[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6135-6138]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           SUPREME COURT NEWS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, this has been an interesting week, with all 
the activity here on the Hill. The Prime Minister of Japan came and 
spoke. He did a very admirable job. There has been a lot of activity 
across the street at the Supreme Court. It was rather interesting.
  If you look at the history of the Supreme Court, until 1810 or 
thereabouts, the Supreme Court did not have a courtroom here in the 
Capital--or anywhere, really--and they often had to borrow a room from 
the House and Senate in order to have oral arguments.
  They were thrilled on the Supreme Court in 1810 when the Senate 
Chamber on the second floor was open, what is now referred to as the 
Old Senate Chamber. The Senate moved up to that Chamber just straight 
down the hall out here, and the Old Senate Chamber downstairs was 
converted into a Supreme Court courtroom.
  The Justices were thrilled. They were thrilled that they finally had 
their own nice courtroom. Now, it is not much more than a museum room. 
People can tour that room. There were some important decisions that 
were considered down there, some very poor decisions that were made in 
that room and some very good decisions that were made in that room.
  One of them involved the Spanish ship the Amistad. It was a great 
movie. A guy who grew up in Longview, Texas, in my district, Matthew 
McConaughey, played the trial lawyer in the case.

                              {time}  1115

  Anthony Hopkins did a great job playing John Quincy Adams, and I 
commend that movie to anyone that cares to see it. I don't think as 
many people saw it as have seen McConaughey's other movies. He didn't 
take off his shirt in this one.
  The basic story can be found in the likes of history books--
unfortunately, not many that you can find in any school in America 
these days. But it was a very important case in establishing propriety 
in America.
  There was a group of Africans who were captured by other Africans, 
taken to the coast of Africa, sold into slavery, put in chains, sailed 
across the sea to the Atlantic, to the Caribbean. There, this 
particular group of Africans was put on a Spanish ship called the 
Amistad.
  After they sailed, the Africans were able to get free, take over 
control of the ship. They didn't know anything about sailing a ship 
like that and ended up landing in the United States, on the United 
States coast.
  Immediately, the Spaniards began proclaiming that the Africans were 
their property. They were slaves. They were their property, as was the 
ship, and they wanted to take their ship. What they said were slaves, 
or were actually Africans, should have been free, but they wanted to go 
and leave with them. So there was a lawsuit.
  It took a while to find someone who could speak the Africans' native 
tongue. Their version was a little different. They were minding their 
own business. They were free Africans, and that is what they wanted to 
be. They are not anybody's property. But fellow Africans had sold them 
into slavery, and they just wanted to be free like they started.
  So the lawsuit went on. There were a couple of trials, some apparent 
improprieties in the process, but it made its way to the Supreme Court 
in the 1830s.
  By that time, John Quincy Adams had become the first son of a former

[[Page 6136]]

