Page 31 - Fruits from a Poisonous Tree

Mel Stamper 15

be the accuser, counsel, judge and jury, whose suspicions may be the evidence,
his order the sentence, his officer the executioner, and his breast the sole
record of the transaction: that a very numerous and valuable description of
the inhabitants of these States being, by this precedent, reduced, as outlaws,
to the absolute dominion of one man, and the barrier of the Constitution
thus swept away from us all, no rampart now remains against the passions
and the powers of a majority in Congress to protect from a like exportation,
or other more grievous punishment, the minority of the same body, the
legislatures, judges, governors and counselors of the States, nor their other
peaceable inhabitants, who may venture to reclaim the constitutional rights
and liberties of the States and the people, or who for other causes, good or
bad, may be obnoxious to the views, or marked by the suspicions of the
President, or be thought dangerous to his or their election, or other interests,
public or personal…”
Jefferson’s statement is as valid in 2003 as it was in 1798. It lends a
chilling historical prospective to the present “Patriot Act” and our present
condition compared to events in America in 1798 brought on by the Alien
and Sedition Act (Whiskey Rebellion).
Congress and the other branches of the federal government are not a
party to the Constitution; they are products of it. The Constitution vests
Congress with certain delegated authorities under Article I; nothing more.
Within its own borders, state authority is antecedent to that of the United
States, and as parties to the Constitution, the several states have both the right
and responsibility to correct their agent, the United States, when ambition
seeks to abuse or expand powers which have been delegated.
Of more immediate importance where the instant matter is concerned,
those who exceed the law, whether of the State or the United States, are
accountable to the law of the land and, ultimately, to the People of the land
within the several States. Operation under color of law is outlaw, criminal,
and accountability must be in law. Judges, magistrates, attorneys for the
Department of Justice, and enforcement people do not have immunity when
they exceed the law as it is written.
This War on Terrorism is not a war at all. Congress is the only
constitutional body that can declare war. It is a convenient tool being used
by the President to expand power and control over each of us Citizens –
nothing more. The government will not be happy until the last vestiges of
our Constitution are torn from us, leaving no protection from the servitude
expected from us all.
The federal government has never kept its word in either the conduct of
internal policy (Constitution), in treaties with the Indians or in international
policy.