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Thursday, July 14, 2016

Death of the Constitution

A buddy of mine modified the speech given my Mark Antony in the movie Julius Cesar to be about the death of our Constitution, I thought you might like to read it.

Friends, Americans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury the Constitution, not to praise it.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with the Constitution. The noble Politicians
Hath told you the Constitution was Inconsequential:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath the Constitution answered it.
Here, under leave of Politicians and the rest--
For Politicians are honorable men;
So are they all, all honorable men--
Come I to speak in the Constitution's funeral.
He was our friend, faithful and just to us:
But Politicians says he was Inconsequential;
And Politicians are honorable men.
they hath brought many taxes home to Washington
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in the Constitution seem Inconsequential?
When that the poor have cried, Our Constitution hath wept:
Inconsequence should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Politicians says it was Inconsequential;
And Politicians are honorable men.
I speak not to disprove what Politicians spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love it once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for it?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with the Constitution,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
But yesterday the word of the Constitution might
Have stood against the world; now lies it there.
And none so poor to do it reverence.
O masters, if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do the Politicians wrong, and the Bureaucrats wrong,
Who, you all know, are honorable men:
I will not do them wrong; I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,
Than I will wrong such honorable men.
But here's a parchment with the words of our Founders;
Let but the commons hear this testament--
Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read--
And they would go and kiss dead Constitution's wounds
And dip their napkins in it's sacred blood,
Yea, beg a scrap of it for memory,
And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it as a rich legacy
Unto their issue.

Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up
To such a sudden flood of mutiny.
They that have done this deed are honorable:
What private griefs they have, alas, I know not,
That made them do it: they are wise and honorable,
And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.
I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts:
I am no orator, as Politicians are;
But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man,
That love my country; and that they know full well
That gave me public leave to speak of it:
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,
To stir men's blood: I only speak right on;
I tell you that which you yourselves do know;
Show you sweet Constitution's wounds, poor poor dumb mouths,
And bid them speak for me: but were I a Politician,
And Politician I, there were an I
Would ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue
In every wound of the Constitution that should move
The stones of America to rise and mutiny.

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest Constitution
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,--
Which, like dumb mouths, do open their ruby lips,
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue--
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of America;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And the Constitution's spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with Liberty's voice
Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.

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