Sam Smith – Listening to the Supreme Court and its witnesses discuss powers of a defeated president, I was struck by how the discussion was limited to legal issues. Matters of morality, decency, democracy, philosophy, history and cooperation didn’t make it because that’s not the way the law works. For merely legal matters that’s okay, but when you have a case that could redefine the very existence of life sharing citizens it’s a bit like having accountants define religion.
Which isn’t to say that more than a few lawyers have multiple virtues extending beyond their trade. After all the Declaration of Independence was written in no small part by attorney Thomas Jefferson beginning with “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
This was not your normal legal document. But then, Jefferson had early been introduced to the non-legal world, as Wikipedia notes:
Jefferson entered the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1761, at the age of sixteen, and studied mathematics, metaphysics, and philosophy with William Small. Under Small's tutelage, Jefferson encountered the ideas of the British Empiricists, including John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton. Small introduced Jefferson to George Wythe and Francis Fauquier. Small, Wythe, and Fauquier recognized Jefferson as a man of exceptional ability and included him in their inner circle, where he became a regular member of their Friday dinner parties. Jefferson later wrote that, while there, he "heard more common good sense, more rational & philosophical conversations than in all the rest of my life".
It’s also worth noting that about 40% of those who helped write the Constitution were not lawyers.
This is not to criticize the handling of the law, but rather merely to note that, at times like this, the law is just a part of the story.
No comments:
Post a Comment