The Constitutions Part III
Part I: The people were “not a party” and opposed the Constitution for United States.
Part II: Speaks of the fundamental difference between free self government and less than free government by contract.
Is the Constitution Constitutional?
Many claim modern government is unconstitutional or acts unconstitutionally. It is easy to assume that the institutions and activities of the present governing powers are in violation of that originating document and undoubtedly it is from time to time.
A great deal of the turmoil and confusion can be put to rest with a closer look at the Constitution. What did it actually create and by whom and by what means was it established?
We have seen that the people were not a party to it, and we have also seen that the people openly opposed and objected to it. The states did not have the power of the King which had already become limited and questionable even before the Declaration of Independence because of the charters, deeds and sacrifice of the people for centuries in this new land.
What authority did the States have to ratify the Constitution? There were rules for the ratification of the Constitution which had been set forth by those who had already signed it. Those men meeting in secret had no more authority to sign such a document into law for Americans than the average man on the street. They had already far exceeded their commission from the states by even drafting such a document.
The States owed their existence to their own varied history, charters, compacts, and the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation were an agreement between the States made in accordance to customary international law. They also had limited agreements between the people of varying status in the states.
“The contract makes the law”1
The principle classes of law “when examined as to its different systems it is divided into civil law, common law, canon law... It is also divided into natural law and positive law. Into written law, lex scripta; and unwritten law, lex non scripta. Into law merchant, martial law, municipal law and foreign law.”2
In international law each state was as separate to each other as Mexico is to Canada at least with “respect to their municipal laws and foreign law.”3 Any violation of that original contract between those separate States would be a breaking of the Law of Nations.
Pacta servanda sunt. Agreements must be kept.
Samuel Adams stated, in August of 1776, “Our Union is complete; our constitution composed, established, and approved. You are now the guardians of your own liberties.” Constitutions are not always in writing. “For the most part the English Constitution is unwritten.”4
“A constitution is a body of precepts the purpose of which is to control governmental action until modified in some authorized manner.”5
If a constitution is created in an unauthorized manner it is in reality a revolution.
“If a constitution expressly provides that it may be amended only in a certain way and another way followed, such an attempted amendment is illegal; but if it is acquiesced in it becomes effective as a peaceful revolution such as took place when the United States Constitution took effect upon the ratification by nine states in spite of the fact that the old Articles of Confederation provided that they should not be amended without unanimous consent of the States.”6
If the Constitution was a revolution who was revolting? And against whom or what were they revolting? Every state contained a formidable opposition to the Constitution. North Carolina and Rhode Island prevented lawful ratification. The spirit of the Federalists and their backers literally forced compliance there.
Individualism, in the hearts of a people who had carved out a place for liberty in this wilderness, was root of the tree of opposition. Resistance against the Constitution was so entrenched that war seemed likely.
On July 4, 1788 Judge William West and members of the Country Party marched into Providence, Rhode Island with more than a 1,000 armed anti-federalists.
Let us add one more ingredient to this stew of thought. If the Declaration of Independence was signed and communicated to the world because of the “long train of abuses and usurpation” of the King and his “history of repeated injuries and usurpation” then it seems that it was the King who was revolting against the People of America not the other way around as we are commonly taught.
So, what was the real American revolution? Was it the constitution itself? And what was the constitution revolting against? Was it revolting against the lawful representatives of a government of the people? Were there powers and men encouraging them and even coercing them to break their pact of agreement with the people?
I say “lawful representatives” because each of those States were only republics. They were republics of a much purer nature than is seen today anywhere. Very little power was in the hands of the instituted legislative bodies and titular leaders. The real civil power was in the hands of the individual freeman. They could not rule over their neighbor but were free to rule over themselves.
Duplicity in Federalism
Ignorance and vanity tempered with apathy and avarice are the greatest allies to tyranny. What is the authority that makes the Constitution of the United States and the Federal government created by it? What allows the Federal government the right to claim itself the supreme power which merely allows the people a liberty subject to its power to “define the moral, political, and legal character of their lives”?7
Could the Constitution alone create a national government?
The “states unanimously rejected the recommendation of a national government, and by excluding the word national from all their credentials, demonstrated that they well understood the wide difference between a federal and a national union.”8
A nation is a people and a national government is established directly by the people. Any attempt to create a national government would fall subject to the natural rights of the people. People could invest their rights in a national government, or their children’s rights but they could not vest their neighbor’s rights.
We have seen from several sources that the creation of the federal government was not put to the people, nor was it considered national by the states.9 Although “... it was contended in the convention that the creation of a federal government, although the old Congress never made the discovery, revoked the declaration of independence, and reduced the states to corporations.”10
The separation of the individual states from the union was their right. This was not seriously contested in the Civil War. It was their attempt to leave the Union taking Federal property that brought the conflict to its bloody outcome. This is a precept that should be carefully weighed by every individual who wishes to shed his Federal mantel today.
Because of constructive and direct waivers by the states it has become common to hear the once sovereign states referred to as only “quasi sovereign.” The states were States and contained an element of sovereignty, but as republics the real power or the potential for power remained with the people who would take the trouble to retain it.
If the United States government is a national government now then the question must be asked - did the people make this choice by careful reasoning, calm debate and contemplated conclusions, or was it created by constructions in word or deed?
