DISMANTLING THE REPUBLIC
Jerry C. Brewer
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2010 Jerry C. Brewer
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Dedicated To The Memory of My Great Grandfather
Peyton G. Brewer (1831-1910) Pvt., Co. F, 42nd Alabama Infantry Regiment
A Southern gentleman who was a citizen of, and defended, the last Constitutional government on the North American Continent.
Table of Contents
Chapter One - “...To Alter Or To Abolish...”
Chapter Two - “Free, Sovereign And Independent”
Chapter Three - “A More Perfect Union”
Chapter Four - Mercantilism And Clashing Cultures
Chapter Five - Early Sectional Conflicts
Chapter Six - Sovereignty, Secession And Slavery
Chapter Seven - Toward Final Conflict
Chapter Eight - An Exercise In State Sovereignty
Chapter Nine - A Republic Of Sovereign States
Chapter Ten - Lincoln’s War On Northern Sovereignty
Chapter Eleven - Lincoln’s War On Southern Sovereignty
Chapter Twelve - “The Final Solution”
Chapter Thirteen - Eliminating Sovereignty’s Remnants
Chapter Fourteen - In The Valley Of Decision
Appendix A - Two Constitutions
Appendix B - Secession Ordinances
Foreword
What passes for American history today, especially as it pertains to the type of government under which we are now constrained to live, is largely a collection of myths, fables, and legends, which have incrementally supplanted the truth until legend has become the new truth.
Few people, for instance, realize that the republic which was founded in the last few years of the 18th century no longer exists. Nearly everyone today fervently believes that it is still intact, though perhaps battered by the winds of liberalism and its inevitable heir, socialism. Even the popular new movement called the Tea Party, welcome as it is, clings to the idea that the republic is still with us and is only in need of some fine-tuning. Its well-intentioned leaders and faithful followers, for all their enviable enthusiasm, do not understand that genuine freedom of person and individual liberty, which were commonly held tenets of independence during and immediately following the American Revolution, but which have succumbed to two centuries of political and governmental abuse, cannot be reclaimed simply by lowering taxes, electing Republicans, and fatuously awaiting the ascension to the Presidency of some personality who might—just might—someday appoint a decent, respectable, honest, constitutionalist to the Supreme Court.
What, for instance, does the Tea Party plan to do about a large standing army, ready to invade any country around the world that displeases a sitting President – or worse yet, ready to invade any one of the fifty states which might depart from the “party line?” (Does Arizona come to mind?) Eisenhower sent armed troops into Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957, when that state displeased him. Kennedy sent 30,000 U.S. Army troops into Oxford, Mississippi, in 1962, when that state displeased him. There is no provision in the U.S. Constitution for a large standing army. Even as late as the War Between the States, Lincoln had to call up volunteers to invade the Southern states; but an ignorant populace believes that the United States has maintained a large “peacetime” army since 1776. Pure legend.
Perhaps the best example of myth and fable is the carefully managed cult figure of Abraham Lincoln. Father Abraham. Not only was Lincoln a scoundrel of the lowest order, admired by many modern day charlatans, among them Bill Clinton and Obama, he was directly responsible for the deaths of several hundred thousand Southerners, not to mention thousands of Northern soldiers ordered into battle against the South. Yet, the politically correct line, parroted by every school child that goes through twelve years of government schools, is that “Lincoln saved the Union,” when in reality, it was Lincoln who destroyed the Union. His mere election caused seven states to withdraw, and his call for volunteers to invade those seven states made four other states—and eventually, parts of two others—to secede. Shot on Good Friday, dying on Easter weekend, just after he had “saved” the Union, gave his cultists the precise propaganda they needed to make him into a Christ figure, and the legend grew until this man, who was not a member of any church, did not attend worship services, nor ever professed a belief in the divinity of Jesus, is now considered one of the great spiritual leaders of the 19th century. Churchgoers regularly hear him quoted in sermons. Legend replacing truth.
And so it is with the state of the republic. In Dismantling the Republic, Jerry Brewer strips away fancy and fiction to show us that the republic actually died in 1865. Lincoln spent fours years trying to kill it, and it finally succumbed at Appomattox. What we have today has been in the making ever since. Under the withering administrations of Grant and a succession of Union soldiers elected to the Presidency after the War, Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal, Lyndon Johnson and his Great Society, Bush the elder and his New World Order, Sonny Bush and his eight-year foray into Iraq, Bill Clinton, and now the Marxist Obama, we have arrived at a government that has metamorphosed into something that abuses citizens at home and destroys civilizations abroad. Whatever it is, it is not the republic our Revolutionary patriots gave us, nor what they envisioned. Try as they might to believe the framework of a republic still exists, neo-conservatives and Tea Party activists are deluded. It drew its last breath in 1865, and no amount of rearranging personalities in Congress will bring it back to life. We have to start over, and Dismantling the Republic tells us why.
A great misconception that serves to utterly confound people today is the myth that George Washington, whose bronze likeness graces numerous town squares, capitol lawns, and halls of legislation in the South, was an ardent supporter of limited national government and advocate of states’ rights. The truth is that Washington, having received his well-earned laurels on the battlefield, was not equipped with that same love of state sovereignty and individual freedom held by many of his contemporaries, such as Patrick Henry, George Mason, and John Randolph. As President, he surrounded himself with ultra-liberals, such as John Marshall and Alexander Hamilton, who worked tirelessly to establish a strong central government. Washington, whose famous quote disavowing political parties, was, nevertheless, an ardent Federalist, opposing great men like Thomas Jefferson and other Anti-Federalists who labored to limit the role of the national government.
