Writing at Catholic Advocate, Matt Smith suggests, “One Document Elena Kagan Might Want to Re-Read This Weekend.”
Commenting on Kagan’s promise to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) that she would take another look at the “The Federalist Papers,” Smith writes,
The Federalist Papers were written after the Constitutional Convention as part of what today would be considered a massive intellectual public relations campaign for state ratification. What Senator Coburn might have thought to press Elena Kagan on was whether she had recently re-read the key document of America written before the Constitution.
Orthodox. Faithful. Free.
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On Sunday, America commemorates the 234th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. A document signed by fifty-six patriots who believed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
As you examine the writings of the time, the Founding Fathers in their drafting of what has been dubbed “The Charters of Freedom” viewed the documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, held 1774-1789, as a continuous philosophical formation of our country.
With the appointment of Kagan to the Supreme Court looking a near certainty, the “inalienable” right to life will continue to be unrecognized in our law and jurisprudence for another generation to come.
On this July 4th holiday weekend, my thoughts about the future of our country are not happy ones. Smith nails it when he points out President Obama talks freely about human and civil rights but ignores the part of the Founders’ vision that embraces the right to exist as the foundation of all rights.
President Obama decided on March 18, 2008 to open his major address on race during the 2008 presidential campaign by highlighting that the drafters and signers of the Declaration wanted “to form a more perfect union.” The speech is filled with a history lesson and rhetoric on important issues such as race relations and civil rights. It is clear though, he chose to pick and choose which sections of the Declaration to highlight.