john bingham

  • Defining Natural-Born Citizen

    ByP.A. Madison
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    “The common law of England is not the common law of these States.” –George Mason What might the phrase “natural-born citizen” of the United States imply under the U.S. Constitution? The phrase has always been obscure due to the lack of any single authoritative source to confer in order to understand the condition of citizenship the phrase recognizes. Learning what the phrase might have meant following the Declaration of Independence, and the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, requires detective work. As with…

  • Q: Did Marshall and Bingham Share the same Constitutional Philosophy?

    ByP.A. Madison

    A reader would like to know what ideological differences there might had been between two influential individuals of constitutional law: Chief Justice John Marshall and John A. Bingham. While John Bingham spoke cordially of C.J. Marshall, the two sat at opposite poles of each other. Here is a quick illustration of their differences: Mr. Bingham was a self-proclaimed “state rights” man; Marshall on the other hand was a Nationalist to the left of George Washington. Mr. Bingham viewed the Alien and Sedition…

  • Supreme Absurdity: Scott v. Harris

    ByP.A. Madison

    Updated 3/1/07 Just when I thought I had seen and heard it all, comes the case Scott v. Harris. The case involves Coweta County Deputy Sheriff Timothy Scott’s decision in 2001 to end a wild, high-speed chase over dark and wet Georgia highways by finally ramming the back of Victor Harris’ Cadillac, sending him down an embankment and flipping his car. Harris, then 19, was left a quadriplegic and has sued, claiming it was a violation of his constitutional rights for Scott…