Constitutional Sources Project

ConSource is a non-partisan effort to collect, digitize and cross reference all the primary source material related to the creation of the Constitution. They seek to make it available to everyone--students, lawyers, judges, teachers, professors--as part of what I consider to be an ongoing effor to Democratize history. It is an excellent cause that, as a student of history, I hold near and dear to my heart.

I've written previously about the good work done by ConSource here, here, here, here, here, here, here, & here.

They recently kicked off a capital fundraising drive and I've happily agreed to do what I can to aid them in their efforts. Longtime friend and friend of this blog, Matt Berry, penned a letter explaining ConSource and their future goals. Please, give it a read and donate if you can. If you can't, please spread the word or do whatever else you can to aid us in bringing off this wonderful national service.

Friends,

As many of you know, for the past couple of years I have been actively involved with the Constitutional Sources Project—now known across the country as ConSource.

A registered 501c3 non-profit organization, ConSource was founded with the singular goal of created an online, searchable database of all original source documents used by the Founders of this country in drafting our Constitution. And after three years of research, the project is now getting closer and closer to its ultimate goal of containing every constitutional source from antiquity to the 27th Amendment.

With the help of other donors and countless volunteers, ConSource has become an innovation all its own. It offers the only source for searchable text transcripts, high-resolution original images, advanced searching, and scholarly certification standards for its documents. Moreover, no other database in American Constitutional history has allowed for real-time cross-referencing of individual documents within the Constitution.

In offering what it does, ConSource has gained a reputation across the legal community. In the case of District of Columbia v. Heller, the US Supreme Court used the ConSource legal database in their decision—see related article on law.com here: http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202423267162

ConSource was proud to receive official endorsements from former US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and current Justices Stephen Breyer and Antonin Scalia—all three of whom have participated in events held on the project's behalf. On the political side, ConSource recently received a bipartisan show of support signed by Senators Harry Reid, Orrin Hatch, Samuel Brownback, and Edward Kennedy.

The project is now housed in Washington, DC on K Street at the renowned international law firm Winston & Strawn, and has close to 200 student volunteers from BYU and Yale working on new source documents. As always, ConSource is forever grateful for the support it receives from the generous donors, supporters, and volunteers. Preserving these documents is vital to the relevance of our Constitution for generations to come.

With the unexpected attention and growth ConSource is proud to announce the preparation for the launch of ConSource 2.0. Along with many aesthetic and user-friendly upgrades, version 2.0 will also include a number of new data search options as well as hundreds of recently added digital papers, including the notes of Benjamin Franklin.

Three years ago we could not have anticipated the amount of attention ConSource has received, and we would have been shocked at the amount of traffic the site would attract—over 200,000 unique visitors each month and growing. It is because of this success that we set out to develop a stronger web platform to handle the volume of users now taking advantage of ConSource.

We need your help in facilitating these upgrades, and introducing more people to the thoughts that built this great nation.

This project would not have happened without the help of our many generous donors, volunteers, and public advocates. As the influence of ConSource has broadened, so has the understanding of our founding principals. We ask that you help us continue this effort in any way you can. To contribute to this vital cause please go to:
https://secure48.easycgi.com/consource/donate.asp

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Consource & Heller

Alright all you Constitutionally-inclined readers, here's the Heller update for which you've all been waiting. Most of it is straight from our monthly ConSource update email. ConSource, you'll recall, is the effort to collect, digitize and make available all the primary source documents related to the creation of the Constitution. For the last 2+ years we've "consulted" for our friend Matt Berry, one of ConSource's founders.

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On March 18, 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments for Heller v. District of Columbia, otherwise known as the D.C. gun ban case. Though the Second Amendment has been a source of much debate, there has not been a significant Supreme Court case on the subject in over 70 years. More, Heller provides the Court its first opportunity to decide whether the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms.

Most importantly for the project, documents found on ConSource have played a role in the case. Because the Court is reviewing an issue of first impression, both sides have turned to sources from the Framing to decipher the intent of the Second Amendment's obscure wording: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. References and debates pre-dating the Second Amendment are found in the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, State Ratification Debates, and the Legislative History of the Bill of Rights, all available at www.ConSource.org. Links to the documents on ConSource detailing the history of the Second Amendment's creation and reviewed by the parties in Heller are provided at the bottom of this e-mail. To highlight the part of the document that relates to either clause in the Second Amendment, please use the Constitutional Index found on the right-hand side of each document's webpage.

To read a blog written by Judge Paul Cassel on the Volokh Conspiracy about ConSource'’s role in Heller, please click here.

(ed. note: Spikers, we know Volokh is a UCLA guy, hopefully, as an SC guy, you can look past that.)

