I do not commend The Natchez Democrat for its opinion piece of Friday, July 11 (“Compromise Isn’t Always the Answer”). I disagree with The Democrat on this issue. This is not an issue on which to seek compromises; the board of aldermen belongs in this process.

Allowing unelected boards and commissions such as the preservation and planning commissions to do an end run around civil liberties establishes a precedent that ultimately will have negative, far-reaching consequences for the historical and legal integrity of our community. Rather than undermining civil liberties in favor of those who want to unfairly make and enforce rules, the Board of Aldermen should instead strengthen those liberties by restricting their authority to advisory capacity.

William Blackstone, pre-eminent scholar of our legal tradition writes:

“In all tyrannical governments the supreme magistracy, or the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man or one and the same body of men; and wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty. The magistrate may enact tyrannical laws, and execute them in a tyrannical manner, since he is possessed, in quality of dispenser of justice, with all the power which he as legislator thinks proper to give himself. But, where the legislative and executive authority are in distinct hands, the former will take care not to entrust the latter with so large a power, as may tend to the subversion of its own independence, and therewith of the liberty of the subject.”

If a commission does not want to conform to the traditional form of our law, there is one other legal system it can petition the citizens to adopt.

Our historic legal tradition is another matter entirely. It demands careful and intelligent treatment when it comes to consideration of the three most basic absolute rights of persons; these being the right to personal security, the right to liberty, and the right to private property. It is at once an historic legal tradition and an increasingly spiritless, undiscriminating tradition of western community. The British Commonwealth increasingly, and the European Union already, have new legal traditions of a social democracy subordinate to a capitalistic upper class. These countries not only misunderstand the immense historical significance of preserving their legal traditions but also the socio-economic benefits to be derived from those old traditions.

After seeing the comments appended to the aforementioned opinion piece in the online forum, it is apparent that many in Natchez would happily dismantle all traditional checks and balances in favor of both economic development and old buildings. Following this line of reasoning we presumably would be falling all over ourselves to follow the Commonwealth and the EU in pursuance of the new system, called by Lenin the Third Way.

Until the historic district of Natchez becomes a separate body empowered by legislation to make and enforce laws within the district separation of powers should be preserved.

Neither Bob Dearing nor Kevin Butler, sponsors of so much local Third Way legislation would author such a bill.

Marty Ellerbe

Vidalia resident