Article V. There is no alternative, no substitute.
Posted on 09/24/2014 6:14:48 AM PDT by Jacquerie
A common refrain from Article V state amendment convention opponents is that all we need to do is follow the constitution we have. For the constitution to be implemented as it should ideally be, i.e. as our supreme law, we must send honorable, virtuous men and women to Washington DC to fulfill its purpose and tenets. Unfortunately, this belief falls into the same dangerous solution as offered by Socialists, who tell us socialism will finally work once the “right men and women” assume the reins of power.
The reality is that the people we send to DC are like the rest of us. Everyone puts their ultimate well-being ahead of others. It is human nature, a nature recognized by the Framers.
Classic republics of antiquity relied on public virtue. Some survived for long periods, while others did not. All wound up in anarchy followed by tyranny. So how can classic republics, which by definition rely on the public virtue of naturally self-centered citizens, serve to secure the blessings of liberty to all, rather than reward man’s natural tendency toward avarice and ambition?
THAT was the great question our Framers answered with the Constitution. The Constitution framed a government that turned our self-interest into public good. It turned natural democratic impulses to serve ourselves at the expense of others into a positive societal benefits. That was then.
This is now: We live under what the Framers feared: Unrestrained, authoritarian government. We send Tea Party reps and senators to Congress and half of them go rino or worse. How many elected democrats turned conservative while in office? Answer: Zero!! There is obviously a disconnect between the government design of our Framers, which secured the blessings of liberty, and the despotic government we endure today. What happened?
I ask Freepers to step back a moment from politics, meaning the shallow sporting event level of discourse over our situation and consider GOVERNMENT.
The Framers didn’t set up a direct or representative democracy. Ask yourself, “why not?”
Why is congress not the court of last appeal as parliament was in Great Britain?
Why is the President not appointed by Congress, as proposed by James Madison at the opening of the Constitutional Convention?
Why did the Framers divide the law making body, Congress, into two chambers?
Why were the states represented in the Senate?
The King of England could appoint whomever he wished to high office. Why must the President await senatorial consent?
Why are congressmen/senators prevented from concurrent employment in the executive branch?
Why were the states charged with electing the President?
All of these well-known but little understood features of the 1787 design were structural barriers to the concentration of power. It is as simple as that, and largely forgotten today. We can blame our hundred year slide into Obamunism on the breach of those walls, not on the motivations of men and women like us.
When I sit up a little late on election night this coming November, it will be from the standpoint of sporting entertainment, and not with any hope that its outcome can possibly lead to freedom’s restoration.
Article V. There is no alternative, no substitute.
Article V ping!
Very well said and no fear mongering. Thank you for such a positive article. Article V is our only hope to save this nation.
Your points might lead us to review an excerpted portion of Madison's Federalist #57:
The Federalist No. 57
The Alleged Tendency of the New Plan to Elevate the Few at the Expense of the Many Considered in Connection with Representation
New York Packet
Tuesday, February 19, 1788
[James Madison]To the People of the State of New York:
THE third charge against the House of Representatives is, that it will be taken from that class of citizens which will have least sympathy with the mass of the people, and be most likely to aim at an ambitious sacrifice of the many to the aggrandizement of the few.
Of all the objections which have been framed against the federal Constitution, this is perhaps the most extraordinary. Whilst the objection itself is levelled against a pretended oligarchy, the principle of it strikes at the very root of republican government.
The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust. The elective mode of obtaining rulers is the characteristic policy of republican government. The means relied on in this form of government for preventing their degeneracy are numerous and various. The most effectual one, is such a limitation of the term of appointments as will maintain a proper responsibility to the people.
Let me now ask what circumstance there is in the constitution of the House of Representatives that violates the principles of republican government, or favors the elevation of the few on the ruins of the many? Let me ask whether every circumstance is not, on the contrary, strictly conformable to these principles, and scrupulously impartial to the rights and pretensions of every class and description of citizens?
Who are to be the electors of the federal representatives? Not the rich, more than the poor; not the learned, more than the ignorant; not the haughty heirs of distinguished names, more than the humble sons of obscurity and unpropitious fortune. The electors are to be the great body of the people of the United States. They are to be the same who exercise the right in every State of electing the corresponding branch of the legislature of the State.
Who are to be the objects of popular choice? Every citizen whose merit may recommend him to the esteem and confidence of his country. No qualification of wealth, of birth, of religious faith, or of civil profession is permitted to fetter the judgement or disappoint the inclination of the people.