Related Second Amendment Documents on ConSource.org

The United States Constitution:

Bill of Rights, Amendments I-X

Federalist Papers:

Federalist 4

Federalist 29

Anti-Federalist and Pro-Federalist Papers:

The Dissent of the Minority of the Pennsylvania Convention (December 18, 1787)

Ratification Debates:

Journal Notes of the Virginia Ratification Convention Proceedings (June 27, 1788)

Journal Notes of the Massachusetts Ratification Convention Proceedings, A.M. (February 6, 1788)

Alexander J. Dallas’ Notes of the Pennsylvania Ratification Convention P.M. (December 12, 1787)

Legislative History of the Bill of Rights:

Bill of Rights’ Drafts and Votes

Madison's Resolution for Amendments to the Constitution (June 8, 1789)

House Committee Report (July 28, 1789)

Amendments Proposed by the Virginia Convention (June 27, 1789)

Articles of Amendments, As Agreed to by the Senate (September 14, 1789)

Amendments to the Constitution (September 28, 1789)

Debates in the House of Representatives

The Congressional Register (August 17, 1789)

The Congressional Register (August 21, 1789)

Newspaper Report of the House of Representatives Debates on August 20, 1789 (August 22, 1789)

Letters of the Framers:

John Randolph to St. George Tucker (September 11, 1789)

George Mason to John Lamb (June 09, 1788)

Jeremy Belknap to Paine Wingate (May 29, 1789

Fisher Ames to Thomas Dwight (June 11, 1789)

Fisher Ames to George R. Minot (June 12, 1789)

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This case is a perfect example of the usefulness of ConSource. If you are so able, we recommend you make a donation to ConSource to help support their efforts.

If you have tips, questions, comments, suggestions, or requests for subscription only articles, email us at lybberty@gmail.com.

BYU, Utah State Caucuses, Iraq, &c.

Over the course of our reports on the BYUSA election and the ongoing debate about the Provo parking issues, we have called for a more unified voice to represent student concerns with the Provo City Council (here, here, here, here, here, here, & here). A report by Emily Hudson in the Daily Universe shows we are not the only ones who recognize the representation deficit.

Hudson reports that the 33,000 BYU students make up roughly 29% of the Provo population. And yet, "in Saturday's downtown meeting, where BYU was not represented, almost all of the discussion of urban variety centered around increasing student activity in the downtown area, student housing issues and transportation. (emphasis added)

How can this be possible?

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Yesterday Utah held caucus meetings for both Republican and Democrats. This article from the Daily U focuses on the Democrat caucus. In it, Holly Van Woerkom reported that Don Jarvis, Democratic candidate for the Utah State House from district 63, said that the BYU Democrats were "the largest student Democrat club in the state."

That's not saying much.

Meanwhile, friend of Lybberty, Matt Berry, attended the local Republican caucus and was elected as one of the delegates to the Republican State Convention. Berry reported that there were "a lot fewer crazies than I expected" and that the discussion was "smart and passionate." He said they focused on vouchers/school choice and immigration, among other things.

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Follow up to last week's review of the DU's editorial on Obama's speech. Letter-to-the-editor writer, Max Stoneman called the DU's editorial on Obama's Wright speech a new low (2nd from the top). You'll remember that this was the column with which we agreed and thought was well-written.

Specifically, he said " The DU is also extremely wrong-headed to assume that Obama used the speech to say 'we're all racist in some ways.'" Did Stoneman miss Obama's comment about his grandmother being a "typical white person?" This was a revealing offhand comment that further strengthens the DU's suspicions about Obama's worldview.

To Stoneman: drink less kool-aid.

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Since we still rely on blogger for all things technical, we don't know why the text spacing changes after we use one of the special features like "centering" or "block quote." If any of you know how to fix this, please email us.

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This week marks the kickoff to the BYU student sponsored "Choose to Give" campaign. Check out Russell Thacker's piece in the DU appealing to students for their support. We, collectively, have benefited greatly from our attendance at BYU. We recommend you do as the class of 1911 student suggested and "refrain this week from indulging in any evening entertainments that will require an outlay of money."

Small donations from a large percentage of the BYU student population can go a long way to growing student scholarships and expanding programs--like the math lab--that help a lot of students.

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Last night we watched some associate editor from US News on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. We were shocked to learn that news reports (according to the aforementioned editor) on Iraq only totaled 4% of all news time in the month of February.

With violence down, we really shouldn't be surprised, but we were. Fortunately, some reporters have continued to do good work in Iraq--specifically, Michael J. Totten, whom we've cited before. Totten's report on Marine efforts in Karmah, a town in the Anbar province, is his latest and is very good (caution: expletives in link). From that report:

Implementing basic security measures wouldn't work in a counterinsurgency if a significant number of local civilians supported the radicals. But the locals were terrified and savagely murdered and tortured by the radicals on a regular basis. Al Qaeda in Iraq is the self-declared enemy of every human being outside its own members and loyal supporters. Nothing could possibly discredit jihad more completely than the jihadists themselves.

