Starting when? 1865?
How about start leaving it alone since before 1913? I’ll settle for that.
But since it is doubtful you have a time machine, people are going to rectify the horror leftover of 1913. In that year, 3 constitutional amendments were passed, the 16th, the 17th, and the 18th. The 18th was repealed. The 16th and the 17th remain to be repealed.
The people of 1913 were stupid. And they were duped. The political parties played chicken with each other and threatened amendments to the Constitution in the form of the 16th. It was never supposed to be taken seriously but it was.
The 17th started as an Article V process in a way that was different than how it ended up. It was taken out of the hands of grassroots movements who were persuaded that Congress would ‘handle it’. Congress wrote it so that US Senators would no longer have to deal with state legislatures and could win voters by having the most cash. The result is a near complete corruption of Congress.
The types of amendments that are needed are very structured. Examples are illustrated here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3523449/posts?page=15#15
I truly appreciate your well-worded responses on the CoS issue. Since you, jacquerie, publius, art in idaho and the CoS threads in general explained these in plain English last fall, I am putting feet to this with the best of my ability here in Texas. Thanks because you contributed to our success yesterday.