“to alter, or to abolish it”

February 2, 2018 | Constitution, Founding Documents, General, Judicial, Jury, Republic, Sovereignty

by Nicholas Testaccio

The first law of this nation is the Declaration of Independence. It outlines the relationship between government, and the People who are governed by “consent.” It note’s “that [we] are endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable Rights” as a principle of restricting bureaucratic intrusions and highlighting the fact that we are a nation of sovereigns who answer to a Higher Power.

It is declared in unique form for the entire world to be made aware “that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed”. It goes on to assert, “That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it”.

The Declaration then details the many abuses of the government that the good People of the 13 Colonies were forced to endure, and therefore “declare the cause which impel[ed] them to the separation.” 

Among the many causes, the delegates noted; “He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.” This seems most notable to me when considering the current political landscape where rights have been converted into privilege by the vermin we continually re-elect, but even more important is the mindset of those who consider themselves to be patriotic.

There are few who stand up “with manly firmness” to tell our representatives that they have crossed the line. Instead we grovel, hope, and pray for a resolution in a game that our abusers have instituted for their own benefit.

We philosophize in great detail about how, what, when, and where. We speak circles around theories and events that may never occur, nor do we have the historical basis for those events.

We have allowed changes to the Constitution without a bona fide amendment process. We’ve allowed the meaning of the words to be interpreted away when it was understood that “In expounding the constitution of the United States, every word must have its due force, and appropriate meaning; for it is evident from the whole instrument, that no word was unnecessarily used, or needlessly added. The many discussions which have taken place upon the construction of the constitution, have proved the correctness of this proposition; and shown the high talent, the caution, and the foresight of the illustrious men who framed it.” – Holmes v. Jennison et al., 14 Pet. 540, 570-571, 614, 618 Appx.

We’ve allowed so many incursions into our rights and powers that we can no longer call this nation a functional Republic. It is exactly or might be considered far worse than what the Colonists endured.

How do we approach restoring the Republic without a violent revolution?

Before answering the question I’ve posed, I should express my doubts as to whether it is possible at this point to avoid bloodshed.

This nation was founded on a principle. It is a principle that seems to be impossible for almost every American to comprehend and embrace. That belief is stated in the Declaration as a government of the People that “deriv[es] its just powers from the consent of the governed.” 

Let me expand on that a bit. We judge the Law, we “execute the Law”, and we enforce the Law. We do not sit on juries and rubber stamp statutes that infringe our rights. We do not allow for the creation of agencies that go beyond the scope of government’s limited authority. We do not allow government thugs to perform functions specifically enumerated to ourselves.

The Founders instituted a government that had little power to act without the People taking the specific steps or expressing the authority to resolve an issue. On a subject that I’ve almost beaten to death in my articles, the expressed authority “to execute the Laws of the Union” is in the hands of We the People. That is to say, “the whole people”, acting with the recognized authority in the institution that flows throughout the Constitutions, and both state and federal statutes. It has not been changed, nor can it be changed without re-writing literally hundreds of statutes, the constitutions of the states and federal government, and the admission that there has been an obvious violation of fundamental law.

On that subject, today, I will only say that if we are avoiding the return of power to the People in its constitutional forms, we are embracing the destruction of liberty, and more importantly, the inevitability of a bloody revolution. Stop claiming that you are opposed to bloodshed when you endorse it by the aversion of the People’s stated authority.

This nation has morphed into an oligarchy with a population of dreamers. One side dreams that they will destroy the other with lies and deceit. While they preach tolerance, they are the most intolerant people. Their motto seems to be that you can speak freely only if you agree with me.

The other side dreams that they can do the same thing over and over and obtain different results. An example of which is to go into a court that has consistently worked to violate most of our rights and expect it to turn around because it is the law.

What plagues us today troubled the colonists back then; men with no scruples, and those with swords to enforce the exploitation. How do we overcome?

This system is dependent on the voracity of the various components, which are executive, legislative, and judicial. Three branches, taught to us in school, that function to limit abuses by the other. This is all well and good, but it is not a legitimate diagram of our form of government.

There is the state, the People, and our jury system; it was pure beauty in its simplicity. The system has been corrupted, in main part by a branch with little oversight, and our willingness to do nothing but follow its often-illegitimate decrees.

The delegated authority of the courts was to function as a stop-gap to unlawful acts of any branch, agency, or bureaucracy that stepped on the law. However, what the Founders hoped for, and what transpired was not always one-in-the-same.

“The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution. By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ex post facto laws, and the like. Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.” – Federalist 78, Alexander Hamilton

As with just about anything in this world there are flaws, and the biggest flaw in our Constitution was to give the courts complete independence. Given the nature of the animal it is inconceivable that no one saw the potential for the courts to thoroughly abuse the system.

