Bob Kingsbury

To the editor,

History shows that judges make mistakes. If judge's decisions were final, then, per the Dred Scott decision, slavery would be legal in every state.

About the Dred Scott decision, Abraham Lincoln said, "Why this same Supreme Court once decided a National Bank to be constitutional; but General Jackson, as President of the United States disregarded the decision, and vetoed a bill for re-charter." President's Jackson 's veto message stated, "(Even) If the opinion of the Supreme Court covered the whole ground of this act, it ought not to control the co-ordinate authorities of this government. The Congress, the executive and the court must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution. Each public officer, who takes an oath to support the Constitution, swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others."

The New Hampshire State Legislature has the authority and the precedents set by Presidents Jackson and Lincoln, to set aside the decision not only of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, but of any State court.

The 9th and 10th Amendments of the US Constitution state that all laws, rights and powers on marriages are reserved to the States or to the people. Therefore the United States Constitution prohibits the Federal Government from dealing with marriages.

Bob Kingsbury

Laconia