Free Republic

Progressives Blow Up the Framers’ Constitution.In continuance of the Senate of the States series the next three squibs leave the Federal Convention and visit the decades leading to the destructive 17th Amendment (17A).The 17A triggered a cascade of stunning downwind consequences perhaps only second to the immediate post-Civil War amendments. As opposed to the 13th – 15th Amendments which reset society, the 17A reset our republican governing form. Overnight, the 17A transformed the Framers’ exquisite compound democratic/federal structure into a democratic form deadly to republics.1Why the 17th Amendment? What enormous forces convinced the people, states and congress to trade a...

Progressives hate the states. You see, I could end the blog post right there and nothing else need to be said, but I want to back up that statement anyways. It is the truth after all. Progressives hate the states. They've been telling us this directly and indirectly for our entire lives and theirs. First though, I want to point out the importance of senatorial elections in the first place. At the convention, Elbridge Gerry made the following comment: (July 19th) Mr. GERRY. If the Executive is to be elected by the Legislature he certainly ought not to be re-eligible....

Green Double THE GOSPEL, which is now assigned to the Mass of the seventeenth Sunday, has given it the name of the Sunday of the love of God, dating, that is, from the time when the Gospel of the cure of the dropsy and of the invitation to the wedding-feast, was anticipated by eight days. Previously, even, to that change, and from the very first, there used to be read on this seventeenth Sunday, another passage from the New Testament which is no longer found in this serial of Sundays: it was the Gospel which mentions the difficulty regarding...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has completely scrapped the bidding process previously underway for contracts to manage the Section 8 program, which provides rental assistance to low-income persons, and will start again from scratch. The Washington Free Beacon previously reported on the Section 8 contracts, including allegations from a long-time contractor who claimed bureaucrats in the agency had been purposefully skewing the process.

Green Double THE Gospel, which is now assigned to the Mass of the seventeenth Sunday, has given it the name of the Sunday of the love of God, dating, that is, from the time when the Gospel of the cure of the dropsy and of the invitation to the wedding-feast, was anticipated by eight days. Previously, even, to that change, and from the very first, there used to be read on this seventeenth Sunday, another passage from the New Testament which is no longer found in this serial of Sundays: it was the Gospel which mentions the difficulty regarding...

A most important issue that I haven't heard from any candidate is support for Constitutional amendments specifically targeting the 17th amendment and campaign finance limitations, and the Article V convention. I haven't heard of any supporting organizations endorsing Trump or Cruz advocate Article V and the topics of the 17th and campaign limitations. I haven't heard any news organizations even remotely broach the topic or question the candidates on any of those topics. Seems to me as would-be conservatives, Trump, Cruz would be all over these questions. With position and analysis and their version of support. Obviously Sanders and Clinton...

In a bit of unusual news, the Utah Senate voted 20-6 to ask Congress to repeal the 17th Amendment of the Constitution. The 17th Amendment allows for the direct election of senators. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Al Jackson (R-Highland) argued that the 17th Amendment was not what the founders of the country had intended and changed the meaning of the role of the senators.

Mark Levin is one of the smartest scholars on the United States Constitution and I trust his opinion. Having said that,every once in a while he will indicate that the 17th is not his favorite amendment to our U.S. Constitution and this got me to thinking about how our country has been affected by this one - both good and bad. While there are a number of seemingly entrenched Senators we could do with changing, due at least in part to name recognition by LIVs and misleading TV ads, I'm not at all sure state legislatures could or would do...

It’s a pity the Russians didn’t enforce the constitution they had. The Soviet Constitution shared more than a few similarities with the US constitution. The rights to property, private correspondence, freedom of religion & conscience, equality before the law, and the right to earn/keep earnings and to leave inheritances are there. All considered, it wasn’t bad for peoples who had only known Mongol hordes and Czars for the past thousand years. Despite these guarantees, the Soviet Union was a slave state from its inception. How could oppression have lived side-by-side recognized assurances of so many personal rights? Slavery was certain...

Elections no longer serve their intended purpose, to temporarily empower others to make law on our behalf, subject to constitutional limitations. Obama plainly said last week that the outcome of the midterms meant the exact opposite of its results. He will issue diktats on behalf of those who didn’t vote! His first act was to lead a barbarian invasion across our southern border. A last ditch defense of our republic demands two actions. First, the virus that afflicts our governing body, Barack Obama, must be excised. If not, he will continue his scorched earth demonic march through our God given...

