Thursday, March 1, 2012

"Jefferson was for ecclesiastical corporate prerogative"

The myth in question here, comes from the Blunt Amendment to a transportation bill, on the subject of the contraception mandate:

' As Thomas Jefferson declared to New London Methodists in 1809, ``[n]o provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority''.
    (B) Jefferson's statement expresses a conviction on respect for conscience that is deeply embedded in the history and traditions of our Nation and codified in numerous State and Federal laws, including laws on health care.'

Indeed invoking Thomas Jefferson's name with regard to the freedom of conscience of INDIVIDUALS', natural and inalienable rights could never have been supposed to have been held by a corporate body in those days (after all, corporate bodies--whether civil society itself, or commercial or ecclesiastical corporations--are IN THEMSELVES a form of alienation.  Why fuktarded jurists can't comprehend that is beyond any comprehension... but I digress...).  Indeed we see the OUTRIGHT DISPROOF of the assumption of the ignorant author of said amendment by looking at a little history.

During the time of the American Revolution (by which we certainly can't mean merely a military struggle) there was a striking push-back against institutions thought to be subversive to the American cause.  This resulted in a spirit of reform toward those run by the Anglican Church.  One Virginia legislator--one THOMAS JEFFERSON--introduced legislation to reform a the College of William and Mary; an Anglican institution supported by public funds:

"it becomes the peculiar duty of the Legislature, at this time, to aid and improve that seminary, in which those who are to be the future guardians of the rights and liberties of their country may be endowed with science and virtue, to watch and preserve the sacred deposit: Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, that, instead of eighteen visiters or governors of the said College, there shall in future be five only, who shall be appointed by joint ballot of both houses of Assembly, annually, to enter on the duties of their office on the new year's day ensuing their appointment, having previously given assurance of fidelity to the commonwealth, before any Justice of the Peace ...any four of the said visiters may proceed to business; they shall chuse their own Rector, at their first meeting, in every year, and shall be deemed the lawful successors of the first trustees, and invested with all the rights, powers, and capacities given to them, save only so far as the same shall be abridged by this act, nor shall they be restrained in their legislation, by the royal prerogative, or the laws of the kingdom of England; or the canons or constitution of the English Church, as enjoined in the said charter."

(more on the Jeffersonian reforms: http://www.wm.edu/about/history/tjcollege/tjattemptsatchange/index.php )

To claim that this would not have any effect on the "conscience" gratuitously supposed upon this ecclesiastical institution would be absurd.  Of course it was not supposed at that time that corporations of any sort--being artificial creations of man--could ever be endowed with Natural and inalienable rights.  When similar legislation was passed in New Hampshire to create a Dartmouth University out of the Puritan institution known as Dartmouth College, THOMAS JEFFERSON said of the bills opponents:

"The idea that institutions, established for the use of the nation, cannot be touched nor modified, even to make them answer their end, because of the rights gratuitously supposed in those employed to manage them in trust for the public, may, perhaps be a salutary provision against the abuses of a monarch, but it is most absurd against the nation itself"-- Thomas Jefferson; letter to William Plumer (July, 21, 1816)

So having OUTRIGHT proven the fallacy of Mr Blunt, it is worth further noting that Jefferson was not alone in opposing the principles of those who hold Mr. Blunt's views.  As James Madison expressed the mischief of all such subversion in his 'Detached Memoranda':

"But besides the danger of a direct mixture of Religion & civil Government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded agst in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical corporations. The power of all corporations, ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses." 

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