The president's quest for Infinite Justice took a hit on Monday, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the roughly 600 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba have the right to challenge their imprisonment in court. Not that those detainees will be going anywhere for awhile; but now they will have the opportunity to at least speak to a lawyer and have their cases heard.

The Bush administration's lawyers argued that the president has the power to hold prisoners incommunicado and without charges because – well, because he just really wants to. The Supreme Court, however, didn't buy this argument – and one must assume that the standards of decorum at the Court are slightly higher than those at the Senate. Otherwise, we'd have seen newspaper headlines reading, "Supreme Court Says: Bullshit!" in all the major dailies. As it was, the decision ran to about a hundred pages of less than inspiring legalese.

That's not to say that there aren't a few stand-out quotes embedded in the decision. Said Justice O'Connor: "It is during our most challenging and uncertain moments that our nation's commitment to due process is most severely tested; and it is in those times that we must preserve our commitment at home to the principles for which we fight abroad." She's absolutely right, of course. But what's interesting is how spectacularly we've failed this particular test in the past.

Take, for example, the "Sedition Act". In 1798, amidst fears of a war with France, the President John Adams signed the Act, which outlawed "any false, scandalous and malicious writing," against the government. The result was that several newspapers were forced to shut down, and their editors were thrown in jail. Just ten years after its ratification, the Constitution found itself being neglected. The public outcry was such that Thomas Jefferson pardoned everyone arrested under the Act when he was elected two years later.

But it's not just unloved presidents like John Adams who are responsible for smacking around our civil liberties. Even Abe Lincoln – the American Jesus himself – managed to get in on the fun when he suspended habeas corpus in 1861. During the time of our nation's greatest tribulation, we found ourselves under martial law, and without the protection of one of the most important parts of our Constitution. We were tested, and we failed.

It's been said that the United States' Constitution is a "living document". Even so, through-out history, it has been given several involuntary yoga lessons as various parties attempted to twist it to suit their purposes. Yet there it remains, in plain black and white – printed a million times over in text-books and encyclopedias all over the world. How is it then that this document, intended by the founding fathers to be the corner-stone of our nation, can be as loosely interpreted as it has been over the years?

The answer lies within the very soul of our nation. America has always been a country with a certain amount of moral dexterity. Our principles and ethics seem to be able to twist and contort themselves into whatever remarkable shape that's required to serve our changing purposes. And it's no wonder, when you look at our history. For all the talking the founding fathers did about liberty and freedom, there sure was an awful lot of slavery going on.

That's the basic contradiction found at the genesis of our republic. While the Constitutional Congress sat around debating the finer points of liberty, tens of thousands of enslaved Africans were toiling in the unforgiving heat of the plantations. It should be obvious that people, like the founding fathers, who could so embody such a contradiction would wind up forming a country capable of saying one thing, doing another, and then claiming that there is no conflict between word and deed. That sort of behavior is part of our national character.

It's too soon to say whether or not the Supreme Court's ruling in the Hamdi case is a sign that we've begun to match our actions with the principles on which this country is based. As Justice O'Connor implied, this was a test – and there will be many more, for as long as the republic continues to exist. But it definitely is a hopeful sign.

-B. C. Silvia
-6/30/2004