- Troublesome word SoverigntyIn 1823 legal scholar, John Taylor of Caroline, believed: “The Constitution was thus a compact among the states, resting on the sovereignty of the people as expressed through their state conventions.”9 Noah Webster defined sovereignty as “supreme in power; the possession of the highest power.” Sovereignty is superlative. It cannot be divided. It is a “solecistic absurdity” to speak of dual, divided, delegated or limited sovereignty.10 Think of the word sovereignty like the word pregnancy. A woman is either pregnant or she isn’t. There is no such thing as limited pregnancy. Likewise there is no such thing as divided sovereignty
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- Sovereignty is relative to the next defining term - Nation - State - county, city, and finally the INDIVIDUAL. The Founders were extremely careful to make it clear that the purpose of the Federal government and the Constitutional Republic was to PROTECT THE SOVEREIGN INDIVIDUAL from any threats or from an overreaching oppressive government.Therefore, it would be an inverted power structure, the Federal [central] government is less than the State that formed the Federal but both less than the Individual. This would be modified only by those powers and rights that we the People gave up to the Federal government so we could have an effective society and it's promise of protection of all other retained by the States and the people.I find no serious questions of sovereignty in our design, however in application, I find many conflicts that must be set right IMO.
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The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.
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- Share with all you know for God is the power and the faith that drives the United States of America.We have abundant reason to rejoice, that, in this land, the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. In this enlightened age, & in this land of equal liberty, it is our boast, that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining & holding the highest offices that are known in the United States.Your prayers for my present and future felicity are received with gratitude; and I sincerely wish, Gentlemen, that you may in your social and individual capacities taste those blessings, which a gracious God bestows upon the righteous. – Letter to the the members of The New Church in Baltimore (22 January 1793)
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- Here's the quote that really got me thinking about the reality of the "Law of Nature" as a matter of fact in the minds of the founders AND the colonists at large. In their time it was taught it was preached, for them it was real. Of its place in America Jefferson wrote this to a friend:
“A great revolution has taken place at Paris. The people of that country having never been in the habit of self-government, are not yet in the habit of acknowledging that fundamental law of nature by which alone self government can be exercised by a society. Of the sacredness of this law, our countrymen are impressed from their cradle, so that with them it is almost innate.This single circumstance may possibly decide the fate of the two nations.”
Jan 29th, 1800 Thomas Jefferson
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- Went back to read the Article of Confederation some interesting items which would back our Natural Law view points and the current conservative view of the Constructional Republic? One note would be the right to defend itself if invaded by a enemy [danger] like Arizona huh? the Arizona position seems to be supported here? [number 5.]
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- Welcome to the debate - Yes, I would agree that one may look at the granting of the Article I section 8 - items 1 - 18 can be looked upon as lending rights or powers - However I would argue that then the Article V amendment system would require a mechanism for the PEOPLE to withdraw those right loaned - it does not however contain that porvision in fact the Congress argues that the States 34 can not call a Convention without the approval of Congress.The people do not have the rights or powers to change the Constitution except as permitted under article V except through the legislatures of the States or the Congress. If a direct vote was permitted to change or alter the Constitutional Republic we would be just another Democracy and IMHO failed by this date.It would be my opinion that through we the people ceded the rights given under Article I section 8 to the Federal government by the signing of the Constitution by our lawful representatives. The nation was formed to perform only those items and could only be changed by amendment as we have done many times when the Congress and the legislatures of the many States agreed changes were required.
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- Seems John Adams support the Natural Law and Rights are from God. More and more of the FF support the theory so it must be correct IMO>
The poor people, it is true, have been much less successful than the great. They have seldom found either leisure or opportunity to form a union and exert their strength; ignorant as they were of arts and letters, they have seldom been able to frame and support a regular opposition. This, however, has been known by the great to be the temper of mankind; and they have accordingly labored, in all ages, to wrest from the populace, as they are contemptuously called, the knowledge of their rights and wrongs, and the power to assert the former or redress the latter. I say RIGHTS, for such they have, undoubtedly, antecedent to all earthly government, — Rights, that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws — Rights, derived from the great Legislator of the universe.Even betterLiberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers. Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and trustees, of the people; and if the cause, the interest, and trust, is insidiously betrayed, or wantonly trifled away, the people have a right to revoke the authority that they themselves have deputed, and to constitute other and better agents, attorneys and trustees
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- I am on a roll today -Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist. But if unlimited or unbalanced power of disposing property, be put into the hands of those who have no property, France will find, as we have found, the lamb committed to the custody of the wolf. In such a case, all the pathetic exhortations and addresses of the national assembly to the people, to respect property, will be regarded no more than the warbles of the songsters of the forest. The great art of law-giving consists in balancing the poor against the rich in the legislature, and in constituting the legislative a perfect balance against the executive power, at the same time that no individual or party can become its rival. The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries. The executive and the legislative powers are natural rivals; and if each has not an effectual control over the other, the weaker will ever be the lamb in the paws of the wolf. The nation which will not adopt an equilibrium of power must adopt a despotism. There is no other alternative. Rivalries must be controlled, or they will throw all things into confusion; and there is nothing but despotism or a balance of power which can control them.
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- Many of the Founder had made fun of Jefferson DOI - some were not so nice as I recall:Here is part of a letter from Madison fearing oppression:Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents. – Letter to Thomas Jefferson (1788-10-17) James MadisonAnother Madison speech:
Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations; but, on a candid examination of history, we shall find that turbulence, violence, and abuse of power, by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions, which, in republics, have, more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism. If we go over the whole history of ancient and modern republics, we shall find their destruction to have generally resulted from those causes. – Speech at the Virginia Convention to ratify the Federal Constitution (1788-06-06)
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- Madison saw the weakness of our Republic and in this letter even foretold where we are today and why we would find ourselves cursing the General Welfare clause and Necessary and proper clause. See back in the discussion where we were talking about the Rep new rule to cite the Constitutional authority to do the new budget - they used both of the questionable clauses and nothing else. bogus in my opinion.If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions. It is to be remarked that the phrase out of which this doctrine is elaborated, is copied from the old articles of Confederation, where it was always understood as nothing more than a general caption to the specified powers, and it is a fact that it was preferred in the new instrument for that very reason as less liable than any other to misconstruction. – Letter to Edmund Pendleton (1792-01-21)How about this one to reinforce the natural law and our rights being unalienable? It also applies to the new house crashing without a warrant action being approved by the SCOTUS. The more I study the Founders papers the smarter they get - their understanding of the human was beyond our current abilities to see today what they saw 200 + years ago?Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man’s house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man’s conscience, which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection for which the public faith is pledged by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact. – “Property” in The National Gazette (29 March 1792)
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- Our choices are clear - educate people [majority] and the three branches of government about the true meanings of the Constitutional Republic so we can alter their usurped powers is the first option which we are engaged in all our efforts. Next is the States using Nullification to void Unconstitutional laws from the body Politics. If these fail then it fall to the State Legislatures to use the powers granted them under Article V and call a Convention to revoke the 14th, 16th and 17th amendments for these are the door that the usurpers entered our daily lives through. The Executive has used parts of each to usurp, the Legislature uses parts of them everyday to usurp and the Judiciary has used parts of each to approve the usurpations.The State Article V convention must also set some meaning to the General Welfare and Necessary and Proper clauses for they are being misused to seize powers not given. If we fail in all these options the People will be the last resort and a rebellion will be required to stop the usurpation and oppression of the people. For the Constitution is in the end owned by the people and it is for the protection of the people from the government and a tyrant.
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