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Page Number: 43.0

8 

UNITED STATES v. RAHIMI 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

a cohesive national sovereign in response to the failings of 
the  Articles  of  Confederation”);  Sosa  v.  Alvarez-Machain, 
542 U. S. 692, 716–717 (2004) (“The Continental Congress
was  hamstrung  by  its  inability  to  ‘cause  infractions  of
treaties, or of the law of nations to be punished,’ ” and the
“Framers  responded  by  vesting  the  Supreme  Court  with
original jurisdiction over ‘all Cases affecting Ambassadors, 
other public ministers and Consuls,’ and the First Congress
followed  through”  (citation  omitted));  U. S.  Term  Limits, 
Inc.  v.  Thornton,  514  U. S.  779,  803  (1995)  (“After  the 
Constitutional  Convention  convened,  the  Framers  were 
presented  with,  and  eventually  adopted  a  variation  of,  a 
plan not merely to amend the Articles of Confederation but 
to  create  an  entirely  new  National  Government  with  a 
National  Executive,  National  Judiciary,  and  a  National
Legislature” (quotation marks omitted)).

of 

likewise 

The pre-ratification history of America’s many objections 
to  British  laws  and  the  system  of  oppressive  British  rule
over  the  Colonies—identified  most  prominently  in  the 
Declaration 
inform 
Independence—can 
interpretation  of  some  of  the  crucial  provisions  of  the 
original  Constitution  and  Bill  of  Rights. 
Compare
Declaration  of  Independence  ¶11  (under  British  rule,  the 
King  “made  Judges  dependent  on  his  Will  alone,  for  the
tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their 
salaries”) with U. S. Const., Art. III, §1 (“The Judges, both
of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices
during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive 
for  their  Services,  a  Compensation,  which  shall  not  be
diminished during  their  Continuance  in  Office”);  see, e.g., 
The  Federalist  No.  37,  at  226  (“The  most  that  the 
convention could do” “was to avoid the errors suggested by 
the  past  experience  of  other  countries,  as  well  as  of  our 
own”);  1  Annals  of  Cong.  436  (1789)  (J.  Madison)  (“The
freedom of the press and rights of conscience, those choicest 
privileges  of  the  people,  are  unguarded  in  the  British