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The Constitution ———— HAN by Paulsen Spence s most of us have received the benefits of at least an eighth grade education, it should be pat- ent to all that only by strict ad- herence to the Constitution can we hope to secure our liberty and promote prosperity. That the Con- stitution is our Charter of Freedom should be beyond doubt. Tf our people do not understand this basic fact, then there is something radi- cally wrong with our public school system. In this discussion, we are not concerned with the relative merits of sepregatiun. Our only concern is that there is no such thing as the Constitution being “flexible and subject to judicial interpretation” and that the oficial, written Con- stitution does not provide for the nonsegregation decision and -re- gardless of what 1s said vw the con- trary, this decision is not “the faw of the land.” a As most of our citizenty is in- herently law-abiding, many feed chat it is Wrong to oppose 2 decision of Hy eri db the U.S. Supreme Court. In the case of the nonseyregation decision, they have no reason to feel that way. Decisions of the Supreme Court are binding only when made in pursuance of the Constitution. In order to understand why the nonsegregation decision is with- out Constitutional authority, we must review some of the funda- mentals of our form of govern- ment. The States do not derive their power from the Federal Govern- ment. The Federal Government de- rives its power from the States. The legislatures of three-fourths of the States can alter or do away with the Federal Government at will. After the successful War of the American Revolution, the 15 Eng- lish colonies were recognized by themselves and the powers of the earth as being sovereign and inde- pendent States, These States un- dertook tw get along under certain Articles of Confederation, Experience proved that this sys- tem was not practical and, in 1787, delegates from 12 States: imcet at “ -— wr 69 THE COURT |