“When all government, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the Center of all Power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.”11
This fear voiced by Jefferson almost 200 years ago that Federalism would become venal and oppressive was well founded but is it usurpation? In the United States, today, the Federal government claims a supreme power over, “States, local government private associations, neighborhoods, families, and individuals”12 There is no one who does not feel the effect of federal power upon their lives. The present is a product of the past and we and the fathers who came before us have duplicity in its creation.
“Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. Government is force; like fire it is a dangerous servant—and a fearful master.” attributed, George Washington, 1797.
Men kindle the fires of government when they grant it power for whatever purpose. The more responsibilities people bestow upon its agency the more fuel they put at its disposal. The breath of tyrants merely fans the flames sorely tempted by the weakness and wantonness of we the people.
The New King George
Mere agencies of the federal government may now limit the policy making discretion of States and local governments.13 Their power reaches into every corner of man’s once free state.
“We must realize that today’s Establishment is the new George III. Whether it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If it does, the redress, honored in tradition, is also revolution… the truth is that the vast bureaucracy now runs this country, irrespective of what party is in power.”14
States and local governments must now apply to that supreme power for waivers15 yet people imagine that it is still 1776 or that all this has come about simply as the result of some abuse by government rather than their own neglect and even abuse.
“I am not well versed in history, but I will submit to your recollection, whether liberty has been destroyed most often by the licentiousness of the people, or by the tyranny of rulers?... Most of the human race are now in this deplorable condition...”16
Have the states brought the people to this deplorable condition? The acts of the states cannot diminish rights retained by the people. The problem is people have lost the incentive and wisdom of retaining their natural rights.
“For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay [them] on men’s shoulders; but they [themselves] will not move them with one of their fingers.” Matthew 23:4
It is true the states have little interest in freeing the people or providing an asylum state in refuge from what is often called usurpations. Is it the state that binds us or have we bound ourselves by binding each other?
Is there anyone in state government less bound than the citizen on the street to the powers of the Federal Government?
The Constitution plainly states, in the ninth amendment:
“The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
The Tenth amendment states:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
What does it take to keep those rights? What does it take to remove those rights from our reach?17 We may be endowed with certain inalienable or unalienable rights but every man in prison has such rights, but must enjoy them from behind the lawful bars which restrict him in his own crimes.
Iron bars and stone walls are not the only things that imprison men, nor are ropes and chains the only things that bind them.
The truth is, if we can learn to handle the truth, it is the responsibility of the people to retain their rights. Citizens have entrusted obligations and duties in the Federal government that would have been better served if we had done them ourselves.
“Protection draws to it subjection; subjection protection.”18
The private individual and local communities have vested many responsibilities and rights granted by God in local, state and federal agencies. People have steadily waived those natural and moral duties and with them their birthrights in exchange for the benefits of a new patron and benefactor.
“Because of what appears to be a lawful command on the surface, many citizens, because of their respect for what only appears to be a law, are cunningly coerced into waiving their rights, due to ignorance.”19
If by ignorance alone the enlightenment of the individual would give a grace for mere correction of our mistake, we could likely rescind such error merely by repentance except for two factors.
The criminal recompense of our deeds and the debt incurred by taking benefits not paid for.
“Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.”20
Man has placed his faith and trusts, his allegiance and honor in institutions created by his own hands and by the striking of hands in application and acceptance of benefits at the expense of others. He has made himself a surety for debt.
“My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, [if] thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger, Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.” Proverbs 6:1,2
No rights could be vested in the Federal government by the states that would make man subject beyond the freedom he enjoyed in each state without his individual consent or constructive acquiescence.
In Ur, Haran, Babylon and Egypt men were bound by governments under the authority of other men. Abraham and Moses left to lead men to do something very different. In Judea there had been a binding too. First under Hasmonian rule, then Roman influence. How did this binding of men and rights come about and how were they set free again?
“But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Luke 12:31
The faith of Abraham led many souls from Haran.21 Trust in Moses and his God led the Israelites out of the bondage of Egypt, and faith in Jesus Christ and His gospel of the Kingdom of God and the righteousness of God redeemed Christians to the perfect law of liberty as Rome fell under its own corruption.
“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” Galatians 5:1
All governments which rule over men have their own Creed and the United States Federal government is no exception. It is a political society existing within the jurisdiction of the original Republic or Republics. The largest portion of the Republics’ original authority rested in the hands of the “individual freeman” in the realm of his own individual dominion. The authority of the leaders of government of the original American Republic was merely “titular”, meaning “in name only.”
“The term republic, res publica, signifies the state independently of its form of government.”22
In a pure republic the people are the state and the government is their servant. This does not mean that the people may take away the rights of their neighbor by majority vote as they do in democracies. Nor can they take away the rights of those servants who choose to serve the will of the people. Both are regulated with the most fundamental right and obligation.
“Thou shalt not covet any thing that is thy neighbour’s.”23
“We ought to consider what is the end of government before we determine which is the best form. Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all divines and moral philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man....All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.”24
Contracts, Covenants, and Constitutions
The book Contract, Covenants, and Constitutions, reveals the contrasting nature of a free government and those established by contract. It brings the original Constitution of the United States into historical contexts and the change in the modern American government into a unique revealing perspective. It also takes a detailed look at the prohibition in the Bible concerning government by contract; the Biblically delegated elements for constitutions; and the debt and bondage that always results from the failure to adhere to Godly precepts.
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