http://rcarterpittman.org/essays/judiciary/Law_of_the_Land.htmlby The Honorable R Carter Pittman, now deceased.
excerpt
It was to settle forever all questions as to who should make law that the very first sentence of our Constitution was made to say:
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.
It was to settle that question that Section 8 of Article I of the Constitution reiterated in its last clause that:
The Congress shall have power . . . to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
It was to settle that question that every power of the president beyond the execution of laws of the union enacted by the Congress was spelled out in the Constitution by words so plain that anyone who can read English and knows a smattering of American history can understand.
Section 2 of Article III of the Constitution "extends" the judicial power to "Cases in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority." Article VI of the Constitution defines "the supreme Law of the Land" as: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made under the Authority of the United States." Thus Article VI repeats the words of Article III in order that the Judicial Department could never make a valid claim that its decisions in "Cases" are "the supreme Law of the Land." Section 2 of Article III "extends" the "judicial power" to other defined "Cases" and "Controversies," depending upon the laws of nations -- or of States -- not relevant here. But for that extension the courts would have been limited, exclusively, to judging cases involving "the law of the land." Since Article III limits federal jurisdiction to cases, a decision in a case becomes the law of the case, binding only upon the parties thereto -- not "the law of the land," binding upon everyone.
It was to keep federal courts from making law under the guise of finding law that the framers of the federal Constitution, unlike the framers of our state constitutions, withheld from the federal courts jurisdiction of cases and controversies arising under common law.
A republic is a government in which all laws are established by the immemorial customs of the people or are made by representatives of the people in legislative assemblies. If laws may be established or made by men not elected for such purpose by the people, whatever that government may be called, it cannot be a republic.
