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> The government's position also produces a wholly different kind of absurdity: the idea that the First Congress might so thoroughly undermine fundamental princ
by Amezarak 11y ago
> The government's position also produces a wholly different kind of absurdity: the idea that the First Congress might so thoroughly undermine fundamental principles of the Constitution that many of its members had personally just helped to write or to ratify.
In 1798, the fifth Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were signed by President John Adams, and were used to arrest or deport people critical of the government. [1] I don't think that's absurd at all. They weren't saints and they didn't have precedent to stop them from doing things like that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts
- poof131 11y agoI’m not sure what your point is or how it contradicts the part of the opinion you quoted. Sure, the founding fathers weren’t perfect and the sedition act seems downright deplorable, but the wiki article you referenced describes how the law helped propel the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans to power at which point it was repealed. Seems like the process worked pretty well.
- euyyn 11y agoThe judge's point is "It's absurd to think the AWA was intended to be usable in this way, because it'll mean the first Congress was undermining the principles of the Constitution that they themselves wrote". You parent's point is "The fifth Congress did in fact undermine those principles in another case, so it's not so absurd to think that the AWA was intended as the government now claims". Granted, first vs fifth.
- jibalt 11y agoThe judge's reasoning was explicitly based on many of the Founders being members of the first Congress, so you have granted that the argument is completely bogus. And the point of the comment you're responding to is that the quoted argument is a non sequitur, which it surely is. The fact that the fifth Congress voted for a bad, self-serving law that violated the principles of the Constitution is completely irrelevant to whether the first Congress, in passing the All Writs Act, was doing the same. The argument is really quite circular: the belief that it is not absurd that the first Congress willingly violated the principles of the Constitution is the premise, not a conclusion that can be drawn from something done by the fifth Congress or the 105th Congress.
- Arnt 11y agoHow many members of the 1st were still members of the 5th?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- cokernel 11y agoThe 1st US Congress had 29 senators and 66 representatives (95 distinct people), not all simultaneously, while the 5th US Congress had 45 senators and 118 representatives (162 distinct people, as Andrew Jackson served as both a representative and a senator during this period)[0]. Of the 95 members of the 1st US Congress, 21 (~22%) of them were members of the 5th US Congress, with the following breakdown: * 5 senators (~17%) remained senators; * 9 representatives (~14%) remained representatives; and * 7 representatives (~11%) became senators. Notes: John Brown was initially a representative of Virginia, then later became a senator of Kentucky (which was part of Virginia at the time of the 1st US Congress). William Smith (MD; 1st US House), William L. Smith (SC; 1st US House), and William Smith (SC; 5th US House) were all different people. Method: moderately careful transcription plus grep, perl, sort, uniq, and comm. EDIT: Thanks for adventured for the correction. I mistranscribed Philip Schuyler's name when copying down the members of the 5th US Congress. [0] I didn't independently check the lists on Wikipedia[1][2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_United_States_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_United_States_Congress [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5th_United_States_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5th_United_States_Congress
- adventured 11y agoThe only thing I noticed about your data, is it appears there were five senators that were present in both: James Gunn (GA), John Henry (MD), John Langdon (NH), Philip Schuyler (NY), Theodore Foster (RI)
- cokernel 11y agoThanks, I've fixed it.
- baddox 11y agoIt may show that the process "works" (never mind how much it sucked for the actual humans threatened by the law while it was in place), but it still weakens the argument about the intent of the founding fathers.
- BurningFrog 11y agoIt's not hard to imagine that the founders intended certain principles to be respected, but later broke those principles when it benefitted them. That's aside from that congress in 1798 probably didn't have a majority of founders etc.