[Amendment10]

Regarding an Article V convention, patriots are reminded that the product of such a convention is not a new amendment to the Constitution, but a proposed amendment that the 3/4 supermajority of states can choose to either ratify or ignore.

And if the states choose to ignore the proposed amendment, then the Article V convention that produced it was arguably a waste of time.

Next, consider that ALL the states can effectively "secede" from the unconstitutionally big federal government with a constitutional amendment that is limited to repealing the 16th (direct taxes) and 17th (popular vote for federal senators) Amendments (16&17A), relatively little or ideally no discussion required imo.

Repealing 16&17A will put a stop to unconstitutional federal taxes, taxes that the very corrupt, post-17th Amendment ratification Congress cannot reasonably justify under its constitutional, Article I, Section 8-limited powers.

"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824

In fact, the congressional record shows that Rep. John Bingham, the main author of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, had clarified that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had left the care of the people uniquely to the states, not the feds.

”Simply this, that the care of the property, the liberty, and the life of the citizen, under the solemn sanction of an oath imposed by your Constitution, is in the States and not in the federal government [emphases added]. I have sought to effect no change in that respect in the Constitution of the country.” —John Bingham, Congressional. Globe. 1866, page 1292 (see top half of third column)

Once 16&17A are gone, unconstitutional federal taxes permanently stopped, each state will ultimately find a tsunami of new revenues (imo) that can be used to increase teacher salaries, also salaries of police and fire departments for starters.

Let's also include new state funding for infrastructure maintenance in that list. Undoubtedly many other state social spending programs as well to replace former unconstitutional federal social spending programs.

Additionally, no more forced compliance with Democratic politically correct and unconstitutional federal gender-related civil rights protections in order for school kids to eat likewise unconstitutional federal lunches paid for with stolen state revenues for example.

In fact, Justice Louis Brandeis had seemingly reflected on Bingham's words (above) when Brandeis volunteered his "laboratories of democracy" metaphor to emphasize the unique power of the states to serve the people, ultimately depending on the kind of state social spending programs that the legal majority citizen voters of a given state want.

"[...] a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." —Justice Louis Brandeis, Laboratories of Democracy.

Corrections, insights welcome.

[Publius]

This is the usual boilerplate that I post to these threads. I've had this verbiage vetted by a retired professor of constitutional law for accuracy.

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THE ARTICLE V AMENDATORY PROCESS

The amendatory process under Article V consists of three steps:

1. Proposal;
2. Direction;
3. Ratification.

Proposal:

There are two ways to propose an amendment to the Constitution.

• The Congressional method requires the House and Senate to pass an amendment by a two thirds majority of each house.
• The amendments convention method requires the legislatures of two thirds of the states to pass resolutions directing Congress to call a convention for proposing amendments. These resolutions are called applications. Once the two thirds threshold is reached, Congress is required to set a time and place for the convention.

Article V gives Congress and an amendments convention exactly the same power to propose amendments, except that a convention is limited to proposing amendments specified in the application and there is no such limit on Congress.

Direction:

Once Congress, or an amendments convention, proposes amendments, Congress must decide whether the states will ratify by the:

• State legislature method, or the
• State ratifying convention method.

The state ratifying convention method has only been used once: to ratify the 21st Amendment repealing Prohibition. A similar procedure was used to ratify the Constitution itself.

Ratification:

Depending upon which ratification method is chosen by Congress, either the state legislatures vote up-or-down on the proposed amendment, or the voters elect a state ratifying convention to vote up-or-down. If three fourths of the states vote to ratify, the amendment becomes part of the Constitution.

Forbidden Subjects:

Article V contains two explicitly forbidden subjects and two implicitly forbidden subjects.

Explicitly forbidden:

1. No amendment may be added to the Constitution concerning the slave trade or direct taxes until 1808. We’re well past that deadline.
2. No amendment may be added to the Constitution to change the principle of equal representation in the Senate unless every state deprived of that right approves. If California wants five senators, every state must have five senators. To permit violation of this principle, every state would have to ratify the amendment, not just three fourths.

Implicitly forbidden:

1. The Constitution of 1787 may not be abrogated and replaced with a new document. Article V only authorizes “a convention for proposing amendments to this Constitution;” so the Constitution of 1787 is locked in place.
2. A convention for proposing amendments is limited to the topics authorized by state applications.

Reference work:

Proposing Constitutional Amendments by a Convention of the States: A Handbook for State Lawmakers