In Anti-Federalist 80, Robert Yates wrote, “This government is a complete system, not only for making, but for executing laws. And the courts of law, which will be constituted by it, are not only to decide upon the constitution and the laws made in pursuance of it, but by officers subordinate to them to execute all their decisions. The real effect of this system of government, will therefore be brought home to the feelings of the people, through the medium of the judicial power. It is, moreover, of great importance, to examine with care the nature and extent of the judicial power, because those who are to be vested with it, are to be placed in a situation altogether unprecedented in a free country. They are to be rendered totally independent, both of the people and the legislature, both with respect to their offices and salaries. No errors they may commit can be corrected by any power above them, if any such power there be, nor can they be removed from office for making ever so many erroneous adjudications.”

Yates went on to write, “With a regard to the nature and extent of the judicial powers, I have to regret my want of capacity to give that full and minute explanation of them that the subject merits. To be able to do this, a man should be possessed of a degree of law knowledge far beyond what I pretend to. A number of hard words and technical phrases are used in this part of the system, about the meaning of which gentlemen learned in the law differ.

By Yates words alone, I am given to understand the distrust, even then, of both the judiciary and the legal professions as he goes on to write, “Its advocates know how to avail themselves of these phrases. In a number of instances, where objections are made to the powers given to the judicial, they give such an explanation to the technical terms as to avoid them.”

So, the question remains, how do we restore the Republic without a violent revolution?

First, and foremost, is that we admit to ourselves that we’ve allowed it to go beyond what is reasonable in order to avoid a disastrous confrontation.

Second, we must grasp the uniqueness of our form of government. It is not simply a Republic, but rather a nation of Sovereigns with the power of the Sword in the hands of the People. The Founders did not institute any democratic function. On that statement I will only note that you had the privilege to vote if you were a property owner, and that privilege extended to women, and blacks. No one had a right to vote. It was done so in that fashion as the Founders drew upon the well-established fact that given the choice, the public would vote largess for themselves, or more disturbingly a tyrannical form of government.

Third, we absolutely must stop feeding the very institutions that are working to dissolve our nation into what best benefits their greed. There are many organizations that work toward their own selfish, and demonstratively ignorant agendas.

Fourth, we must stop wishing, hoping, and sitting back in wait for something that didn’t occur as we have led ourselves to believe. The collapse of the Soviet Union is given as an example of a non-violent revolution. Sorry, but it didn’t happen that way. I will admit that it was fairly contained and held in check by several conditions that do not apply to the United States.

The nations that comprised the Soviet Union were essentially homogeneous. They did not hate their neighbors because of some privilege. The ire of the population was toward government officials, rather than a neighbor. The State mollified some of the angst by turning over property to anyone who took the time to go down to the bureau and fill out the paperwork. You were an instant property owner.

The non-violent India revolution is another fallacy that we depend upon to bolster our hopes. I’ve spoken to people who were in the Soviet Union, and India at the relevant times. They saw it as much different than we have been led to believe.

What is more likely to happen here is what took place when Pakistan split from India. Those people who were Indian were forced out of their homes. They could not take their valuables. For the most part they left with the clothes on their backs. To this day, I’ve witnessed the hatred between those two cultures.

Fundamentally, we cannot depend on philosophies to change the current course. There has been too much valuable time wasted while a “deep state” has distorted all function of life.

We do not have a legitimate jury system. The likelihood that those who enter a jury pool understand their function is almost nonexistent. In fact, in some states you face criminal charges if you apply your lawful role.

We do not have a legitimate enforcement tool, one that has the wherewithal to recognize that “qualified immunity”, and “compelling interest” are direct violations of the rule of law. Those fictions were created by judicial fiat in order to protect ‘officials’ who violated the oath of office in some fashion.

To put it simply, we’ve permitted a complete mess of our unique form of government. We have allowed the Republic to degenerate into a democracy. We speak as if we understand the rule of law, but in practice, simply contribute to the propaganda, and destruction of the system. Either we “execute the Laws of the Union” as they are established in the general rule of limited authority, or we fail. It’s as simple as that.

You can talk all you want about how the government works as a corporation instead of a Republic. You can talk all you want about how we need to change this, or that, but truth be told, if you don’t understand the rule of Popular Sovereignty you’re simply spitting into the wind.

This is a system wherein the State may not prosecute the Sovereign. Trials are dependent on one Sovereign claiming a misdeed perpetrated by another. The State prosecutes for unconstitutional acts because we allow it. We allow it because the clear majority are pathetically ignorant of our “rule of law.”

The function of law in this nation was to prevent the creation of another form of tyranny. We sat back and watched the tyranny develop. Now we are hoping for something that has only happened in our imagination.

I post this lament to all those who hope for a peaceful transition. In order for the rule of law to exist as it was Declared at the outset, we must “execute the Laws of the Union” as it was established. This nation cannot exist in its original form without the commitment of the good People to perform their responsibility to the freedom, and liberty that the Founders bequeath.

Can we have a peaceful change? Yes.

Can we have a peaceful change in our current state of mind? No.

As long as we keep fooling ourselves into accepting abuses that we’ve allowed, plot impotent solutions, disparage OUR law, and ignore OUR clearly stated duties, it will be impossible to Restore the Republic in a peaceful fashion.