President to be elected President. Someone told me it has happened 
since then, but he was the first son of a former President to be 
elected President. He had argued cases before the Supreme Court before, 
including just 2 or 3 years before he got elected President. In 1828, 
he was defeated, so he never got a second term.
  Two years after that, he did, for a President, what was fairly 
unthinkable. He ran for the House of Representatives. No President has 
ever run for Congress before or since John Quincy Adams. But he had an 
abiding sense that he had a calling, like William Wilberforce in 
England, with whom he had corresponded, that like Wilberforce was doing 
in England, trying to fight to bring an end to slavery there and all 
the injustice that came with it, he had a calling to do that in 
America.
  So he ran for the House of Representatives. He was elected nine 
times, beginning in 1830. So the little plaque where his desk was, just 
down the hall in the old House Chamber, says, 1831-1848. He had a 
massive stroke in 1848. But, over the course of his time in the House, 
he repeatedly filed bills to end slavery in America, to free specific 
slaves, and, at times, he made the Rules Committee furious because of 
the number of bills he filed.
  When he was recognized, in essence, he would give a hellfire 
brimstone sermon about the evils of slavery and how could we expect God 
to bless America when we were treating brothers and sisters the way 
slaves were treated.
  Well, he never got a win on any of his votes to end slavery, but in 
the 1830s, after the Amistad case made its way to the Supreme Court, he 
was eventually convinced to take over the case, to argue it before the 
Supreme Court. He had originally been reluctant, but decided that was 
something he should do, and so he did. He argued the case.
  Back in those days, there was no limit on length of oral argument, 
and so he went on and on, not as long as the 3 days Daniel Webster took 
in one case, but over 1 day and another, and of course they broke for 
lunch and in the evenings. But before the oral arguments ended, one of 
the Justices died, so that kind of throws a kink in oral argument.
  But on the last day in his argument, after having argued the law, 
tried to argue precedents, tried to argue the facts, he apparently 
didn't feel good about the Supreme Court's position. He didn't feel 
like they were with him.
  Mr. Speaker, if you can put yourself in the place of John Quincy 
Adams, knowing how wrong slavery was and how we could never reach our 
potential as a nation if we continued the course of slavery, and yet 
knowing if you are not up to the job in this case, arguing before these 
Justices, nine and then eight, and you don't do a good enough job, then 
the Africans will remain in chains, and most likely their children, 
grandchildren will wear chains because you didn't do a good enough job 
as the attorney, so the pressure was immense.
  You can find his oral argument online. We don't have days for that to 
all be recited. But you can find, toward the end of the oral argument--
and I don't have it here before me. I don't have it verbatim. But the 
process he used toward the end might be offensive to some judges now. 
If somebody had done it before me, as a judge, it might have been 
offensive to me.
  But he was desperate to convince the Justices to think carefully 
about what they were about to decide: whether free Africans, Africans 
that started as free Africans, should remain free Africans or whether 
they should be considered no more than property to the people that 
bought them from the Africans that sold them.
  So his argument turned, right at the end, to a recitation of Justices 
who had been on the Court and who were no longer alive, saying, in 
essence, you know: Where is Chief Justice John Marshall? Where is this 
Justice, that Justice? He called them by name. He knew them. Through 
his father, through himself, personally, he knew the Justices, all 
those that had passed away. Then he called every one of their names.
  He said: The solicitor general that last argued a case against me 
before this Court--this was back in the early twenties--where is he? He 
had passed away.
  And he went on naming the names of Justices who had been on the 
Supreme Court and died, and then came around and he said: Even the 
Justice that started this case, where is he? He is not with us. They 
have all gone to meet their Maker, their Judge.
  Then he said: The biggest thing about--the biggest question about 
their lives is, when they met their Maker, their Judge, did they hear 
the words, ``Well done, good and faithful servant?''
  That was an argument before the Supreme Court. Like I said, that is 
not verbatim, but the question that he said was so critical about their 
lives was verbatim because he knew that came from Scripture that he 
believed with his heart, like the Apostle Paul is saying that he hoped 
that he would hear that, ``Well done, good and faithful servant.''
  Now, he didn't go the extra step and insult the Justices by saying: 
Are you going to hear it if you die tonight? But the implication was 
very clear. And fortunately, not just for the Africans, but for people 
of conscience back in that day, the Supreme Court made a good decision, 
unlike what they did in the Dred Scott case, making an abysmal 
decision. But that was also heard and decided while the Supreme Court 
met in that same room that tourists--it is not as easy to go on the 
tour as it used to be throughout the Capitol, but you can see that 
courtroom where that occurred.
  The Supreme Court did the right thing. They decided the free Africans 
should be free Africans--a good decision--that they were not anyone's 
property, that they did not have to leave in shackles. They are free 
Africans. They were free people. This actually goes right back to the 
Declaration of Independence, and the Founders believed that we were 
endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights and that we were 
created equal.
  One of the great questions about those days was how even Thomas 
Jefferson, who had put in the Declaration of Independence, one of the 
longest grievances was actually King George having allowed slavery to 
exist in America, he, himself, had slaves.
  But you get the gist. They understood it really was not a good thing. 
It didn't end up in the final draft of the Declaration of Independence, 
but it held our country back, because any country that treats people 
like that is going to never reach their potential as a country.
  It is interesting, though, in our history, that if you go there in 
what's called Statuary Hall because all these statues have been placed 
in there now, but it was the House Chamber until the late 1850s, the 
place where they had church for the majority of the 1800s. Thomas 
Jefferson went to church in there most Sundays.
  The guy that coined the phrase in a letter to the Danbury Baptist, 
separation of church and state, there should be a wall of separation, 
he saw it as a one-way wall, that the government should not interfere 
with religion and religious beliefs, but he thought it would be 
perfectly fine for religion to participate in government, and had no 
problem. He even brought the Marine Band just down the hall to play 
hymns on many occasions on Sundays. For many years, it was the largest 
Christian church in Washington, D.C. Right down the hall, in the U.S. 
Capitol, in the House of Representatives, is where they met.
  James Madison, who gets so much credit in accumulating the provisions 
of the Constitution, he should know what the Constitution meant in the 
First Amendment that was to come. He saw no problem with coming to 
church in the U.S. Capitol each Sunday while he was President.
  Congressional Research Service, when I inquired, they indicated that 
usually when Jefferson came to church here in the Capitol each Sunday, 
he would normally ride his horse. Madison, when he came to church each 
Sunday here in the Capitol, he would normally come up here in a horse-
drawn carriage.
  But that is part of our history. There was no way that any of those 
Founders

