not obliged to retreat, but may pursue his adversary until he has secured himself from all danger; and if he kill him in so doing it is called justifiable self-defense..."
- Mr. Justice HARLAN, U.S. Supreme Court, Beard v. U.S., May 27, 1895.
"...The law has grown, and even if historical mistakes have contributed to its growth it has tended in the direction of rules consistent with human nature. Many respectable writers agree that if a man reasonably believes that he is in immediate danger of death or grievous bodily harm from his assailant he may stand his ground and that if he kills him he has not succeeded the bounds of lawful self defence. That has been the decision of this Court. Beard v. United States, 158 U.S. 550, 559, 15 S. Sup. Ct. 962. Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife. Therefore in this Court, at least, it is not a condition of immunity that one in that situation should pause to consider whether a reasonable man might not think it possible to fly with safety or to disable his assailant rather than to kill him..."
- Mr. Justice [Oliver Wendell] HOLMES, U.S. Supreme Court, BROWN v. UNITED STATES, 256 U.S. 335 (1921).
Other United States Supreme Court Decisions Concerning: The Right of [Armed] Self Defense;
Wiggins v. State Of Utah, Oct. Term, 1876.
Thompson v. U.S., Dec. 3, 1894.
Allison v. U.S., Dec. 16, 1895.
Brown v. Walker, March 23, 1896.
Stevenson v. U.S., April 13, 1896.
Wallace v. U.S., April 20, 1896.
Patsone v. Com. Of Pennsylvania, Jan. 19, 1914.
Adamson v. People Of State Of California, June 23, 1947.
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The right to defend not only your person, but others who are faced with immediate danger, is unquestionable. The whole concept of preservation of Life, Liberty and Property is woven throughout the founding documents of the United States. Long before the Declaration of Independence, on which our U.S. Constitution is partially based, this right had been considered as the First Law of Nature. Because of the FACT of it being considered as a Natural Law, the Right is thusly placed beyond the grasp of any man made law. Provided that the right is exercised in a lawful manner. This is affirmed in the second clause of Amendment II in our Bill of Rights;
"the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
The right to self-defense in America, was recognized and recorded as being acceptable as early as 1641:
4. If any person committ any wilfull murther, which is manslaughter, committed upon premeditated malice, hatred, or Crueltie, not in a mans necessarie and just defence, nor by meere casualtie against his will, he shall be put to death.
It was another 131 years before the right was again touched upon in a recognizable manner. (Other than in the 1689 English Bill of Rights). In 1772, Mr. Samuel Adams and Benjamin Franklin produced a work titled 'The Report of the Committee of Correspondence to the Boston Town Meeting' or, better known as "The Rights of The Colonists". In which, Mr. Adams and Mr. Franklin describe 'self-preservation' as not only a right, but a duty of the colonists.
In the one and a half years of continuous study of the original intentions of the framers of our present Constitution. The best description of the right of self-defense I've yet come across is by a gentlemen whom played a major role in framing our Constitution:
"The defence of one’s self, justly called the primary law of nature, is not, nor can it be abrogated by any regulation of municipal law. This principle of defence is not confined merely to the person; it extends to the liberty and the property of a man: it is not confined merely to his own person; it extends to the persons of all those, to whom he bears a peculiar relation -- of his wife, of his parent, of his child, of his master, of his servant: nay, it extends to the person of every one, who is in danger; perhaps, to the liberty of every one, whose liberty is unjustly and forcibly attacked. It becomes humanity as well as justice."
- James Wilson, 'Of the Natural Rights of Individuals', 1790-1792,
(Signed the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, Congressman, Delegate to the Constitutional Convention and Supreme Court Justice).
Doesn't get much more clear than that, does it? In consideration of Mr. Wilson's credentials, one has to wonder what it is that the current people in our government(s) are thinking? Either the Congress, and the Supreme Court, are both filled with people that have the intelligence of kindergärtners. Or, we have one of the most massive criminal conspiracies ever in the history of mankind occurring right before our very eyes. Hope that I did not offend any of the kindergärtners. If so, please accept my humble apology.
What are our supposed representatives and public servants thinking? Or, are they even using the process of thought? By all appearances, if examined in a logical manner, a rational being would have to say no. Those in our government that are perpetrating these Usurpations of authority cannot possibly be exercising rational thinking. For they are undermining the whole purpose for which our government(s) were instituted to begin with – the protection of our Natural Rights.
