Supreme Court seats make this a high-stakes election

With an open seat on the Supreme Court and several more possible vacancies looming in the future, next month's presidential election is crucial in the nation's course as a sovereign nation.

According to Pew Research Center, more than three-quarters of conservative Republicans and Republican leaners (77 percent) say the issue of Supreme Court appointments will be very important to their vote. Among liberal Democrats and Democratic leaners the number is 69 percent.

Our constitutional government has been and still is the envy of the world. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948) explained that "few other courts in the world have the same authority of constitutional interpretation and none have exercised it for as long or with as much influence."

Patrick Henry, the famous patriot, lawyer and orator, noted that "the Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests."

With an eye to the future, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (1779-1845) advised and warned:

"Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors; and capacity, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence.

"The structure has been erected by architects of consummate skill and fidelity; its foundations are solid; its compartments are beautiful as well as useful; its arrangements are full of wisdom and order; and its defenses are impregnable from without. It has been reared for immortality, if the work of man may aspire to such a title. It may, nevertheless, perish in an hour by the folly, or corruption, or negligence of its only keepers, THE PEOPLE."

In a recent column, syndicated writer Cal Thomas wrote how this current presidential election will determine the direction of the courts; whether judges will write laws or interpret laws under the constitution and whether our founding document that has ruled us for 226 years remains a self-authenticating document protecting our liberties from encroaching government.

In his column, Thomas introduced readers to Richard Posner, a liberal judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School. In a recent Op-Ed Posner claimed there was "absolutely no value in a judge spending decades, years, months, weeks, day, hours, minutes, or seconds studying the Constitution, the history of its enactment, its amendments, and its implementation. …"

Posner is diametrically opposed to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who believed that the Constitution sets boundaries for limited government in order to guarantee liberty to American citizens.

Contrary to Posner and the views of other left-leaning judges in America today, a number of 20th century presidents we admire stated their views on the Founding Fathers and our system of government.

Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president, said: "To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race."

Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president, said: "I hope that you have reread the Constitution of the United States in these past few weeks. Like the Bible, it ought to be read again and again."

"The national government was itself the creature of the States," said Dwight D. Eisenhower, our 34th president. "Yet today it is often made to appear that the creature, Frankenstein-like, is determined to destroy the creators."

John Kennedy, our 35th president, said this in his State of the Union speech: "Members of the Congress, the Constitution makes us not rivals for power but partners for progress. We are all trustees for the American people, custodians of the American heritage."

Like FDR, Ronald Reagan, our 40th president, did not shy from mentioning the Bible in context with the Founding Fathers and our governing document.

"Now I realize it's fashionable in some circles to believe that no one in government should encourage others to read the Bible," Reagan said. "That we're told we'll violate the constitutional separation of church and state established by the Founding Fathers and the First Amendment.

"The First Amendment was not written to protect people and their laws from religious values. It was written to protect those values from government tyranny."

Americans would do well to heed the wisdom of these contemporary presidents who led the nation through dangerous and difficult times during the 20th century.

Citizens must realize the importance of their vote in electing a president who defends the Constitution and nominates Supreme Court justices who interpret it as the Founding Fathers intended.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com