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Article V and Rational Revolution (2018)
Article V Blog ^ | February 19th 2018 | Rodney Dodsworth

Posted on 07/04/2022 3:44:22 AM PDT by Jacquerie

Must revolution be violent? Must revolution upend an older society and replace it with a new one? Wouldn’t a 21st century restoration of free American government without resort to violence be revolutionary?

Pennsylvania’s Framer James Wilson thought so:

This revolution principle--that, the sovereign power residing in the people, they may change their constitution and government whenever they please--is not a principle of discord, rancor, or war: it is a principle of melioration, contentment, and peace. It is a principle not recommended merely by a flattering theory: it is a principle recommended by happy experience. To the testimony of Pennsylvania--to the testimony of the United States I appeal for the truth of what I say.

Sovereignty in the people was not a novel concept; the hundred years since the Glorious Revolution and eleven years since the Declaration of Independence reinforced in English minds the people’s natural right to govern themselves as they please. This is all well and good in Wilson’s “flattering theory,” but what, despite written Constitutional precautions, if the people’s government goes awry or governing forms ill-serve society? What was novel was that revolution need not instill “discord, rancor or war.”

Revolution need not be violent.

Man is fatally incapable of forming any enduring system free from corruption. The idea of incorporating a plan of reformation in the Constitution, which formalized peaceful means to return to first principles in a rational revolution, was a new contribution to political science. Our Framers discovered a constitutional cure wholly popular, and strictly republican for the ancient diseases of a republican polity. In rational revolution the people do not burn down cities or decapitate high government criminals in fits of rage. Well before society explodes, they act within the supreme law of the land to avoid destruction. Thanks to the Framers’ structure of government and especially Article V, the decay and death of the new American republic seemed far less likely.

Article V institutionalized and legitimated peaceful, ongoing, rational revolution. It tempered the historically and infrequently exercised natural right to violent revolution into, when needed, a non-violent amendment convention in which state delegates coolly and rationally consider antidotes to the fever of unconstitutional rule or simply wish to improve their governing forms. Within the American system of government are the means to eternal improvements without bloodshed.

People are not free under a Constitution closed to amendments. A frozen Constitution negates rational revolution and guarantees the opposite of our Framers’ gift; instead of “melioration, contentment, and peace,” a frozen Constitution invites “discord, rancor, and war.”

Contrary to the fear-mongering from Article V opponents, our Framers did not plant a bomb in the Constitution. No Constitution provides for its own destruction, and no people or their delegates ever gathered to enslave themselves.

The contest between Article V proponents and opponents revolves around their perceptions of the solution to the problem of un-free government. To opponents, all that need be done is to expel the corruptors of our existing system. Despite the lessons of history, they believe electing “better” men and women can restore free government. Without saying, they endorse a frozen Constitution and deny the benefits of rational revolution.

Article V supporters agree the self-serving politicians, rogues, and high criminals that infest Washington must go, but they also reason this is an insufficient and impossible remedy. It is a societal placebo in that voters feel good about themselves if they vote for the better of two candidates. Even if one of the candidates is “good,” experience teaches when we send such people to corrupt institutions, the good men and women do not reform the institutions; corrupt institutions corrupt the men and women.

To abandon the gift of Article V’s rational revolution is to abandon sovereignty. The evidence is all around. Consider the long train of abuses from a corrupt Supreme Court that amends the Constitution at-will.

Constitutions change, and they change through:

1.) Corruption.
2.) Article V rational revolution.
3.) Violent revolution.

The question is WHO, the people or those entrusted with political, not sovereign power, will make the changes. Sovereignty abandoned is sovereignty surrendered to others.


TOPICS: Government; History
KEYWORDS: articlev
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To: Gaffer
there is NOTHING to stop the ensuing proceedings to change the original charter/purpose/goal.

So you believe that 38 states are ready to throw out the Constitution and adopt a new progressive one?

I ask because a convention can't do anything more than PROPOSE amendments; they can't pass anything into law.

-PJ

41 posted on 07/04/2022 9:04:44 AM PDT by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
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To: Gaffer

If you wish to relinquish your sovereignty to Scotus and the Deep State, that is up to you. I work to keep mine.


42 posted on 07/04/2022 9:26:01 AM PDT by Jacquerie (ArticleVBlog.com)
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To: Political Junkie Too
So you believe that 38 states are ready to throw out the Constitution and adopt a new progressive one? I ask because a convention can't do anything more than PROPOSE amendments; they can't pass anything into law.

Yes, and the left, along with spineless RINOs, would not alter that process to their benefit, would they?