There is ample evidence that we have not only the right, but the duty to resist unconstitutional laws. Witness:
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, (Notice the use of the word CITIZENS - NOT MILITIA!), without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair. The usurpers, clothed with the forms of legal authority, can too often crush the opposition in embryo. The smaller the extent of the territory, the more difficult will it be for the people to form a regular or systematic plan of opposition, and the more easy will it be to defeat their early efforts. Intelligence can be more speedily obtained of their preparations and movements, and the military force in the possession of the usurpers can be more rapidly directed against the part where the opposition has begun. In this situation there must be a peculiar coincidence of circumstances to insure success to the popular resistance."
(Not if they have ALREADY been DISARMED by their USURPERS, Mr. Hamilton! And notice how Alex infers the people to FORM A REGULAR OR SYSTEMATIC PLAN OF OPPOSITION!).
"The obstacles to usurpation and the facilities of resistance increase with the increased extent of the state, provided the citizens understand their rights and are disposed to defend them. The natural strength of the people in a large community, in proportion to the artificial strength of the government, is greater than in a small, and of course more competent to a struggle with the attempts of the government to establish a tyranny."
(I wonder if THAT'S WHY the LARGEST POPULATIONS CENTERS in the United States have been UNCONSTITUTIONALLY DISARMED? - YOU THINK?!!!!)
"But in a confederacy the people, without exaggeration, may be said to be entirely the masters of their own fate. Power being almost always the rival of power, the general government will at all times stand ready to check the usurpations of the state governments, and these will have the same disposition towards the general government. The people, by throwing themselves into either scale, will infallibly make it preponderate. If their rights are invaded by either, they can make use of the other as the instrument of redress.
(Yeah, THAT worked out well, didn't it?)
"How wise will it be in them by cherishing the union to preserve to themselves an advantage which can never be too highly prized!
- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #28
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Your Right of Defense Against Unlawful Arrest
Courtesy; The Constitution Society
Original URL: http://www.constitution.org/uslaw/defunlaw.htm
“Citizens may resist unlawful arrest to the point of taking an arresting officer's life if necessary.” Plummer v. State, 136 Ind. 306. This premise was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case: John Bad Elk v. U.S., 177 U.S. 529. The Court stated: “Where the officer is killed in the course of the disorder which naturally accompanies an attempted arrest that is resisted, the law looks with very different eyes upon the transaction, when the officer had the right to make the arrest, from what it does if the officer had no right. What may be murder in the first case might be nothing more than manslaughter in the other, or the facts might show that no offense had been committed.”
“An arrest made with a defective warrant, or one issued without affidavit, or one that fails to allege a crime is within jurisdiction, and one who is being arrested, may resist arrest and break away. lf the arresting officer is killed by one who is so resisting, the killing will be no more than an involuntary manslaughter.” Housh v. People, 75 111. 491; reaffirmed and quoted in State v. Leach, 7 Conn. 452; State v. Gleason, 32 Kan. 245; Ballard v. State, 43 Ohio 349; State v Rousseau, 241 P. 2d 447; State v. Spaulding, 34 Minn. 3621.
“When a person, being without fault, is in a place where he has a right to be, is violently assaulted, he may, without retreating, repel by force, and if, in the reasonable exercise of his right of self defense, his assailant is killed, he is justified.” Runyan v. State, 57 Ind. 80; Miller v. State, 74 Ind. 1.
“These principles apply as well to an officer attempting to make an arrest, who abuses his authority and transcends the bounds thereof by the use of unnecessary force and violence, as they do to a private individual who unlawfully uses such force and violence.” Jones v. State, 26 Tex. App. I; Beaverts v. State, 4 Tex. App. 1 75; Skidmore v. State, 43 Tex. 93, 903.
“An illegal arrest is an assault and battery. The person so attempted to be restrained of his liberty has the same right to use force in defending himself as he would in repelling any other assault and battery.” (State v. Robinson, 145 ME. 77, 72 ATL. 260).
“Each person has the right to resist an unlawful arrest. In such a case, the person attempting the arrest stands in the position of a wrongdoer and may be resisted by the use of force, as in self- defense.” (State v. Mobley, 240 N.C. 476, 83 S.E. 2d 100).