If we consider the situation of the men on whom the free suffrages of their fellow-citizens may confer the representative trust, we shall find it involving every security which can be devised or desired for their fidelity to their constituents.
In the first place, as they will have been distinguished by the preference of their fellow-citizens, we are to presume that in general they will be somewhat distinguished also by those qualities which entitle them to it, and which promise a sincere and scrupulous regard to the nature of their engagements.
In the second place, they will enter into the public service under circumstances which cannot fail to produce a temporary affection at least to their constituents. There is in every breast a sensibility to marks of honor, of favor, of esteem, and of confidence, which, apart from all considerations of interest, is some pledge for grateful and benevolent returns. Ingratitude is a common topic of declamation against human nature; and it must be confessed that instances of it are but too frequent and flagrant, both in public and in private life. But the universal and extreme indignation which it inspires is itself a proof of the energy and prevalence of the contrary sentiment.
In the third place, those ties which bind the representative to his constituents are strengthened by motives of a more selfish nature. His pride and vanity attach him to a form of government which favors his pretensions and gives him a share in its honors and distinctions. Whatever hopes or projects might be entertained by a few aspiring characters, it must generally happen that a great proportion of the men deriving their advancement from their influence with the people, would have more to hope from a preservation of the favor, than from innovations in the government subversive of the authority of the people.
All these securities, however, would be found very insufficient without the restraint of frequent elections. Hence, in the fourth place, the House of Representatives is so constituted as to support in the members an habitual recollection of their dependence on the people. Before the sentiments impressed on their minds by the mode of their elevation can be effaced by the exercise of power, they will be compelled to anticipate the moment when their power is to cease, when their exercise of it is to be reviewed, and when they must descend to the level from which they were raised; there forever to remain unless a faithful discharge of their trust shall have established their title to a renewal of it.
I will add, as a fifth circumstance in the situation of the House of Representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures, that they can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny. If it be asked, what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer: the genius of the whole system; the nature of just and constitutional laws; and above all, the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America -- a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it.
If this spirit shall ever be so far debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature, as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate any thing but liberty.
Such will be the relation between the House of Representatives and their constituents. Duty, gratitude, interest, ambition itself, are the chords by which they will be bound to fidelity and sympathy with the great mass of the people. It is possible that these may all be insufficient to control the caprice and wickedness of man. But are they not all that government will admit, and that human prudence can devise? Are they not the genuine and the characteristic means by which republican government provides for the liberty and happiness of the people? Are they not the identical means on which every State government in the Union relies for the attainment of these important ends? What then are we to understand by the objection which this paper has combated? What are we to say to the men who profess the most flaming zeal for republican government, yet boldly impeach the fundamental principle of it; who pretend to be champions for the right and the capacity of the people to choose their own rulers, yet maintain that they will prefer those only who will immediately and infallibly betray the trust committed to them?
(End of excerpt from #57)
“The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust”
This should disqualify all but a few in D.C. from political office. We have a group of men and women who are interested in anything but what that statement embraces. This is certainly a cynical position I take, but in today’s day and age, it is true.
What other solution does anyone propose?
Most excellent.
Thanks!
No republic can survive a licentious citizenry, for as Publius wrote, they must send representatives like themselves. What is amazing is not the sorry condition of society, which is due in large part to bigoted, anti-Christian Scotus decisions, but the fact that American society isn’t worse.
I pray there is time for renewal.
Voting every two years is necessary, yet far from sufficient.
Jacquerie, this one or yours deserves extra mention and special praise. You really nailed it!
Excellent! Excellent! Excellent!
That’s step one, but only step one.
Excellent. Thank you.
I am reminded of some comments from Judge Learned Hand:
"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court even can do much to help it." - Judge Learned Hand
Today's PC crowd likely will object, however, to Judge Hand's explanation of "The Spirit of Liberty":
"The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest. And now in that spirit, that spirit of an America which has never been, and which may never be; nay, which never will be except as the conscience and courage of Americans create it; yet in the spirit of that America which lies hidden in some form in the aspirations of us all; in the spirit of that America for which our young men are at this moment fighting and dying; in that spirit of liberty and of America I ask you to rise and with me pledge our faith in the glorious destiny of our beloved country." - P. 190-191, The Spirit of Liberty (1944).
Good thread, thanks.
The flaw in the US Constitution is that a very weak Speaker of the House, such as Boehner, will not do his duty and Impeach those who have violated the US Constitution.
We are experiencing death by government. Article V. There is no alternative, no substitute. This is our only nonviolent chance to restore our Constitutional system of government as intended by the Founders.
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