Letter from Laird Campbell
Modern Life – August 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
Dear Editors:
It is generally known that lawyers have their own specialized vocabulary. For example, if an attorney tells you that he is seeking certiorari, he is asking an upper court to review a decision adverse to his client, not looking for a new kind of pizza.
Lawyers also have the ability to discern meanings from a simple English sentence not apparent to the ordinary reader. For example prohibition was repealed by the 21st amendment to the constitution which says that “The transportation or importation into any State, Territory or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.” Wine is unquestionably an intoxicating liquor and importation means to bring in something; thus a person reading this sentence might reasonably conclude that a state could forbid its residents to import wine from elsewhere, yet the United States Supreme Court recently held to the contrary.
Even more baffling is the first sentence of the 1st amendment which begins: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…..” Congress, of course, means the people in Washington who recently raised their salaries without a public vote. An establishment of religion obviously refers to the Church of England, an institution well known to those who wrote the amendment, a body receiving support from taxes, whose bishops are selected by politicians and whose membership must include the sovereign as head of state.
It is difficult to see how this sentence can be applied to either the State of Texas or the two counties in Kentucky, all of whom had problems with the display of the ten commandments. Even if the word “congress” can be stretched to include the legislature of Texas or the county commissioners in Kentucky, an “establishment” means something more than a prayer for the graduates at a baccalaureate ceremony or depicting Moses the lawgiver.
A person who is bereft of specialized legal knowledge but familiar with a perfectly simple English sentence such as the quoted portion of the 1st amendment might conclude that this sentence has nothing whatever to do with any state, county or municipality and would be puzzled to be told otherwise. Such a naive person might think that the federal constitution would not prevent Colorado from adopting a state religion, or Chaffee County deciding to erect a temple in which to worship the Arkansas River, or what might possibly be more likely, for Colorado Springs to establish a municipal religion.
It is of interest that Thomas Jefferson, who was primarily responsible for drafting the Declaration of Independence, referred to God in the first paragraph of that document and to Divine Providence in the final paragraph. While Jefferson is sometimes quoted on the wall between church and state, that phrase does not appear in the constitution. It might make sense for the learned justices of the supreme court to eliminate the confusion they have created by re-reading the 1st amendment —but that will never happen!
Sincerely,
Laird Campbell
Denver
