In light of the ongoing debate on Obamacare, and now the Max Baucus "solution," below is a copy of Patrick Henry’s speech given to the Virginia Assembly prior to the ratification of the Constitution in which he pleads his case for the provision of a Bill of Rights for the citizens and people as one of the holdouts, and in which in our current era, rarely mentioned or quoted.
It seems to be rather clear now why not. Since this great lawyer and orator had a fundamentally different view of what the Bill of Rights was meant to guarantee and protect for the citizens in this nation. But I’ll let him speak for himself:
Virginia Ratification Convention ^ | June 16, 1788 | Patrick Henry
Mr. HENRY. Mr. Chairman, the necessity of a bill of rights appears to me to be greater in this government than ever it was in any government before.
… Let us consider the sentiments which have been entertained by the people of America on this subject. At the revolution, it must be admitted that it was their sense to set down those great rights which ought, in all countries, to be held inviolable and sacred. Virginia did so, we all remember. She made a compact to reserve, expressly, certain rights.
When fortified with full, adequate, and abundant representation, was she satisfied with that representation? No. She most cautiously and guardedly reserved and secured those invaluable, inestimable rights and privileges, which no people, inspired with the least glow of patriotic liberty, ever did, or ever can, abandon.
She is called upon now to abandon them, and dissolve that compact which secured them to her. She is called upon to accede to another compact, which most infallibly supersedes and annihilates her present one. Will she do it? This is the question. If you intend to reserve your unalienable rights, you must have the most express stipulation; for, if implication be allowed, you are ousted of those rights. If the people do not think it necessary to reserve them, they will be supposed to be given up.
>How were the congressional rights defined when the people of America united by a confederacy to defend their liberties and rights against the tyrannical attempts of Great Britain? The states were not then contented with implied reservation. No, Mr. Chairman. It was expressly declared in our Confederation that every right was retained by the states, respectively, which was not given up to the government of the United States. But there is no such thing here. You, therefore, by a natural and unavoidable implication, give up your rights to the general government.
Your own example furnishes an argument against it. If you give up these powers, without a bill of rights, you will exhibit the most absurd thing to mankind that ever the world saw — government that has abandoned all its powers — the powers of direct taxation, the sword, and the purse. You have disposed of them to Congress, without a bill of rights — without check, limitation, or control. And still you have checks and guards; still you keep barriers — pointed where? Pointed against your weakened, prostrated, enervated state government! You have a bill of rights to defend you against the state government, which is bereaved of all power, and yet you have none against Congress, though in full and exclusive possession of all power! You arm yourselves against the weak and defenceless, and expose yourselves naked to the armed and powerful. Is not this a conduct of unexampled absurdity? What barriers have you to oppose to this most strong, energetic government? To that government you have nothing to oppose. All your defence is given up. This is a real, actual defect. It must strike the mind of every gentleman.
When our government was first instituted in Virginia, we declared the common law of England to be in force.
That system of law which has been admired, and has protected us and our ancestors, is excluded by that system. Added to this, we adopted a bill of rights.
By this Constitution, some of the best barriers of human rights are thrown away. Is there not an additional reason to have a bill of rights?
By the ancient common law, the trial of all facts is decided by a jury of impartial men from the immediate vicinage. This paper speaks of different juries from the common law in criminal cases; and in civil controversies excludes trial by jury altogether. There is, therefore, more occasion for the supplementary check of a bill of rights now than then.
Congress, from their general, powers, may fully go into business of human legislation. They may legislate, in criminal cases, from treason to the lowest offence — petty larceny. They may define crimes and prescribe punishments. In the definition of crimes, I trust they will be directed by what wise representatives ought to be governed by.
But when we come to punishments, no latitude ought to be left, nor dependence put on the virtue of representatives. What says our bill of rights? — "that excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." Are you not, therefore, now calling on those gentlemen who are to compose Congress, to prescribe trials and define punishments without this control?
Will they find sentiments there similar to this bill of rights? You let them loose; you do more you depart from the genius of your country. That paper tells you that the trial of crimes shall be by jury, and held in the state where the crime shall have been committed. Under this extensive provision, they may proceed in a manner extremely dangerous to liberty: a person accused may be carried from one extremity of the state to another, and be tried, not by an impartial jury of the vicinage, acquainted with his character and the circumstances of the fact, but by a jury unacquainted with both, and who may be biased against him. Is not this sufficient to alarm men?
How different is this from the immemorial practice of your British ancestors, and your own! I need not tell you that, by the common law, a number of hundredors were required on a jury, and that afterwards it was sufficient if the jurors came from the same county. With less than this the people of England have never been satisfied. That paper ought to have declared the common law in force.
In this business of legislation, your members of Congress will loose the restriction of not imposing excessive fines, demanding excessive bail, and inflicting cruel and unusual punishments.
These are prohibited by your declaration of rights. What has distinguished our ancestors? — That they would not admit of tortures, or cruel and barbarous punishment. But Congress may introduce the practice of the civil law, in preference to that of the common law. They may introduce the practice of France, Spain, and Germany — of torturing, to extort a confession of the crime.