It may sound pedestrian to point out, but it’s critical to restate why it’s so important that our nation is called the United States of America, and not simply America. The full name emphasizes that the Founders viewed the nation not as one monolithic entity but as a union of sovereign entities delegating limited powers to a central government. To preserve this balance, the Founders put a number of checks in the U.S. Constitution, most notably creating the Senate, which allows for equal membership from every state, thus preventing states with larger populations from running roughshod over the interests of...

A common concern among Article V opponents is fear that a convention of the states to propose constitutional amendments will result in an oppressive constitution. All we need to do is enforce the constitution we have. Elect the right people to implement our written constitution and all will be well. As logical and appealing as that approach appears to be, it ignores some horrible realities, and actually promotes our headlong dive into tyranny, for the anti-constitution, the unwritten Frankenstein constitution rules. First, aside from the occasional heat politicians take from an outraged populace, our legislative and executive branches in the...

I post the following to address a common concern of Freepers who oppose an Article V state convention. The authority to amend the Constitution of the United States is derived from Article V of the Constitution. After Congress proposes an amendment, the Archivist of the United States, who heads the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), is charged with responsibility for administering the ratification process under the provisions of 1 U.S.C. 106b. The Archivist has delegated many of the ministerial duties associated with this function to the Director of the Federal Register. Neither Article V of the Constitution nor section...

Coincident with ratification of the 1913 amendments to the constitution, New York Senator Elihu Root expressed his concerns in a series of lectures at the alma mater of James Madison, and Woodrow Wilson, Princeton University. He was one of the most respected and influential politicians of the early 20th century. Senator Root spoke freely, without hesitation, the language of our framing generation. As a tidal wave of progressivism swept across America, he clearly feared our overnight transformation from a federal, to a democratic republic. Senator Elihu Root: The Proper Pace of Political Change. (Excerpts): In this country we have set...

The John Birch Society describes itself as a constitutionalist organization, yet it is highly critical of a very important component of the Constitution. The JBS does not like Article V’s provision that allows the States to unilaterally propose and ratify amendments to the Constitution. George Mason demanded that this provision be included in Article V because he correctly forecast the situation we face today. He predicted that Washington, D.C. would violate its constitutional limitations and the States would need to make adjustments to the constitutional text in order to rein in the abuse of power by the federal government. Current...

In North Korea, an untouchable dictator and tiny cadre of supporters rule every aspect of the lives of tens of millions. In the United States, an untouchable president, and a tiny cadre of cabinet secretaries and federal judges write illegitimate laws that increasingly rule more and more aspects of the lives of hundreds of millions. What happened? Our framing generation knew that undivided power inevitably lead to undivided tyranny. Set aside all the theories of government, and one thing pops out as an historical certainty. The fewer the number of men ruling from one locality, the more oppressive that government...

Two months ago, Emma Roller and I wrote about the possibly historic Assembly of the States in Mount Vernon. Momentum had been building oh-so-slowly on the right for a new, state-led constitutional convention, which could pass amendments far quicker than the Congress could. (And no one sees a scenario, any time soon, where there'll be 67 conservative votes in the Senate to pass amendments.) The reaction: Largely just a lot of doubt that this would come to anything.

Conservatives believe, as did our founding generation, a fundamental truth, a maxim that early on differentiated the US from other republics. The first principle of American political society is that government exists to secure our unalienable rights. Our Declaration eloquently expressed it as, “That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, . . . “ That straightforward concept begat the question, “How to best secure those rights?” The answer was to be found in some form of republican government. By that, the founding generation meant the peoples’ representatives consent to all laws. That determination was all well and...

It turns out that Senator Tom Coburn is a big supporter of Mark Levin’s new book The Liberty Amendments. When asked last night about this new 1000 plus page spending bill and the fact that the Senate will vote on it before anyone gets a chance to read it, Sen. Tom Coburn told Mark Levin that you can’t prevent this stuff from happening because all we have is a bunch of career politicians who only care about getting reelected. He says the only way to fix Washington is for the states to convene a Convention of the States and limit...

Seventy-five percent of South Carolina's voters are dissatisfied with the federal government and 71 percent are in favor of an Article V Convention of States, according to S.C. Rep. Bill Taylor, R-Aiken. In a statewide poll that included 1,264 voters from various ethnicities, age groups and from every county conducted by True South Communications, Taylor posed two main questions. When asked if South Carolina should join other states in calling for a convention, Taylor said 32 percent were in favor, 32 percent opposed and 36 percent were undecided. The idea behind Taylor's initiative is that if two-thirds of states submit...