Free Republic

A fourth branch of government was created by Article V of the Constitution, superior to the other three. It consists of 7,382 voting members, distributed in the 50 States. In order to act, this fourth branch, which I call the Federal Assembly, must organize itself into a two-thirds supermajority of the States in order to make a proposal. Majorities in both houses of a state legislature in 34 states must agree on the subject matter... ...three-fourths supermajority of states is required to adopt it. It's hard, and it's never been done in the 229 years we've had the Constitution –...

Publius Huldah. Alexander Hamilton wrote, “The people are the natural guardians of the Constitution.” Hamilton expected us, the people, to differentiate between lawful exercise and illegal usurpation of power. If the power is on ‘the list,’ (Article I § 8) congress may do it, otherwise, congress may not. She hammers Scotus for corrupting the commerce, general welfare, and necessary and proper clauses, . . . but the nation doesn’t need an Article V convention. “Just look it up in the federalist papers for original intent,” she says.Rodney Dodsworth Response. Ms. Huldah is well-educated, which leaves me at a loss to...

From the Introduction, Publius Huldah gave a lecture on October 29th in which she outlined her opposition to an Article V Convention of the States to propose amendments to our beloved Constitution. The link will take you to a YouTube hosted by the aptly named Patriot Coalition Against All Enemies. Over a fifty-minute span, followed by a Q&A, Ms. Huldah explains why she regards COS and Article V supporters not as misinformed, but rather, as conspiratorial enemies. Publius Huldah. She opened her speech with “The con-con lobby wants to get rid of our Constitution and impose a new one.” She...

In an October 29th speech to a small gathering, Publius Huldah discussed her perceptions of the dangers posed by an Article V Convention of the States to propose Constitutional amendments. After viewing the entire talk, I understand why the leading figures of the Convention of States movement (COS) haven’t responded in depth to her various accusations. Her conclusions are often at the fringes of reason and she carries a deep and personal animosity to the leaders of the COS. Since the COS leadership choose not to address most of her accusations, please allow me, your humble blogger, to take up...

In this post, I draw a parallel between the Second Amendment and Article V. The Second Amendment grants nothing. It is through Natural Law, the Law of Reason, and not by a Constitution or statute that we are entitled to defend ourselves. Not only do each of us have a natural interest in self-preservation, but because we are all God’s work, meaning His property, we have a clear and positive duty to preserve His creation. To facilitate individual self-preservation, God made man naturally social. John Locke wrote, “God having made man such a creature, that, in His own judgement, it...

A common concern among Article V opponents is that society is too corrupt to be trusted with amending the Constitution. Perhaps they are right. If so, how did this corruption come about? Is it as bad as many believe? I say the corruption of our culture did not grow upward from the people; corruption rained downward from elites. I place the blame for societal corruption largely on scotus. Scotus not only regularly ignores or violates the written supreme law of the land, it often does the same with Natural Law, the Law of Reason. Scotus has normalized its judicial reach...

Non-Resistance and Passive Obedience. The people who spout ‘diversity is our strength’ have cast a mind-dulling net of intellectual conformity across our nation. Thought police don’t just troll the halls of academe; they have infiltrated society so deeply that violence from those offended by supposedly hurtful thoughts or words is sanctioned by the highest levels of government and popular institutions. Trump supporters can find themselves beaten up. Municipal police in San Jose CA just watched and stood idly by as Trump rally attendees were assaulted. Since Trump is obviously a racist, then so are his followers. Opposition to racism is...

Raise your hand if you knew that James Madison opposed the second method in Article V to amend the Constitution. The New Americana (TNA) recently published a misleading and insult-laden column regarding the Article V state convention amendment process and Convention of States (COS) supporters. It illustrates how the most effective deceptions are built around an element of truth. The TNA shamelessly attempts to deceive the reader into believing the very opposite of the truth, that the man who shepherded the Virginia Plan to fruition as a new Constitution of government opposed taking appropriate measures to keep it. As a...

Let’s step back for a moment from the depressing media-generated noise and nonsense surrounding this presidential election season. Forget that a crime family might be installed in the highest reaches of power. Instead, let us take refuge and solace in an uplifting first principle of our Declaration and Constitution. An occasional criticism of Thomas Jefferson’s edited Declaration of Independence is the substitution of ‘pursuit of happiness’ for that of ‘property.’ Both are Lockean terms well-suited for our Lockean Declaration. While we may never know precisely why this was done, the pursuit of happiness conceptually encompasses a wider universe of unalienable...

Over the course of my three years in support of an Article V State Convention to propose amendments, a regular fear expressed by Article V opponents is that the convention will conduct itself in the same Animal House atmosphere of our sorry US Congress. While no one can predict the future of such things with certainty, recent experience points to a different place, one where ladies and gentlemen firmly, yet decorously, stood to express the will of the state legislatures that commissioned them to restore the American republic. I wouldn’t have bothered with this post had not 137 commissioners from...

