Livingston was a framer of the US Constitution and played a key role in getting the document ratified in New Jersey. We can add William Livingston's name to the list of Founders who denied that Christianity was the source of the omnipresence. Though God does have a place in documents like the Declaration of Independence and Alexander Hamilton's " The Farmer Refuted," which are among the sources of the aforementioned quotations by America's Founders on their belief in the existence of the "brooding omnipresence in the sky." After years of studying this, I don't think that's right. I do believe that the reason why some very distinguished scholars dissent and believe in natural law and rights is that quotations abound from America's Founders demonstrating that they believed in the existence of such.Ĭhristian nationalists think that it's Christianity that is the source of this higher law. I can't resolve the debate between the legal positivists and those who believe that a higher organic law undergirds our system and can be used in constitutional interpretation. Just as they are free to use the the Bible, Book of Mormon, the works of Immanuel Kant or whatever they wish. His point was if legislatures wish to use that to inform their conscience when drafting and voting for legislation they are free to do so. He was a devout Roman Catholic who personally believed in what his Church taught: the natural law of the Aristotlean-Thomistic tradition. The late Justice Scalia was one of these legal positivists. Legal positivists who are on the Left, the Right, in the Center and libertarian don't believe in a "brooding omnipresence in the sky" at least not for purposes of constitutional interpretation.
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