Connecticut bill

[Steven Jamar]

you are welcome -- and thanks for the current best info on the origin of the
phrase.

steve

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 8:25 PM, Douglas Laycock <laycockd at umich.edu> wrote:

> Thanks, Steve.
>
> I was one of those people who once attributed "eternal vigilance is the
> price of liberty" to Jefferson.  In belatedly tracking down a footnote, I
> found an earlier source than Wendell Phillips for the core of the idea, if
> not the pithy and commonly remembered phrasing.
>
> "The condition upon which god hath given liberty to man is eternal
> vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence
> of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
>
>                                John Philpot Curran, Speech upon the Right
> of Election of the Lord Mayor of Dublin, July 10, 1790
>
> This according to Bartlett's 16th edition.
>
>
>
> Quoting Steven Jamar <stevenjamar at gmail.com>:
>
> > Well done, Doug et al.
> >
> > While the signers of the letter disagree on a topic or two in the
> > area  of religious freedom and constitutional interpretation of the
> > religion  clauses, there is a huge breadth of space over which they
> > and I  suspect nearly all constitutional law experts agree.  This is
> > clearly  one of the easy ones.
> >
> > Con Law books emphasize boundaries and hard cases.  I regularly try
> > to  draw my students back to thinking about just how much is in fact
> > settled and how clearly constitutional most of the efforts of
> > Congress, the Court, the Executive, and the states in fact are.
> > While  the areas of dispute are oftentimes very important, we can
> > sometimes  (and maybe generally do) exaggerate their importance
> > because they are  the hot issues of the moment.  This bill, the
> > response to it, and  Doug's letter serve to remind us that we agree
> > on much.
> >
> > They also serve to remind us that even in settled, clear areas,
> > people, whether well-meaning or otherwise, can act improperly and
> > that  indeed the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Wendell
> > Phillips  (1811?84) http://www.bartleby.com/73/1073.html (often
> > attributed to  Thomas Jefferson, though no one has found where he
> > said or wrote it).
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> > Steve
> >
> > --
> > Prof. Steven D. Jamar                     vox:  202-806-8017
> > Associate Director, Institute of Intellectual Property and Social
> > Justice http://iipsj.org
> > Howard University School of Law           fax:  202-806-8567
> > http://iipsj.com/SDJ/
> >
> > "Nothing that is worth anything can be achieved in a lifetime;
> > therefore we must be saved by hope."
> >
> > Reinhold Neibuhr
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mar 10, 2009, at 5:29 PM, Douglas Laycock wrote:
> >
> >> Earlier today we discussed a bill in Connecticut to impose
> >> Protestant forms of church governance on the Catholic Church.  The
> >> bill has been pulled and tomorrow's hearing has been cancelled,
> >> apparently due to a flood of calls to legislators.  Church leaders
> >> in Connecticut are not convinced that the issue is fully dead.
> >> Maybe they are right; maybe they are just being cautious.
> >>
> >> If the link below actually works, you can find there a copy of the
> >> bill, and a copy of a letter that twelve of us sent to the Committee
> >>  Co-Chairs.  We cannot take credit for killing the bill; they
> >> apparently pulled it before our letter was delivered.  I hope we can
> >>  take credit for a good explanation of why it is clearly
> >> unconstitutional.
> >>
> >> http://www-personal.umich.edu/~laycockd/<http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Elaycockd/>
> >>
> >> The breadth of agreement that this one was unconstitutional, which
> >> extends far beyond the signers of this letter, is encouraging.
> >>
> >> Douglas Laycock
> >> Yale Kamisar Collegiate Professor of Law
> >> University of Michigan Law School
> >> 625 S. State St.
> >> Ann Arbor, MI  48109-1215
> >>  734-647-9713_______________________________________________
> >> To post, send message to Religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu
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> >>
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> >> (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
> >
> >
>
>
>
> Douglas Laycock
> Yale Kamisar Collegiate Professor of Law
> University of Michigan Law School
> 625 S. State St.
> Ann Arbor, MI  48109-1215
>   734-647-9713
>
> _______________________________________________
> To post, send message to Religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see
> http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
>
> Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as
> private.  Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are
> posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or
> wrongly) forward the messages to others.
>



-- 
Prof. Steven Jamar
Howard University School of Law
Associate Director, Institute of Intellectual Property and Social Justice
(IIPSJ) Inc.
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