“One may come to the aid of another being unlawfully arrested, just as he may where one is being assaulted, molested, raped or kidnapped. Thus it is not an offense to liberate one from the unlawful custody of an officer, even though he may have submitted to such custody, without resistance.” (Adams v. State, 121 Ga. 16, 48 S.E. 910).
“Story affirmed the right of self-defense by persons held illegally. In his own writings, he had admitted that ‘a situation could arise in which the checks-and-balances principle ceased to work and the various branches of government concurred in a gross usurpation.’ There would be no usual remedy by changing the law or passing an amendment to the Constitution, should the oppressed party be a minority. Story concluded, ‘If there be any remedy at all ... it is a remedy never provided for by human institutions.’ That was the ‘ultimate right of all human beings in extreme cases to resist oppression, and to apply force against ruinous injustice.’” (From Mutiny on the Amistad by Howard Jones, Oxford University Press, 1987, an account of the reading of the decision in the case by Justice Joseph Story of the Supreme Court.
As for grounds for arrest: “The carrying of arms in a quiet, peaceable, and orderly manner, concealed on or about the person, is not a breach of the peace. Nor does such an act of itself, lead to a breach of the peace.” (Wharton’s Criminal and Civil Procedure, 12th Ed., Vol.2: Judy v. Lashley, 5 W. Va. 628, 41 S.E. 197).
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In the following, Mr. Hamilton spells out the CORRECT way the court(s) should be ruling;
"...Nor does this conclusion by any means suppose a superiority of the judicial to the legislative power. It only supposes that the power of the People is SUPERIOR to both; and that where the will of the legislature, declared in its statutes, stands in OPPOSITION to that of The People, DECLARED IN THE CONSTITUTION, the judges ought to be governed by the LATTER rather than the former. They ought to regulate their decisions by the FUNDAMENTAL LAWS, rather than by those which are NOT fundamental.
"...This independence of the judges is equally requisite to guard the Constitution and the rights of individuals from the effects of those ill humors, which the arts of designing men, or the influence of particular conjunctures, sometimes disseminate among the people themselves, and which, though they speedily give place to better information, and more deliberate reflection, have a tendency, in the meantime, to occasion dangerous innovations in the government, and serious oppressions of the minor party in the community....
"...But it is not with a view to infractions of the Constitution only, that the independence of the judges may be an essential safeguard against the effects of occasional ill humors in the society. These sometimes extend no farther than to the injury of the private rights of particular classes of citizens, by unjust and partial laws. Here also the firmness of the judicial magistracy is of vast importance in mitigating the severity and confining the operation of such laws. It not only serves to moderate the immediate mischiefs of those which may have been passed, but it operates as a check upon the legislative body in passing them; who, perceiving that obstacles to the success of iniquitous intention are to be expected from the scruples of the courts, are in a manner compelled, by the very motives of the injustice they meditate, to qualify their attempts. This is a circumstance calculated to have more influence upon the character of our governments, than but few may be aware of. The benefits of the integrity and moderation of the judiciary have already been felt in more States than one; and though they may have displeased those whose sinister expectations they may have disappointed, they must have commanded the esteem and applause of all the virtuous and disinterested. Considerate men, of every description, ought to prize whatever will tend to beget or fortify that temper in the courts: as no man can be sure that he may not be to-morrow the victim of a spirit of injustice, by which he may be a gainer to-day. And every man must now feel, that the inevitable tendency of such a spirit is to sap the foundations of public and private confidence, and to introduce in its stead universal distrust and distress.
"That inflexible and uniform adherence to the rights of the Constitution, and of individuals, which we perceive to be indispensable in the courts of justice, can certainly not be expected from judges who hold their offices by a temporary commission. Periodical appointments, however regulated, or by whomsoever made, would, in some way or other, be fatal to their necessary independence. If the power of making them was committed either to the Executive or legislature, there would be danger of an improper complaisance to the branch which possessed it; if to both, there would be an unwillingness to hazard the displeasure of either; if to the people, or to persons chosen by them for the special purpose, there would be too great a disposition to consult popularity, to justify a reliance that nothing would be consulted but the Constitution and the laws.