[[Page 6137]]

were ever going to try to interfere with the religious beliefs of, 
especially, Christians in America. That would have been unfathomable to 
them.

                              {time}  1130

  Yet that is the very thing that was being argued right across the 
street this week, that the government should be able to compel people 
with very strong religious beliefs, compel them to violate their most 
strongly held religious beliefs, and compel them basically to become 
slaves to the government and the nonbelief, the amoral beliefs of 
people who may be on the Supreme Court.
  Now, I bring this up because, as you look at the history of the 
Supreme Court, you find that when the Senate moved at the beginning of 
their term in the year 1860, as they started that Senate year, they 
started it down the hall in the current Chamber where they are.
  So in 1860, the Supreme Court moved up from the floor below to the 
beautiful old Senate Chamber, as it is called now, but it was actually 
the Supreme Court chamber from 1860 to 1935.
  I think it was in 1931 the current Supreme Court building was built 
because before that, the Supreme Court got hand-me-downs for most 
everything. And, of course, after a decision like Dred Scott, they 
probably deserved nothing but hand-me-downs.
  But nonetheless, our only President to have been President and also 
be on the Supreme Court, William Howard Taft, because of his political 
ties, he was in a position to seek and get funding for a new building. 
He didn't get to be Chief Justice in the new building.
  But in a documentary that was done not too long ago--I was not 
aware--it pointed out that when the Justices of the Supreme Court were 
taken through this new Supreme Court building in 1935, showing them 
their new chambers, the new Court, many of them were appalled. They 
were shocked because it appeared to them to be a palace. They didn't 
even have a room for a while. Then they got the hand-me-down from the 
old, old Senate chamber. Then they got the old Senate. And now they are 
looking at a palace that they, as Justices, weren't supposed to have.
  The documentary pointed out that there were some Justices who didn't 
move into offices for a long time because they just felt it was 
inappropriate for Justices in the United States of America to be in a 
palace.
  Mr. Speaker, some may not be aware, but they are comfortable with the 
palace now, of course. But it was interesting that for a while, some of 
them felt that it looked too much like a palace, and it sent the wrong 
message.
  When I was a judge, when I was a chief justice, we had many programs 
on ethics to teach, you know, what the general feeling on ethics was, 
what the rules are. And generally, if there was a case in which it 
appeared a justice had already made a decision in advance, that was a 
judge or a justice who should, in order to remain ethical, recuse 
themselves or recuse him- or herself.
  Well, we have two Justices, I read, that had performed marriage 
ceremonies for couples that were the same sex. There could be no more 
clearer evidence that a Justice had decided whether or not same-sex 
marriage was appropriate when such Justice was performing that.
  But one of the flaws in our Supreme Court justice system that only 
exists for the Supreme Court of the United States--no other court in 
the land has this problem--they have no one to whom anybody in America 
using the court system can appeal on ethical issues. Congress can 
impeach after the fact if something is done inappropriately. But, for 
example, if someone made a motion to recuse me as a judge, then I could 
hear it. But then that could be appealed to another judge, and there 
were methods of appeal.
  But if you believe that a judge, or a Justice in the Supreme Court's 
case, making their views very clear that they have very strong feelings 
for same-sex marriage and that they believe it is perfectly appropriate 
before the case comes before them, and yet they decide, I am not doing 
anything unethical, should stay on the Court--because they have come so 
far from those days when they didn't even have a courtroom for about 21 
years to where they now have a lovely palace--there is no one else that 
they allow an appeal to. They could set up a panel to make decisions 
about ethical issues.
  But when you, as a Court, began replacing God with your own 
decisions, when you began to replace the laws of human nature with what 
