Posted on 02/04/2024 7:05:20 AM PST by Jacquerie
During a recent hearing for an Article V measure under consideration by the New Hampshire House, an opponent testified, “Are we of the same character as the people in the late 1700s who fought a revolution against the British? I don’t think we are…We should be thanking our lucky stars that we have [a Constitution] that’s as good as it is, and we should not try to change it at all.”
Are we really so morally inferior to our forebears that we can’t be trusted to amend our Constitution? This position has, as its cornerstone, the assertion that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention disobeyed their instructions to simply amend the Articles of Confederation and instead wrote an entirely new Constitution; and since that’s what they did (supposedly), we should expect delegates to a convention for proposing amendments to run amok, too. This is demonstrably false, but let’s imagine for a moment that these naysayers are correct…that the Constitutional Convention of 1787 really did “run away.” Wouldn’t that make the delegates scoundrels and traitors instead of moral paragons?
Recall, too, that several of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention (Daniel Carroll, John Dickinson, Elbridge Gerry, Gouverneur Morris, Robert Morris, and Roger Sherman) were also involved in the creation of the Articles of Confederation. If the personal morality of the authors is a basis for evaluating the finished product, how is it that these god-like individuals came up with a Constitution that should be regarded as sacrosanct when their work product from just a decade earlier had been rendered completely inadequate?
How could morally superior beings like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson allow the blatantly unconstitutional Alien and Sedition Acts (which made it a federal crime for newspapers to criticize the government) to become law? How is it that Alexander Hamilton was driven from public life by information about a sex scandal wielded by Jefferson, then shot to death in a duel with political rival Aaron Burr? Historian Joanne Freeman, who documented the pervasive verbal abuse and physical violence that characterized the politics of the early United States, notes: “The antebellum Congress had its admirable moments, but it wasn’t an assembly of demigods. It was a human institution with very human failings.”
When the whole story is told, it is difficult to make the case that the founding generation was morally superior to our own. And they didn’t think of themselves in such terms, either. In Federalist 51, James Madison wrote one of the Federalist Papers’ most oft-quoted passages: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” This is precisely why our checks-and-balances system harnesses self-interest in service of the common good. If the founding generation were the angels among us that these naysayers claim, it never would have occurred to them to construct our government as they did.
The idea that we should not use the constitutional tools the Framers gave us stands in direct conflict with what they themselves thought and did. They not only anticipated that the Constitution would need amending and provided for it: they began amending it immediately. The ink was barely dry on the Constitution itself when the first ten amendments were ratified. Two more were proposed and ratified within fifteen years, the latter putting the Vice President with the President on a single ticket instead of making the runner-up the VP. Can you imagine a President Biden paired with a Vice President Trump breaking ties in the Senate? No, because that generation recognized that what looked good on paper turned out to be problematic in real life, and they immediately got to work to fix it.
We all know Washington is broken. We do not honor our founding generation with a perverse, paralyzing exercise in ancestor worship. We honor our heritage and our neighbors by coming together and using the tools the Framers created for us to solve problems that only time would reveal.
I do not trust Establishment republicans.
We may have over 20 republican states. We have all of about 3 conservative states, in terms of their leadership.
The morality of some of the founding fathers is less important than the general morality of the overall population.
Article V Ping!
I agree with your statement, but have zero confidence in the virtue of the type of people who would thrust themselves into changing the Constitution now. It takes only a small portion of the people in a lifeboat to sink it. What percentage of the current voting age public can we regard as truly educated, enlightened, disinterested, public-spirited, prudent, foresightful (not sure it that’s a word but it should be), patriotic, etc.?
Don’t worry.
The states have submitted hundreds of applications without the Constitutionally required call to convention.
Congress never will.
I only post about Article V to remind Freepers that we have abandoned self-government. The problems we face are not from too many Article V state conventions, but rather from far too few.
When the rats steal 2024, they will complete the ruination of DJT and his supporters (that’s us). Not just ruination, but the rats will grind us into atoms.