They will say that they might as well draw examples from those countries as from Great Britain, and they will tell you that there is such a necessity of strengthening the arm of government, that they must have a criminal equity, and extort confession by torture, in order to punish with still more relentless severity.
We are then lost and undone.
And can any man think it troublesome, when we can, by a small interference, prevent our rights from being lost? If you will, like the Virginian government, give them knowledge of the extent of the rights retained by the people, and the powers of themselves, they will, if they be honest men, thank you for it. Will they not wish to go on sure grounds? But if you leave them otherwise, they will not know how to proceed; and, being in a state of uncertainty, they will assume rather than give up powers by implication.
A bill of rights may be summed up in a few words. What do they tell us? — That our rights are reserved. Why not say so? Is it because it will consume too much paper?
Gentlemen’s reasoning against a bill of rights does not satisfy me. Without saying which has the right side, it remains doubtful. A bill of rights is a favorite thing with the Virginians and the people of the other states likewise. It may be their prejudice, hut the government ought to suit their geniuses; otherwise, its operation will be unhappy.
A bill of rights, even if its necessity be doubtful, will exclude the possibility of dispute; and, with great submission, I think the best way is to have no dispute. In the present Constitution, they are restrained from issuing general warrants to search suspected places, or seize persons not named, without evidence of the commission of a fact, &c. There was certainly some celestial influence governing those who deliberated on that Constitution; for they have, with the most cautious and enlightened circumspection, guarded those indefeasible rights which ought ever to be held sacred!
>The officers of Congress may come upon you now, fortified with all the terrors of paramount federal authority. Excisemen may come in multitudes; for the limitation of their numbers no man knows. They may, unless the general government be restrained by a bill of rights, or some similar restriction, go into your cellars and rooms, and search, ransack, and measure, every thing you eat, drink, and wear. They ought to be restrained Within proper bounds.
With respect to the freedom of the press, I need say nothing; for it is hoped that the gentlemen who shall compose Congress will take care to infringe as little as possible the rights of human nature. This will result from their integrity. They should, from prudence, abstain from violating the rights of their constituents. They are not, however, expressly restrained. But whether they will intermeddle with that palladium of our liberties or not, I leave you to determine."
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Hence, the "common law" at the time of the ratification which had stood for literally centuries with respect to civil and criminal laws, trials by juries, etc., which England had at that time abandoned, was what Patrick Henry was referring to.
That the ‘common" or "natural" laws were pre-emiment when it came to individual citizens rights, and absolutely needed to be set forth in the U.S. Constitution, as it was in the Virginia Articles of Confederation at the time, or he would not sign it.
And he and George Mason were the two that insisted the most vocally, and were responsible for that first ten amendments which were promised if either gave their support at the final ratification as the first order of business, so as to also comply with the State of Virginia and other states already existing state "constitutions" which were drafted at the time of the Declaration of Independence and prior to the Revolutionary War or at that time "Articles of Confederation."
And notice what he has to say about trials by juries, the authority of the citizen jurists to determine facts and law, search and seizures, federal determination of certain high offense crimes, but state power and control over all others and the criminal or civil punishments thereon (such as even these now proposed ‘civil’ penalties now in the Baucus proposal for failure to carry health insurance, thus unconstitutionally ihflicting what is no more than a tax on the populace in one manner or another, either through mandatory contribution to this plan, or a fine in absence then thereof), free speech as fundamental natural and God given right under the Bill of Rights which actually were meant to negate the abuses of the government they had suffered in Britain, in addition to those English common and natural law provisions with respect to civil and criminal matters which had stood since the Magna Carta, and not to be ursurped or abridged by either the state or federal governments for ANY purpose as inviolate, thus "unalienable."
Meaning you also cannot "contract away" by pure definition such rights even under "adhesive" or non-negotiable contracts that are now commonly found today due to lack of regulation over the corporate "commercial" industries in this country, such as the insurers, health care networks, HMOs, pharmaceutical industry, etc.
Corporations, after all, are property and not people that can be bought and sold.
"Corporate personhood" thus nothing more than a myth created by a rogue Supreme Court during the building of the railroads, and has "progressively" undermined the very foundation of those Bill of Rights and our Constitutional government ever since.
Especially the ‘corporate" banking industry, financial sector, and health care industries for profit since those were the entities consulted and even branded as the "stakeholders."
When the greatest "stakeholder" over the lives of Americans, are the individual Americans and people themselves, not the industries profiting off their illnesses or health care needs as a "service" industry actually.
Since those insurers are, after all, public corporations and exist primarily due to monies gained in premium payments, not stock purchases at all.
And how a publicly funded service sector industry such as insurance was allowed and afforded by the federal government since they are state incorporated and chartered, to divest into other high risk investments, banking and even real estate at this point, and is also what has lead to where we are today, means I think AIG owes each and every American catastrophic health care for the next 20 years, at least, to pay off that London based insurers debt now to the American people.