"There is yet a further and a weightier reason for the permanency of the judicial offices, which is deducible from the nature of the qualifications they require. It has been frequently remarked, with great propriety, that a voluminous code of laws is one of the inconveniences necessarily connected with the advantages of a free government. To avoid an arbitrary discretion in the courts, it is indispensable that they should be bound down by strict rules and precedents, which serve to define and point out their duty in every particular case that comes before them; and it will readily be conceived from the variety of controversies which grow out of the folly and wickedness of mankind, that the records of those precedents must unavoidably swell to a very considerable bulk, and must demand long and laborious study to acquire a competent knowledge of them. Hence it is, that there can be but few men in the society who will have sufficient skill in the laws to qualify them for the stations of judges. And making the proper deductions for the ordinary depravity of human nature, the number must be still smaller of those who unite the requisite integrity with the requisite knowledge."
"...It is far more rational to suppose, that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority. The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A CONSTITUTION is, in FACT, and MUST be regarded by the judges, as a FUNDAMENTAL law."
- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #78
"One single object...[will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation."- Thomas Jefferson
"At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions, nevertheless, become law by precedent, sapping, by little and little, the foundations of the constitution, and working its change by construction, before any one has perceived that that invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its substance. In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life, if secured against all liability to account."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Monsieur A. Coray, 31 October 1823
"Now, in questions of this sort, precedents ought to go for absolutely nothing. The constitution is a collection of fundamental laws, not to be departed from in practice nor altered by judicial decision, and in the construction of it, nothing would be so alarming as the doctrine of communis error, which offers a ready justification for every usurpation that has not been resisted in limine. Instead, therefore, of resting on the fact, that the right in question has universally been assumed by the American courts, the judge who asserts it ought to be prepared to maintain it on the principles of the constitution."
- John Bannister Gibson, in dissent in Eakin v. Raub,
12 Sergeant and Rawle 330, Pennsylvania 1825
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BY THE NUMBERS:
Based upon data obtained on 04/13/2006
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Police & Military Against the New World Order
Our association's singular goal is to prevent our brothers and sisters in uniform from being unwittingly used to enslave the people of free nations under the anti-God, anti-Freedom (United Nations-led) world government system.
We understand two most important points concerning the globalists' plan:
They intend to gain, through any available means, total dictatorial control over all the peoples of the world.
They cannot realize their goal if their would-be enforcers (we police and soldiers) refuse to assist them in their treachery.
Our motto spells out this truth:
IF POLICE OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS WILL NOT ENFORCE TYRANNY, IT WILL NEVER BE ENFORCED!
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"Spain, under all her disadvantages, physical and mental, is an encouraging example of the impossibility of subduing a people acting with an undivided will. She proves, too, another truth not less valuable, that a people having no king to sell them for a mess of pottage for himself, no shackles to restrain their powers of self-defence, find resources within themselves equal to every trial. This we did during the Revolutionary war, and this we can do again, let who will attack us, if we act heartily with one another. This is my creed. To the principles of union I sacrifice all minor differences of opinion. These, like differences of face, are a law of our nature, and should be viewed with the same tolerance."
- Thomas Jefferson, July, 1811 letter to William Duane. [Washington ed.
v ,603. The Modern English Collection at the University of Virginia Electronic Text Center.]
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"The Constitution was not framed with a view to any such rebellion as that of 1861-5. While it did not authorize rebellion it made no provision against it. Yet the right to resist or suppress rebellion is as inherent as the right of self-defence, and as natural as the right of an individual to preserve his life when in jeopardy. The Constitution was therefore in abeyance for the time being, so far as it in any way affected the progress and termination of the war."
- Ulysses S. Grant, 1822-1885: Personal memoirs of U.S. Grant, Volume II, 1886, (Pgs. 506-507). [The Modern English Collection at the University of Virginia Electronic Text Center.]
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The intention of this article is to inform and to provide both citizens, and those employed in public service, the TRUTH of the matter. In no way should it be construed as actual legal advice. I do have a question for all of our public servants, if I may. When you took your oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of The United States of America. Was it to uphold the REAL one, or the perverted version?
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"The right to use a thing comprehends a right to the means necessary to its use, and without which it would be useless."
- Thomas Jefferson to William Carmichael, 1790. ME 8:72
"It is a principle that the right to a thing gives a right to the means without which it could not be used, that is to say, that the means follow their end."
- Thomas Jefferson, Report on Navigation of the Mississippi, 1792. ME 3:180
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Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
(Who will guard the guards?)
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