Posted on 02/28/2014 12:15:20 PM PST by Phillyred
If some folks had their way, a three-person tribunal, and not the President, would provide leadership of the “United States of Earth,” in a nation where divorce is illegal.
As we all know, Congress and the states can change the U.S. Constitution through the amendment process, but it doesn’t happen often. And as the cases above show, some proposals stand a better chance than others.
Since the Bill of Rights and the first 10 amendments passed in 1791, only 17 amendments have been added to the Constitution. And one of those, the 18th Amendment establishing Prohibition, was repealed. The last amendment passed was the 27th Amendment, which was ratified in 1992. It bars Congress from giving itself a pay raise during its current session.
To become part of the Constitution, an amendment must be proposed by two-thirds of the House and Senate, or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the state legislatures. It is up to the states to approve a new amendment, with three-quarters of the states voting to ratifying it.
The bar is high for a proposed amendment to make it to the ratification process. In all, more than 11,000 amendments have been proposed in congressional history, according to the Senate’s historian. Just 37 proposed amendments were approved by Congress for submission to the states; 27 were approved including the Bill of Rights; one amendment in the original Bill of Rights was rejected; and six others congressionally-approved amendments weren’t ratified by the states.
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
Ping. Historical curiosity.
[ In the current 113th Congress, there are proposed amendments to force the government to balance its budget or to allow for an amendment about campaign financing. ]
And they go NOWHERE because washington DC will NEVER limit themselves!!!
Article V
Article V
ARTICLE V
And May i remind my freeper friends who start FOP sweating when Article V is brought up, Article V is a process to PROPOSE amendments and Ratification by the States is handled the SAME way these dead Proposed Amensdments sitting in congress would be if the Congress voted to pass them.
***eliminate the office of President and replace it with a three-person Roman-style triumvirate. **
Didn’t Benjamin Franklin support something like this?
[ Another unusual proposed amendment came in 1933, when Representative Wesley Lloyd of Washington state wanted Congress to outlaw millionaires using a constitutional amendment. Lloyd wanted income in excess of $1 million applied to the national debt. ]
Boy that is dumb as hell... What happens if we hit weimar inflation and everyone became a millionaire overnight.....
Note that a good number of these amendments don’t LIMIT the federal Government, but instead LIMIT the people themselves...
How about about an amendment that states no amendment shall be put in place that doesn’t Explicity LIMIT government power?
If I had a time machine I would have brought that up to the founders as part of the main part of the constitution.
commie!
bump
I kind of like the presidential tribunal. Gets rid of a lot of the megalomaniac tendencies of the office.
Democrats think this, but cannot say it publicly...yet. This law would not apply to them, of course.
What happens if we hit weimar inflation and everyone became a millionaire overnight.....
Don’t be silly, it would pay down the national debt
OVERNIGHT!
No presumption of corporate jurisdiction shall be made against any natural person.
Lincoln endorsed it in his first inaugural.
Makes you wonder what the war was really about.
A good idea; though that purpose is explicitly stated by the preamble to the Bill of Rights — funny how the preamble to the Constitution can justify welfare, but the preamble to the Bill of Rights cannot be relied upon to limit government.
