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strumentality, political subdivision, or
transient majority may transgress, abridge,
or diminish.
Now, if you will measure these sections
in Recommendation R&P-1 against that
statement, ladies and gentlemen, you will
have caught the philosophy of what we are
talking about. We have not brought to you
exhortatory wishes and aims. We have
brought to you basic rights that shall not
be taken away. These are not things to be
added to somebody's personal living; these
are things that you already have and
which no government can take from you,
and that is what the Bill of Rights means.
We have tried to make the language
timeless rather than timely. This consti-
tution, we hope, is being written for a long
time to come. These concepts, therefore,
are not concepts that \ve think should con-
cern people for only the next five years
but shall be equally as applicable a hun-
dred years from now as they were two
hundreds years ago when they were first
enunciated. Because of this, our recom-
mended rights are simple, terse statements
which are capable of being judicially in-
terpreted as conditions change over the
years.
As an example, in matters involving cruel
and unusual punishment, what was
cruel and unusual punishment two hundred
years ago may not be cruel and unusual
punishment today. It most likely would be
the other way around. Things that were
countenanced two hundred or even one hun-
dred years ago may today, by our concepts,
he crupl and unusual punishment. So if we
state the concept and leave it to the courts
and to the legislature to implement these
great basic truths of freedom, I think we
will have provided a far greater service
than if we try to spell them all out in
detail.
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, regardless
of what we say or what we think, these
declarations of rights, these personal free-
dom? must reach to and include everyone,
white, black, brown, yellow, male and fe-
male, urban, suburban, rural. There can be
no group or no person who can say that
these rights are not written for them. In
other words, they apply to everybody.
(President 71. Vcrunu. Ency resumed the
ch a I r.)
DELEGATE KIEFER: Now, I want
very briefly and very quickly to go over
these recommendations with you. I am not
going to repeat the material that is in the
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memorandum. I hope that you have read
it and that you will have a chance to read
it tonight if you have not.
I do want to make some very brief com-
ments on several items. I will skip over
others very quickly. We simply numbered
these sections 1, 2, 3 and 4, because it
seemed to us that the Style and Drafting
Committee will arrange whatever system
of numbering there is to be. We just felt
they were a little bit more dignified by
referring to them as section 1, rather than
section 1.01, or something of that sort.
Nevertheless, section 1, Freedom of Ex-
pression, (a), Right of Assembly states:
"The people shall have the right peaceably
to assemble and to petition the govern-
ment for a redress of grievances."
This is the First Amendment of the U. S.
Constitution, and it is also Article 13 of
our own Declaration of Rights. I do not
think there is any question about it. I do
not know that there is any need to elabo-
rate.
"Freedom of the press and freedom of
speech shall not be abridged, each person
remaining responsible for abuse of these
rights." This is the second part of this
basic freedom.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a living
freedom. This is constantly subject to in-
terpretation and implementation by courts.
It is a jealously guarded freedom and one
which we can cherish. It was not always
so. Back in 1798, the famous Sedition Acts
made it a crime to speak against the gov-
ernment, and in World War I we had sedi-
tion acts that were almost as bad. But at
this point in our history the rights of the
freedom of press and freedom of speech
have been pretty clearly enunciated, and
even as late as last week the Supreme
Court has again ruled upon and empha-
sized these rights.
Section 2, Freedom of Religion. This is a
section I shall dwell on just briefly, but I
want to read it to you as we have recom-
mended it to you: "No law shall be made
respecting an establishment of religion or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
Ladies and gentlemen, on the Recom-
mendation, the word "or" appears as
"nor", and I have anticipated, I am sure,
a half a dozen questions by some of the
people of this Convention when I tell you
that was a misprint and the word should
be "or". So will you please make that
change in Section 2? The language of the
First Amendment language is exactly that,
or as close to that as we can get it.
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