43 posted on 07/04/2022 9:29:12 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi (We are being manipulated by forces that most do not see)
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To: Erik Latranyi
I know it's a daunting task, but which 38 states are ready to go full-on progressive, if the state laws in reaction to overturning Roe v Wade is any guide?

I will give you this much: Congress can really try to muck things up by forcing the convention method of ratification on each of the proposed amendments, bypassing the simpler state legislature method.

Separate state ratifying conventions on an amendment-by-amendment basis could really become a chaotic endeavor.

-PJ

44 posted on 07/04/2022 9:51:49 AM PDT by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
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To: Gaffer
...Not one Article V proponent can explain in specificity exactly how it cannot be hijacked once convened, period.

The call for the Convention has a clause that removes that call if the Convention goes beyond the boundaries of the call. In over 200 years this part of the Constitution has not been used and therefore would not only attract National attention but the whole world would be watching.

If it broke its own contract before the whole world there would be no way to hide it. Any of the Amendments proposed would face immense opposition because of the well known violation of its own rules . It is doubtful you could get 3/4's of the states to ratify anything under such conditions and the people actually picked to be the reps would know that.

45 posted on 07/04/2022 6:13:31 PM PDT by Nateman (If Mohammad was not the Anti Christ he sure did come in as a strong second.)
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To: Gaffer

Amen Gaffer.

COS and Jacq would have you me and the world believe that nothing can go wrong in Convention. My experience my knowledge and reality itself will tell anyone with half their brain tied behind their back just to make it fair, that such mental gymnastics in the global woke world of today much less a world of reality, is stinkin thinkin.

Insanity is alive and well in the minds of those people pushing Article V as a solution to what ails the United States of America. I’m going to call many of them well meaning people that ought to find a more realistic solution to our problems related to an out of control Congress, Executive Branch and the Black Robed Judges in the Supreme Court.


46 posted on 07/07/2022 2:37:07 AM PDT by wita (Under oath since 1966 in defense of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Typical inane COS response. Fortunately there are sufficient right thinking Legislatures that aren’t buying the COS mantra, that I will predict COS will spend more and more millions in a failed effort to get Congress to willingly agree to a Convention that will be against every principle “We the People” hold dear.


47 posted on 07/07/2022 2:57:25 AM PDT by wita (Under oath since 1966 in defense of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness)
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To: Jacquerie

My sovereignty is in the hands of a Governor and State Legislature, and if they are stupid enough to jeopardize the State Sovereignty buying into the COS insanity they are ignorant idiots. Fortunately there are State Legislators unwilling to bow to the bribery of COS.


48 posted on 07/07/2022 3:04:16 AM PDT by wita (Under oath since 1966 in defense of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Show me where it grants authority to "change the original charter/purpose/goal." Show me where is DOES NOT. It only explains the numbers of states legislatures required to call for a convention and pass any amendments that may arise from the convention. This, Article V, is the only controlling legal authority on this rarely used (in the sense of Constitutional) method. No proposal document, goal or other calling notice that may be issued to actually start a convention is. It is only the hopes, good will, and faith the process might work out as intended. I say that it is extremely naive to believe that a massive colluding army of leftist plants, opportunists, demonstrators, media and other world forces about be arrayed to subvert the process. Denigrate and belittle me all you want. You seem to be good at it. But I am not willing to go down that Pollyanna road of thinking we can 'fix' everything in the Constitution and stop leftism with this.
49 posted on 07/07/2022 4:00:28 AM PDT by Gaffer (EA)
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To: Nateman

You may want to trust the intentions and likely actions of other states legislatures, politicians and delegates, but I am not. Not when I see the likes of Cheney, Collins, Murkowski, Romney and crew and even here in my own state of Georgia with my own Governor and Secretary of State.

What we need is a Supreme Court that can read the Constitution and apply its dictates, period. They don’t need to think how it should ‘evolve’ and we don’t need it to consider other word legal systems and documents. Just the one.


50 posted on 07/07/2022 4:13:17 AM PDT by Gaffer (EA)
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To: Gaffer

Never heard of enumerated powers Mr. Constitutional Scholar?


51 posted on 07/07/2022 4:19:33 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Contempt for pre-born human life breeds contempt for post-born human life.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Sheesh...... I know I can read and I know what enumerated powers. Your problem is that you’re reading all sorts of things into that one short paragraph that aren’t there. It certainly doesn’t help by your being a pompous, name-calling zealot.


52 posted on 07/07/2022 4:37:24 AM PDT by Gaffer (EA)
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