Here are four Amendments I'd like to see passed:
| Tax Reform Amendment | Fiscal Responsibility Amendment |
|---|---|
| Section I No tax, federal or state, shall ever be withheld from the wages of a worker of any citizen of either. Section II No property shall be seized for failure to pay taxes until after conviction in a jury trial; the right of the jury to nullify (and thereby forgive) this debt shall never be questioned or denied. Section III The second amendment is hereby recognized as restricting the power of taxation, both federal and state, therefore no tax (or fine) shall be laid upon munitions or the sale thereof. Section IV The seventh amendment is also hereby recognized, and nothing in this amendment shall restrict the right of a citizen to seek civil redress. Section V No income tax levied by the federal government, the several States, or any subdivision of either shall ever exceed 10%. Section VI No income tax levied by the federal government, the several States, or any subdivision of either shall ever apply varying rates to those in its jurisdiction. Section VII No retroactive or ex post facto tax (or fee) shall ever be valid. Section VIII The congress may not delegate the creation of any tax or fine in any way. Section IX No federal employee, representative, senator, judge, justice or agent shall ever be exempt from any tax, fine, or fee by virtue of their position. Section X Any federal employee, representative, senator, judge, justice or agent applying, attempting to apply, or otherwise causing the application of an ex post facto or retroactive law shall, upon conviction, be evicted from office and all retirement benefits forfeit. |
Section I The power of Congress to regulate the value of the dollar is hereby repealed. Section II The value of the Dollar shall be one fifteen-hundredth avoirdupois ounce of gold of which impurities do not exceed one part per thousand. Section III To guard against Congress using its authority over weights and measures to bypass Section I, the ounce in Section II is approximately 28.3495 grams (SI). Section IV The Secretary of the Treasury shall annually report the gold physically in its possession; this report shall be publicly available. Section V The power of the Congress to assume debt is hereby restricted: the congress shall assume no debt that shall cause the total obligations of the United States to exceed one hundred ten percent of the amount last reported by the Secretary of the Treasury. Section VI Any government agent, officer, judge, justice, employee, representative, or congressman causing gold to be confiscated from a private citizen shall be tried for theft and upon conviction shall: a. be removed from office (and fired, if an employee), b. forfeit all pension and retirement benefits, c. pay all legal costs, and d. restore to the bereaved twice the amount in controversy. Section VII The federal government shall assume no obligation lacking funding, neither shall it lay such obligation on any of the several States, any subdivision thereof, or any place under the jurisdiction of the United States. All unfunded liabilities heretofore assumed by the United States are void. Section VIII The federal government shall make all payments to its employees or the several states in physical gold. Misappropriation, malfeasance and/or misfeasance of funds shall be considered confiscation. |
| Commerce Clause Amendment | Senate Reform Amendment |
| Section I The federal government shall directly subsidize no product or industry whatsoever, saving the promotion the progress of Science and useful Arts. Section II The federal government shall never prescribe nor proscribe what the Several States teach. Neither the federal government nor the several states shall ever deny the right of parents to teach and instruct their children as they see fit. Section III The congress may impose tariffs, excise taxes, and customs duties on anything imported or exported, provided that they are applied uniformly and in no manner restrict, subvert, or circumvent the second amendment. Section IV No law may impose prohibitions of any sort on the commerce between the several states due to the item itself. |
Section I The seventeenth amendment is hereby repealed. Section II The several states may provide by law the means by which their senators may be removed or replaced. |
I am a lawyer, and have no idea what you are talking about.
Fascinating and proof it takes lots of consensus to amend the constitution . . . unless of course five black robes decide to amend it on their own.
The Framers actually discussed multiple executives. Governor Edmund Randolph of VA proposed it. Given our late difficulties with George III, there was latent fear of a single executive. But, early in the convention a single executive, (not president) was decided by a 7-3 vote.
Lincoln endorsed it in an attempt to bring back the seceded states in the period before the firing on Sumpter. He believed that even though he opposed slavery he as president did not have the power to abolish slavery. He hoped to keep the union and the slave states intact while limiting slavery to just those states where it already existed. He also believed that slavery in the remaining slave states would eventually fall or that a 13th amendment would be passed.
The southern secessionist democrats chose to continue on the path of secession and war which led Lincoln to reassess his views on his presidential powers. After secession and Sumpter the confederacy no longer considered themselves under the Constitution and were at war with the Union. As long as he won, he could use his presidential proclamation to emancipate the southern slaves in secessionist states in rebellion against the Constitution.
For the south, it was all about slavery, period. For the north in general and Lincoln it was about restoring the union first and slavery could be resolved in a non-hostile environment. As the war progressed, the abolitionist sentiment increased in importance.
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