MAN KNOW THY SELF (2)

MERCHANTS

The merchants were not a part of the King based system and were treated as mere outlaws and outsiders. They had there own law, guilds, and traditions. Merchants as a class were considered as rebels and revolutionaries to be contained. As merchants began to explore the world for riches, they used the church courts and clerics to draw up contracts and to settle contract disputes. The clerics could read and write and that was their claim to fame. It is difficult to believe that the legal profession evolved out of the role of the cleric.

Merchants had to share their riches with the church to pay for legal services. Eventually, the King wanted a part of this action so he permitted the merchants to use the King Courts to file actions and settle disputes. Merchants and the legal class were to become important players in the opening of the New World. Merchants were the founders of most of the colonies in America. The people escaping religious persecution came to America and set up colonies as well, however, the merchant class had the biggest trading colonies. During this period of time, law was still coming from and enforced by England. Spain was busy developing the West Coast of America with its laws and churches while of the descendents of England, France and Germany were busily developing the East Coast with its laws and traditions.

           The slave tradition in America and the treatment of the Indians by the Spanish the English, French, and Germans was a part of this evolutionary cycle. Many wars would be fought on both of those issues, Indians and slavery.

LAW

The physical evidence found concerning written laws was the Codes of Hammurabi, around 1291 BC.  The French discovered the tablets that were well preserved. There were twenty-eight different writings that provided remedies for the sale of goods, personal injury, and property rights. There were laws about the conduct of judges and for doctors who were accused of malpractice. This was indeed, one of the early attempts by humans to rule themselves with written laws. Later, we had the introduction of the Hebrew laws as set down by Moses in the first five- (5) books of the Bible, copied from the Kamet people. The pervasive laws that affected the development of western civilization were the Ten Commandants.  Of course, Roman Law and the English Common Law became the foundation for American Laws. The main function of law was to preserve private property, dispute resolution, and the maintenance of the political order. Mankind never questioned the moral basis for these laws until much later in life; morality itself was a vague concept for most humans.

          The U.S. Constitution became the law of the land in America.  The system that was in England was transferred to the colonies in various forms. The Founding Fathers of America were merchants. They held property and bought and sold goods including slaves. When they revolted against the power of England, they transferred the King power to the colonies.
There were several attempts to write a constitution as the supreme power of the land rather than having a King. Merchants decided that the power of government being in one person was unacceptable. They all understood the warning by Lord Bacon, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." They decided to split the power of the King between three agencies of government, the Executive Branch, the Legislative and the Supreme Court. Neither agency had power over the other. They could only exercise the powers as set forth in the United States Constitution.

This doctrine was called the Separation of Powers. A device, when properly applied, would protect humans from each other. It wasn't a question of morality, i.e., what was right and good for humans. It was about how to keep property owners from abusing each other through the power of the government and the keep the power hungry wealthy off the backs of the people.  The basic right for a human over his own life, to own property, to pursue happiness was retained by the people except for slaves and Indians.
The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution to protect citizens and property owners from the power of the Federal Government. Other amendments were made some legally according to the Constitution and some illegally though on their face they appeared to be the will of the people, i.e. the 16th Amendment and the creation of the Federal Reserve Board.

According to one great Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall, the first man of African descent to sit on the Court, the document was flawed from the very beginning for not protecting the rights of slaves and Indians. This incredible blunder would haunt the colonies and eventually, the States for several generations.

The function of legal philosophy is to act as a base for determining natural rights, just laws, and dealing with what "is." To interpret the meaning of the different institutions which uses laws as guidelines to determine a meaning of the area that exist between natural rights and actual law, to define the "state of nature" in which men live.

The Greeks taught that the law was based on God, traditions, moral code and agreement between men. Aristotle held that the formal basis for law is what is just. Whether it is natural law or positive law, it must be just above all.  He said, "One is bound by law, not by the idea of law. One is bound by enactment and not by custom." The idea of justice meaning each citizen follow the same laws and receives the same results was attractive to the human reasoning process. It sounded good. It turns out that the true ends of law come from whatever course that is necessary to satisfy the wants of the majority with the least sacrifices. To accomplish those ends the focus is not on the "why" of law but only the "what" it is and "how" to apply it to human behavior. If a law said,  "If one takes the personal property of another without consent, the person must be subject to prosecution and unless he or she has some privilege or defense, if convicted, must serve the time specified by law."  The majority of humans accept this reasoning and the application of law to further the needs of society.