Just What Rights Do You Have in the U.S.
          (C) - Copyright, 1998  F.W. Boyle, Jr., Ph.D.


Every American (actually the term is US Citizen) speaks of their 
Constitutional rights.   The belief exists that the Constitution 
grants some inalienable rights to the citizens of the United 
States.  This is far from the truth.

First, the Constitution grants no rights and cannot grant true 
rights.  One must understand that rights, as understood by the 
Founding Fathers, were given ONLY by God.  The Constitution does 
grant privileges and immunities which are often confused with 
rights, especially by certain facets of our society.  Privileges 
and immunities are "rights" and exemptions granted through law.  
These "rights" are not the same as God-given rights and "rights" 
granted or given under privileges and immunities can be ungranted 
or taken away just as easily as they were given.

Even the rights recognized and enumerated in the Bill of Rights 
are restricted to us.  The original Bill of Rights placed 
absolute control on the federal and state and local governments.   
This truth can be ascertained by simply reading the Bill of 
Rights and is supported by the writings of Rawle and other 
contemporaries of the founding.

Then in 1833, the supreme Court, under the leadership of Chief 
Justice John Marshall, took one of the early steps to expand the 
powers of court.  A few earlier decisions had worked to expand 
the power of the court over the states and this one led the way 
to an expansion of power over the people.  The 1833 decision 
known as Barron versus Baltimore held that the Bill of Rights was 
not binding upon the states.  This now left the determination of 
what rights the people had to the Supreme Court.

Now, Chief Justice Marshall was a federalist, that is a member of 
the framers with an interest in a strong centralized government. 
It is my opinion that each move Chief Justice Marshall carried 
out was to expand and consolidate the power of the Court which 
much to his chagrin was saddled with being the weakest branch of 
the new government.  Chief Justice Marshall likely knew that IF 
the court was elevated to the position of deciding what the 
Constitution meant then the Court would hold the power to control 
the government and the people.  His actions were not as expansive 
as those of this century but much of what the Court has decided 
today is based upon his early decisions.

Generally, once the Court makes a decision, the Congress, if 
dissatisfied with the decision will offer legislation or 
amendment to override the decision.  I believe that Marshall 
recognized this and made decisions which aided the federal 
government in taking and expanding their powers.  A good 
federalist would work in any direction which would strengthen the 
federal government.  

And so the rights many people believe are granted by the 
Constitution were decided as not binding the states.  During the 
next 100 years, the states were free to abrogate these rights.  
Thus, restrictions on religion, the press speech, firearms 
ownership, and laxity in the control of searches and seizures 
among others were allowed.

In the mid 1870s, Republicans in Congress, fearful that the 1866 
Civil Rights Act would be overturned by simple legislation, 
offered the fourteenth amendment to place these "civil rights" 
above elimination by simply legislative action.  The fourteenth 
amendment was offered to the people for ratification on the 
foundation that it ONLY bound the states with respect to the 
fundamental rights as expressed in the Civil Rights Act and that 
it would not bring the Bill of Rights to bear upon the states.  

Currently, many argue that the intent of the fourteenth amendment 
is irrelevant.  However, IF the intentions as expressed by the 
framers and offered to the people are not be accepted as true and 
binding then the entire fourteenth amendment and its ratification 
were perpetrated in fraud.  While arguments concerning the 
efficacy of intent at the time of the framing of the Constitution 
are valid due to the limited capability of newspaper 
publication, news distribution was much more widespread by the 
1870s allowing the people to read and hear what the fourteenth 
amendment was to bring to their government.  Still by the 1870s, 
most of the voting population was not educated to the point of being 
able to read for themselves and very likely listened to what was 
claimed concerning the fourteenth amendment.  If we are to accept 
that the people knew that the fourteenth was much broader than 
claimed by the framers of the amendment, then we must accept that 
the framers were liars and cheats defrauding the country.