The Treatment of Trump, the disbarment of his attorneys, jailing of political prisoners are just a foretaste of what they have in mind.
But normalcy bias is just that. People still hang their hopes on elections, as if doing the same thing over and over will yield different results.
History will not look well upon a once free people who invited their enslavement.
In a word: YES.
The very existence of this Article V Movement proves it.
Respect for the Constitution = ancestor worship. Got it.
Only G-d can save us. Let us cry out to Him.
Yes. Next question.
...
Yes.
“I do not trust Establishment republicans.
We may have over 20 republican states. We have all of about 3 conservative states, in terms of their leadership.”
————
Agreed. My greatest fear regarding an Article 5 convention is that we would lose the Second Amendment in a new “Great Compromise,” and that the foreign-born could legally become President (because it HAS been done with the Halfrican, and we have yet to see all of the consequences - on this issue of divided loyalties, the Founders were correct).
Roughly half of the attendees would be leftist Dems and the remainder would be squishy-backboneed Republicans. Who would ‘compromise’ first?
I wouldn’t trust any of them. Think Tea Party and how mainstream killed it from within.
They are confusing honoring the greats among our ancestors with worshipping them.
I wouldn’t trust any of them.
They forget that compromising with bad policy is like adding some sewage to your drinking water.
“Are we really so morally inferior to our forebears that we can’t be trusted to amend our Constitution?”
Seems to me that morality, whether inferior, superior, or equal is not the main issue. Critical thinking, knowledge, historical perspective, and will count heavily.
People like us don’t seem to be doing very well holding on to what we had or have given the present processes, let alone improving things. Why think we’d do any better in an Aricle V Convention?
Please show me one government official in the history of our nation that had a greater character than George Washington
I'll wait...
Or to state it another way: Are the American people ready for self-government?
"We should be thanking our lucky stars that we have [a Constitution] that’s as good as it is, and we should not try to change it at all [??? emphasis added].”"
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
With respect to concern about radical amendments to the Constitution, the horse has already escaped the barn imo, evidenced by the 16th (16A; direct taxes) and 17th (17A; popular voting for federal senators) Amendments (16&17A).
Regarding 16&17A, consider that taxpayers who actually pay taxes are now being oppressed by the long arm of the abused 16th Amendment with respect to paying 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.
"16th Amendment : The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
"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.
“ If the tax be not proposed for the common defence, or general welfare, but for other objects, wholly extraneous, (as for instance, for propagating Mahometanism among the Turks, or giving aids and subsidies to a foreign nation, to build palaces for its kings, or erect monuments to its heroes,) it would be wholly indefensible upon constitutional principles [emphases added].” — Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 2 (1833).
From the congressional record:
”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)
“Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. If once they become inattetive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors, shall all become wolves [emphasis added]. It seems to be the law of our general nature.” - Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Edward Carrington January 16, 1787)
Pelosi: "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." (non-FR; 6 sec.)
Democrats [and RINOs] Are Terrified Of An Educated And Informed Public (3.12.23)
So while many people seem to not understand that the product of a Constitutional Convention (Con-Con) is only a proposed amendment which the states can choose not to ratify, the Con-Con arguably a waste of time if that happens, there is a safe way to amend the Constitution imo.
More specifically, evidenced by the political party-serving 16&17As that have effectively repealed the federal government's constitutionally limited powers, the safe remedy for for dealing with bad amendments is a new amendment to the Constitution that does nothing more than repeal such amendments.
And the immediate step that Democratic and Republican Trump-supporting patriots need to take to repeal 16&17A is to support hopeful Trump 47 by electing all new state and federal lawmakers that will support Trump in leading the states to not only finish draining the swamp, but also to repeal those disastrous amendments.
Majority in new poll say Biden, most members of Congress don’t deserve new term: Gallup (2.2.24)
Consider the repealing of 16&17A as part of reparations for victim taxpayers of the unconstitutionally big federal government for having to pay a lifetime of unconstitutional federal taxes, again, taxes that Congress cannot reasonably justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers and a few other constitutionally enumerated expenses.
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