Posted by A. Lincoln on November 09, 1998 at 22:55:32:
In Reply to: United States singular, United States of America plural posted by Paul Andrew Mitchell, B.A., M.S. on November 06, 1998 at 20:32:44:
Lincoln's First Inaugural Address
March 4, 1861 (excerpt)
I do not forget the position, assumed by some, that Constitutional
questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny
that such decisions must be binding, in any case, upon the parties
to a suit, as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled
to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other
departments of the government.
And while it is obviously possible that
such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect
following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that
it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases,
can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice.
At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy
of the government, upon vital questions affecting the whole people,
is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court,
the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties
in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers,
having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands
of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon
the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink
to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of
theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.
(such decisions must be binding, in any case, upon the parties
to a suit, as to the object of that suit ------ being limited to that particular case
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I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution and the laws,
the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability I shall take care,
as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the
laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States.
(*The "laws of the Union" have been applied to all the States as evidenced by the Title 4 Flag flying over all Government property and by Law Enforcement Officers reading your Federal constitutional "civil rights" as opposed to any State constitutional "civil rights.")