you think the laws should be, then naturally you are not going to set 
up a panel that second-guesses your decision on ethics because you are 
the be-all and end-all for such decisions.
  So it grieves me very much for our court system to have Justices who 
have made their positions very clear, sit on a case as if they hadn't, 
decide a case as if they are fair and unbiased, and then say this is 
justice in America.
  We have badly regressed. The days of humility for some Justices are 
gone. There was a time when Justices had such a sense of humility that 
they thought this was a palace they should not be in. Those days are 
gone. There was a time when Justices could be embarrassed about such a 
horrendous decision, like Dred Scott. I fear those days are gone as 
well.
  But they will make a decision, and they will decide either--I hope 
they decide that this is a decision for each State, that since the 
Constitution does not speak to the issue of marriage and the 10th 
Amendment makes very clear any power not specifically enumerated is 
reserved to the States and the people, that they will ensure that they 
are not the arbiters of morality in America any longer, at least not on 
this issue; that they will decide that they are not going to go so far 
as to condemn people who believe firmly in the teachings of the Bible, 
Old Testament and New Testament, people who believe in the 
Commandments; that the man depicted as the only full face in this whole 
gallery above these doors, the man who was considered the greatest 
lawgiver of all time when this was decorated in this way, Moses--that 
is the same Moses that, if you go into the Supreme Court and you are 
looking at the Supreme Court, and you are seeing them struggling to 
become God in their decisions about religion, if you look up at the 
marble wall above you, to the right, you will see Moses depicted, 
holding the Ten Commandments and looking down.
  They will decide whether they are going to inject themselves and tell 
people what the Pilgrims heard in Europe, what Christians heard around 
the world who came to America so they would not be persecuted as 
Christians. They will tell America very clearly: We don't care what 
your religious views are. This Supreme Court is going to decide that we 
are going to prohibit the free exercise of religion because we are more 
important, and our views are more important than the clear language of 
the First Amendment when it says that the government will not prohibit 
the free exercise of religion.
  Well, we will find out. I hope and pray that the Supreme Court has a 
time of humility; that their hearts are touched to the point that they 
will not decide that the Pope is an idiot, that they, as the popes of 
America, know what is best for the people, more than any religious 
leader in the country, that they will substitute their judgment for 
those of the Bible.
  It is kind of hard to get around Romans 1, if you really believe the 
New Testament.
  Nonetheless, that decision is coming. Mr. Speaker, I am truly hopeful 
that Americans will realize the seriousness of this decision and the 
ultimate breakdown that it will be. And I hope we don't degenerate in 
this country into more violence.
  But we see what happens around this country when we don't even want 
God mentioned anywhere, even though, for this country's history, the 
Bible has been the most quoted book right here in this Chamber, the 
Chamber down the hall, the most quoted book ever in our government's 
history.
  So when I am talking like this on the floor, we usually get calls 
from people that are going berserk, how dare him mention God.

[[Page 6138]]

  Just in the last week or two, I have quoted from Abraham Lincoln, who 
wrote an official United States Government proclamation, begging, 
imploring the people to have a time of prayer, humility, and fasting. 
And in the proclamation, he makes clear that the problem at that point, 
as slavery was a huge problem, the Civil War was ongoing at the time of 
this proclamation. But he knew those were symptoms of what happens when 
you turn from the religious morality of the Bible. And he said, We have 
forgotten God.
  I hope the Supreme Court will not, once again, inject themselves as 
gods but that they will observe the true meaning of the First 
Amendment.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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