[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 25 (Monday, March 3, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H704]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 PUBLIC DISPLAY OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Scarborough] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow this body is going to be 
looking at a resolution supporting the public display of the Ten 
Commandments. There has been a very interesting case in the State of 
Alabama where Judge Roy Moore, who presides over a circuit court, 
maintains in his courtroom a wood carved plaque containing the Ten 
Commandments. He has been challenged by another judge to take those 
down. The Governor of Alabama, Fob James, has stated that he will do 
whatever it takes to keep the Ten Commandments up in that courtroom, 
including calling in the National Guard.
  It is sure to be an entertaining debate tomorrow, and very 
interesting, and, I believe, a very important debate. But sadly, the 
entertainment is going to come from those people who will come to the 
floor to try to twist history, try to continue the revision of history 
that would separate one country from its heritage.
  We have a very proud heritage of faith and freedom in this country. 
In fact, on the issue of the Ten Commandments, we had James Madison, 
the father of the Constitution, say the following while drafting the 
Constitution. Madison said, ``We have staked the entire future of the 
American civilization not upon the power of government but upon the 
capacity of the individual to govern himself, control himself, and 
sustain himself according to the Ten Commandments of God.''
  That was James Madison, the father of the Constitution. Yet 220 years 
later we have radical revisionists who are trying to tell us that the 
Constitution will not allow us to have the Ten Commandments on the wall 
of a court in Alabama. It is a radical notion.
  Look, for instance, at the Supreme Court itself, which has two 
versions of the Ten Commandments up on its walls. Look at this House 
Chamber; right on the back wall is a picture of Moses, one of the great 
lawmakers in the history of this Republic. When this great building was 
being built, it was Moses that was put front center in this Chamber, so 
every speaker would see the face of Moses on the back wall.
  But sadly, over the past 30 years, these radical revisionists have 
been doing everything that they could do to make the radical seem 
conventional; worse yet, to make the conventional seem radical.
  It is what Charles Krauthammer calls ``defining deviancy up.'' For 
the radicals, it is not important enough for them to define deviancy 
down and make deviant behavior seem normal; but, as Judge Bork has 
said, their most important goal is to make normal behavior seem 
radical.
  For the judges that would like to step forward and talk about how Fob 
James has no right to decide what is on the walls of his courtrooms in 
the State of Alabama, I can only say that they need to read what the 
founders said, attorneys themselves. It was Thomas Jefferson who said, 
``I consider the Government of the United States as not allowed by the 
Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their 
doctrines, their disciplines, or their exercises. This results not only 
from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the 
establishment of free exercise of religion, but also that which 
reserves to the States the powers not delegated to this Federal 
Government. Certainly no power to prescribe any religious exercise or 
assume authority in any religious discipline has been delegated to the 
Federal Government. It must then rest with the States.''
  Justice Joseph Story, in his commentaries on the Constitution, the 
first commentary on the Constitution written by a founder, said this: 
The whole power over the subject of religion is left exclusively to 
State governments, to be acted upon according to their own sense of 
justice and the State constitutions.
  It is a matter well within the right of any Governor to determine 
whether the Ten Commandments shall be on the wall of courtrooms or not, 
and whether the radical revisionists of the past 30 years wish to 
continue to disconnect America from the beliefs of Madison and 
Jefferson and Washington, it is up to them.
  But, Mr. Speaker, we have got to stop revising history, and stand up 
today and say enough is enough. If you want to build a bridge to the 
21st century you do it, but you do not do it by cutting America off 
from its proud, faithful past.

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