(cont. from part I) If the 14th Amendment demands adherence to one-man-one-vote, the electoral college and US Senate operate in clear violation. Why didn’t scotus demand US Senate membership according to population? Because, unlike amending the constitutions of fifty defenseless states, the US Congress has the power to visit unremitting hell on a Supreme Court that pulled such a stunt. From the decision, “The superficial resemblance between one of the Alabama apportionment plans and the legislative representation scheme of the Federal Congress affords no proper basis for sustaining that plan since the historical circumstances which gave rise to the congressional...

Number IV of a four-part series. In response to executive abuses by King George III, our early state constitutions were overly democratic and featured legislatures that casually breached the inadequate walls that separated them from the judicial and executive branches. From a review of pertinent numbers of The Federalist in the second and third squibs, it is evident that the 1787 US Constitution was written with eye toward better defining and checking the legislative power. That Constitution has been justly and unjustly amended many times over the course of the past century such that today, the executive and judicial branches...

I’m perplexed that Article V opponents have not, from time to time, embraced Federalist Numbers 49 & 50. Taken together in isolation from 48 and 51, a superficial read of 49 and 50 might lead one to conclude that James Madison actually opposed, for most situations, Article V state amendment conventions. Number 49. Occasional Conventions. Beginning once again with Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, Madison gives due credit to Jefferson’s brilliance; he then politely disagrees with Jefferson on the proper remedy to a stronger branch’s encroachment of a weaker branch. Encroachment, or the assumption of a power of...

As Mark Levin explained in Chapter One, he undertook his project not because he believed the “Constitution, as originally structured, is outdated and outmoded, thereby requiring modernization through amendments, but because of the opposite – that is, the necessity and urgency of restoring constitutional republicanism and preserving the civil society . . . “ In this squib, we’ll examine the observations of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton as they apply to keeping, and if necessary, restoring constitutional republicanism. Number 33. Laws Judged Against the Constitution. What if the new government overstepped its authority through the exercise of a power reserved...

Mark Levin’s Liberty Amendments burst on the conservative scene in August 2013. Its appeal was not limited to conservative media outlets in talk radio and the internet; the book shot skyward on the New York Times bestseller list to #1 by September 1st. While the second approach to correcting defects in our governing compact has been right under our national noses since 1787, Mark took a modern look at an old clause that had long been downplayed by scholars and disregarded by the public as dangerous. Article V grants nothing. It is no more than recognition of a God-given societal...

Three state legislators from every state in the nation have been invited to this Simulated Convention, forming a first-of-its kind network of state representatives working to call a Convention of States for the purpose of limiting the power of the federal government. Article V empowers state legislators to be the ultimate check on the abuses of Washington, D.C. This Simulated Convention will educate and empower them with a vision as to how they can use an Article V Convention of States to restore liberty and return the power to the states and the people. Our nation has drifted far from...

When the time arrived to put independence into writing, our Founders turned to John Locke (1632-1704). Given the simplicity of Locke’s fundamentals, and the exposure he received as 18th century events cascaded into our Revolution, one doesn’t need a PhD in philosophy to grasp the elements of his theory. America 2016 would do well to embrace the precepts of the man who so influenced our revolutionary era, for within his framework is the salvation of the American experiment in free government. In his Two Treatises of Government, Locke starts from a standpoint not questioned seriously until recent decades: “When men...

America 2016 is in a bad place. Our once republic of laws, in which carefully designed institutions served the noble ends enumerated in the Preamble to the Constitution, has been rendered into something resembling a criminal enterprise in which rulers serve their ambition and avarice while the nation suffers. What to do? While over the course of this blog I have rarely approached extra-constitutional means to restore free government, recent events demand a look at all options. What prompts my reevaluation are Hillary’s get-out-jail-free card from the FBI, and the administration’s ongoing efforts to silence, if not criminalize, political opposition....

Like me, you probably did an eye-roll when you were a middle school kid and read of the charge in our Declaration of Independence that King George III intended to practically enslave his American colonists. Yeah, right. Those Founders sure knew how to exaggerate. At the 2012 democrat party convention, the party of chattel slavery ditched all reference to God from their platform. Getting back to their roots and letting lose their inner Marxists, they went on to inform the nation that not only is government the one thing we all have in common, everyone belongs to it! Notwithstanding the...

Writing as if he had an eye on 20th and 21st century America, Charles de Montesquieu in the mid-18th century wrote, “At the birth of societies, the rulers of republics establish institutions; and afterwards the institutions mold the rulers.” The institution of the US Senate has indeed been transformed from the Framers’ intended structure and purposes determined at the federal convention of 1787. There, on May 31st, Governor Edmund Randolph of Virginia set forth the first purpose of a senate: to check “the turbulent follies of democracy.” Consider for a moment the nation’s short history and the Framers’ recent experiences...