On Wed, Dec 18, 2002 at 03:17:21PM -0800, Petro wrote: | On Sat, Dec 14, 2002 at 03:18:09PM -0800, Mike Rosing wrote: | > On Sat, 14 Dec 2002, Tim May wrote: | > > Lincoln's notion that the Constitution is suspendable during a war, or | > > other emergency conditions, was disgraceful. Nothing in the | > > Constitution says that it is suspended when a President declares it to | > > be suspended. | > Power is what power does. He got away with it, that's all that counts. | | Then the consitution is meaningless babble.
The Volkh conspiracy blog had this Learned Hand quote recently: "I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it." The entirety is at http://www.criminaljustice.org/public.nsf/\ENews/2002e67?opendocument. Adam -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume
