“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Given the current political climate and culture we are in, I cannot imagine changing the United States Constitution with the circus that runs amuck in Washington, D.C., as well as within our state legislatures. The Founding Fathers replaced the Articles of Confederation, ratified in 1781, with something much less defective and so much stronger—the United States Constitution. They knew that the weaknesses in the Articles must be remedied. They realized early on that the weaknesses in them were two-fold. First, the states were independent at founding, and they did not want to cede out power to other states. Secondly, they were leery of coercive powers sitting in the laps of civil authorities. Could you blame them? They had already “been there and done that” with the King, and simply put, they wanted their own state power.
The Congress is not closest to the people, but rather the state legislatures are, which is why Article V is a delegated authority to them as a backstop to federal misbehavior and abuse. Alexander Hamilton said, "We may safely rely on the disposition of the State legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority.” Erecting barriers is how you enforce what the Constitution says. James Wilson, the first man sworn to the Suprem Court said, "The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it." So, without the context of American founding era history, you cannot understand that nullification was a theory rejected for the Constitution and Article V was instead put there for the states to enforce it. Just as we have legal and historical precedent on how Congress makes law, we have almost 350 years of both historical and legal precedent for the process of an Article V convention.
Constitutional conventions require ratification by all 50 states, but amendments require only 38 states. They are clearly not the same thing, and a convention has no authority to enact-only to propose amendments. Nor can it rewrite or write a new constitution. Read the text. It says “a convention for proposing amendments…as part of THIS constitution. Your argument over the 16th amendment is a ‘red herring” as it was duly ratified at the time by ¾ of the states into the Constitution. It was at the time never expected that the federal government would “interpret” so many ungranted powers to themselves and then raise the income tax as they have. It was expected to never rise above 4%.
Amendments do three things. 1) Clarify something already in the Constitution. 2) reverse a Supreme Court ruling, or 3) add a new rule to the Constitution. All amendments have changed the Constitution-and without amendments slavery was legal, there was no Bill of Rights, women could not vote and a president could be re-elected many times not just once. So, amendments are necessary to change the powers of our government from time to time and protect the will and liberty of the people or when we need to remove a power because the federal government has abused it. Article V is the single most important of all the checks and balances in the Constitution because it is the only one that can come from outside the beltway-from the people through the state legislature to erect barriers by proposing amendments Congress simply will not. Can you imagine a time when those in power would willingly propose an amendment to remove their own assumed powers? If an active electorate is the only check and balance for federal overreach, how did we get to the point we are today? By ignoring what that meant and using the Article V process to amend when overreach became law we did not agree to. And everyone should know that the courts have always upheld this process and protected it exactly as the founders practiced it.
The Congress is not closest to the people, but rather the state legislatures are, which is why Article V is a delegated authority to them as a backstop to federal misbehavior and abuse. Alexander Hamilton said, "We may safely rely on the disposition of the State legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority.” Erecting barriers is how you enforce what the Constitution says. James Wilson, the first man sworn to the Suprem Court said, "The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it." So, without the context of American founding era history, you cannot understand that nullification was a theory rejected for the Constitution and Article V was instead put there for the states to enforce it. Just as we have legal and historical precedent on how Congress makes law, we have almost 350 years of both historical and legal precedent for the process of an Article V convention.
Constitutional conventions require ratification by all 50 states, but amendments require only 38 states. They are clearly not the same thing, and a convention has no authority to enact-only to propose amendments. Nor can it rewrite or write a new constitution. Read the text. It says “a convention for proposing amendments…as part of THIS constitution. Your argument over the 16th amendment is a ‘red herring” as it was duly ratified at the time by ¾ of the states into the Constitution. It was at the time never expected that the federal government would “interpret” so many ungranted powers to themselves and then raise the income tax as they have. It was expected to never rise above 4%.
Amendments do three things. 1) Clarify something already in the Constitution. 2) reverse a Supreme Court ruling, or 3) add a new rule to the Constitution. All amendments have changed the Constitution-and without amendments slavery was legal, there was no Bill of Rights, women could not vote and a president could be re-elected many times not just once. So, amendments are necessary to change the powers of our government from time to time and protect the will and liberty of the people or when we need to remove a power because the federal government has abused it. Article V is the single most important of all the checks and balances in the Constitution because it is the only one that can come from outside the beltway-from the people through the state legislature to erect barriers by proposing amendments Congress simply will not. Can you imagine a time when those in power would willingly propose an amendment to remove their own assumed powers? If an active electorate is the only check and balance for federal overreach, how did we get to the point we are today? By ignoring what that meant and using the Article V process to amend when overreach became law we did not agree to. And everyone should know that the courts have always upheld this process and protected it exactly as the founders practiced it.
I agree with you! I try to get others to understand who broke the Constitution. I live in the country below Brandon.