“Insurgent activity was a lot worse,” Sergeant Howell said. “Attacks with small arms fire were constant. IEDs were daily. The difference between this place now and when I first got here is day and night. There was no way kids would be playing soccer in the streets. When we patrolled last time we had a much more aggressive posture. It was a combat patrol.”

Totten is an independent reporter and depends on donations to support himself and his work. Click the Paypal link at the bottom of his page and pitch in. For or against, we owe it to our soldiers to stay informed about the war and what they are doing.


If you have tips, questions, comments, suggestions, or requests for subscription only articles, email us at lybberty@gmail.com.

Matt Berry: "He's a really patriotic guy"

Raisin had a field day with our last post about football patriot and erstwhile OL&L contributor, Matt Berry. But we can take it. In that article, we wrote about John Kerry's infamous botched joke and the usual idiocy from Chuck Rangel and referred the reader to Berry who we argued was an example of the type of person who often volunteers to serve--educated, accomplished, yet desiring to defend his/her country.

Well, Berry has been home from basic for a few months and while preparing for officer candidate school, he has continued working on ConSource--another project we've written about before.

In our daily review of cougarfan.com, we came across a recent ABC News 4 piece about Berry and his military service. His candor is refreshing. None of the false, 'shoot 'em up' bravado the loony left uses to caricature soldiers and conservatives. Nope, Berry is as honest about his patriotic desires to serve his country as he is his fears of what might happen to him in Iraq or Afghanistan. Click here to watch the video.

Thanks for your service, Matt.


If you have tips, questions, comments, suggestions, or requests for subscription only articles, email us at lybberty@gmail.com.

Matt Berry is a really good guy

We generally try to avoid out and out mention of our friends in our blog. This is a departure from past experience where our folksy attempts at a Top 10 list often included references to family and friends. In the recent case of Matt Berry, we simply can't help ourselves.

Consider first the "botched joke" of John Kerry. Everyone has heard about how Mr. Kerry essentially called the military dumb and poor. We wrote about it here. Congressman Charles Rangel has been making waves with his call for a draft and has been even more explicit in his contempt for the troops:

"If a young fellow has an option of having a decent career, or joining the Army to fight in Iraq, you can bet your life that he would not be in Iraq," Mr. Rangel, a Democrat representing Manhattan and Queens, said on "Fox News Sunday."

"If there's anyone who believes these youngsters want to fight, as the Pentagon and some generals have said, you can just forget about it. No bright young individual wants to fight just because of a bonus and just because of educational benefits. And most all of them come from communities of very, very high unemployment," the congressman said.

Even our moronic hometown newspaper has picked up on the theme. The liberal elitist worldview reads that only poor, uneducated--mostly minorities--serve in the military. As recent reports about the overall intelligence of our military as compared to the general populace show, this isn't true. But even if it were true, when did it become bad that people surveyed their list of choices, and then decided to join the military? They see opportunities to get ahead--just the same as someone who attends community college. It is typical of liberal condescension that they look down on those who, without a trust fund, do what they can to get educated and get ahead.

Back to Berry.

Mr. Berry's experience, highlighted wonderfully in an article in the Salt Lake Tribune by Patrick Kinahan (hat tip: Matt Lybbert), shows perfectly that even the "advantaged" are joining the military--and for purely virtuous reasons. Just because some liberals don't include patriotism in their list of priorities, doesn't make those who volunteer irrational.

The recently deceased Milton Friedman made a passionate case for an all-volunteer army. He surmised, based on economic research, that an all volunteer army would most effectively and efficiently allocate the nation's manpower. Sure, many would join because it gave them economic opportunities. So what? Others like Mr. Berry join because they are patriots. Whatever the motivation, these young men and women are hardly stupid or ignorant for joining. They aren't being duped.

Mr. Berry lists among his many accomplishments being a former BYU QB who graduated with a degree in history. He even wrote for this blog(!). He was also a co-founder of Consource where he worked with Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and others (Justice Scalia) to make primary source documents relating to the creation of the Constitution available online to everyone. After completing basic training and officer candidate's school, Mr. Berry intends to pursue a graduate degree.

And Mr. Berry is hardly an anomaly. There are others like him. When we spoke with him just before leaving for basic, he mentioned that there were several others in his induction group who had families, were older, and had degrees. These volunteers were established. They hardly fit the profile of young, ignorant, uneducated, minorities like Mr. Rangel would like you to believe.


If you have questions, comments, suggestions, or requests for subscription only articles, email us at lybberty@gmail.com.