From the ratification of the fourteenth amendment in the 1870s 
and into the 1920s, the Court did not give opinions which bound 
the states by the Bill of Rights or any of them.  The effects of 
prohibition (The 18th amendment) were being felt in the 1920s as 
the people of the US responded by NOT abiding by the law of 
prohibition.  The criminal element arose to new heights and the 
Courts began to modify rights.  An early example is in the 
automobile exclusion of the protections of the fourth amendment.

The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution was added in response to 
what were known as general warrants under English law.  The 
Fourth amendment is at times claimed to be ambiguous but in my 
opinion the ambiguity is only in the minds of those who wish to 
manipulate the absoluteness of the prohibitions so readily 
apparent in the words of the Fourth Amendment.  The Fourth 
Amendment states:

    The right of the people to be secure in their person, 
    houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable 
    searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no 
    Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, 
    supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly 
    describing the place to be searched, and the persons or 
    things to be seized. 

We are often faced with those who ask what are "unreasonable 
searches and seizures" but the second clause answers the 
question.  ALL searches and seizures which are not carried out 
under a lawfully obtained warrant are "unreasonable."   This is 
borne out by Rawle, 1829 and Cooley, 1899.  And all warrants 
require "probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and 
particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons 
or things to be seized."
    
In today's Courts, the phrase, "upon probable cause" has been 
taken out of context to grant more expansive powers.  BUT, since 
the Court ruled in 1833 that the Fourth and other amendments of 
the Bill of Rights do not apply to the states, there is no 
governmental violation in their minds when they use 
misinterpretation of the Fourth amendment to advance their 
causes. 

Under the Fourth Amendment, even with a lawfully obtained search 
warrant, the officers of the government are not given blanket 
power to look through everything.  The search and seizure is 
confined to the specific person and specific things named in the 
warrant.  If the specifics are not in the warrant, then 
according to the Fourth amendment the warrant is invalid.  Those 
searching for evidence of guilt can just as easily destroy 
evidence of innocence as they can find evidence of guilt.
However, we have a problem since, as stated above, the Courts have 
ruled that the Bill of Rights is not binding on the state and 
state officials.

Now how has the supreme Court accomplished this alteration and 
infringement of rights supposedly granted by God and protected by 
enumeration in the Bill of Rights.  It has been done under the 
guise of incorporation of the Bill of Rights against the states, 
an idea developed by the Court.  This activity is known as the 
incorporation doctrine but is in reality the selective 
incorporation doctrine and is implemented under the privileges 
and immunities clause of the fourteenth amendment. 

The truth is that the Court is not binding the states by the Bill 
of Rights but is using the "selective" incorporation doctrine to 
give the people "rights" which are similar to but which do not 
mirror those of the Bill of Rights and only as extensive of 
"rights" as the Court deems fit.  What this means is that 
although the people read the Bill of Rights and have their 
understanding from the Bill of Rights, the rights enumerated in 
the Bill of Rights ae binding ONLY on the federal government.  
Those rights "granted" in the Civil Rights Act of 1965 are not 
"rights" but are privileges granted by the government.  These 
"privilege rights" are just as easily removed when the government 
deems it necessary. 

For the federal government, there are major questions arising out 
of this practice.  Those in Congress will  often parrot the claim 
that the rights in the Bill of Rights are not absolute but no 
where in the Bill of Rights are ANY limitations entertained.  In 
fact, the Bill of Rights, being a later modification of the 
Constitution, supersedes all conflicting clauses and restricts 
the federal powers with respect to these areas.  The rights 
enumerated within the Bill of Rights are absolute and supreme to 
all laws passed by Congress.

The weakness of our system of laws is that those who practice the 
law claim an omnipotent understanding which is not available to 
common people.  The common people stand back and accept these 
actions because they lack the self-confidence needed to tell our 
law-givers that they are wrong.  A cycle began and continues 
today which relegates the people to a secondary position and 
places the law-givers in a position of ultimate power over the 
people. 

The people were and are fools who sheepishly accept the current 
power claims of the federal government.  Once civil rights were 
accepted in place of natural rights, those in control tightened 
their grip.  Someday the hold will strangle the people.