Extemporaneous musings, occasionally poetic, about life in its richly varied dimensions, especially as relates to history, theology, law, literature, science, by one who is an attorney, ordained minister, historian, writer, and African American.
Thursday, April 6, 2017
SAGACITY ETERNITY
SAGACITY TOUCHING ETERNITY
The whole document must be read to gather its total meaning , not merely one small part, however gaudily that part may be set apart.
Fredrick Douglass, a former slave had vehemently argued that the Constitution was an anti-slavery document based on its preamble .
He was opposed in this view by William Lloyd Garrison, another renowned abolitionist, a white man, who looked at its four corners, not merely its much vaunted preamble.
The Preamble reads:
"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do establish and ordain, this constitution of the United States of America."
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Such wonderful words wove a web, a warren of exceptions, exclusions that may not have been perceived by those who did not read it wholly.
But, for those whose motives were ulterior the words provided perfect exterior for devilish deceitful plots, conducted in the interior of judicial webs, warrens, wasted places, for certain "people" who were not even persons, much less citizens, of the United States of America. So ruled its Supreme Court in 1857, when the Missouri slaves case reached it.
These basic truths extend beyond our Constitution, beyond our Bible. Its sagaciousness touches eternity.
Apostle Paul has famously said:
"For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But, when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now, I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known."
1 Cor. 13: 9-12