Today, most Americans, without realizing it, have transferred their allegiance from the great ideas of the early republic to the mere symbols of the national socialistic government that now exists between our two coasts. It is the flag that people claim to be willing to die for. It is the Star-Spangled Banner that must be lustily sung, hand over heart, at every public gathering. It is the sacrosanct image of the U.S. Capitol. The eagle. The military uniform. The colors, red, white, and blue. The Fourth of July. Fireworks. The externals have become the goal, the end result, the aim. They have replaced our noble ideals, our sense of freedom from persecution, our quest to be free, our desire to be independent, our wish to live our lives without interference from government. Symbolism over substance.
So, the question that begs to be answered is: Would the people ever rise up and eschew the symbols of a government when it becomes detrimental to their freedom? Probably not. The government regularly persecutes Christian churches by disallowing public prayer and display of Christian symbols in public places, refuses to stop the flood of immigrants into this country, levies confiscatory taxes, sends our tax dollars all over the world as “foreign aid,” wastes money and lives on unnecessary foreign wars, works overtime criminalizing virtually every aspect of our lives, and discriminates against native-born white Americans in employment, education, and opportunity. Yet, the general public, especially neo-conservatives and Tea Party activists, will, at every opportunity, leap to their feet and recite the Pledge of Allegiance in semi-religious fanatic fervor. If they ever really deliberated on the words of that pledge, they might cease pledging to a government so corrupt and detrimental to their pursuit of liberty and happiness. If they knew who wrote the Pledge and for what reason it was written, perhaps then they might understand that it has actually and deliberately been used against them all these years.
Would Thomas Jefferson or Patrick Henry recognize this thing we still call a republic? To ask is to answer. The old republic is gone. No matter how many symbols we revere, how many parades we conduct, and how many firecrackers we pop on the Fourth of July, we are merely presiding over a corpse. The sooner Americans realize that the better.
Michael Andrew Grissom
Author’s Preface
Constitutional government in America ended April 9, 1865. It ended four years earlier in the United States with Abraham Lincoln’s ascension to the presidency. Within a year of his inauguration, he effectively eliminated Constitutional rights. He suspended the writ of habeas corpus and imprisoned and deported an Ohio Congressman without warrant or due process. He censored telegraphic communications, stopped circulation of newspapers that criticized his autocratic rule and imprisoned many of their editors. He deprived states of representative government, and unilaterally waged war without the consent of Congress by blockading Southern ports and calling for 75,000 volunteers to invade the sovereign States of the South.
The last bulwark of State sovereignty and Constitutional rights in North America, the Confederate States, ceased to exist when Lee surrendered at Appomattox. From that day forward, the Republic of Jefferson, Madison, Mason and Franklin was to be no more. Henceforth, the federal government that was created by sovereign States to be their agent would become their master. All that remained was for the new order of government to dismantle the Republic’s remnants.
Individual rights, expressed in State sovereignty, undergirded the Republic. The declaration of those rights by American Colonists in 1776 culminated a centuries-long struggle for recognition of individual sovereignty dating back to the Magna Carta. As Thomas Jefferson expressed it, all men are “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. Among those are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and when government fails to protect those rights it is the right of the people to “alter or abolish” that government.
In late spring, 1787, the greatest minds among the American States gathered in Philadelphia to carve out an instrument to strengthen the weaker Articles of Confederation under which they had united in 1777. What they forged was the American Republic—a voluntary union of sovereign States, created by sovereign individuals, and founded upon the Constitution. When their proceedings ended in September a bystander asked Benjamin Franklin what kind of government they had created. He replied, “A republic, if we can keep it.” He and the other Founders understood the fragile nature of government—especially their Republic with its delicate balance of powers.
None of the Founding Fathers envisioned a democracy. Their new government was a Republic of Sovereign States with carefully diffused constituencies and Franklin’s uneasiness about keeping it was well founded. Even before the Constitution was in its final form, forces were at work to weaken it and institute a government as autocratic as that of George III.
Without surrendering their sovereignty, the States ratified the Constitution, entering into a voluntary compact under it. In so doing, each State reserved for itself the full measure of sovereignty it held before joining the compact, and expressed that in the 10th amendment to the Constitution. State sovereignty meant that any or all of them had the right to freely withdraw from that compact whenever it became destructive of the ends for which it was established.
From the Republic’s inception the sovereignty of its member States suffered erosive political attacks that reached their high water mark when Lincoln invaded the South and forced seceded States back into the union at bayonet point. Upon his shoulders rests the responsibility for destroying the Republic. But even before the election of 1860, greedy Northern interests were working to change Franklin’s Republic into a Consolidated, Mercantile Empire. Lincoln’s election culminated those efforts and in the century and a half since his war Lincoln’s heirs have almost finished his work. From 1860 until the present, the Republic has been dismantled to such an extent that the Founders would not recognize it if they returned to 21st century America. Their Republic no longer exists. How that came to pass is the thesis we chronicle in this work. The foundation of the American Republic, created by the Constitution of 1787, was the sovereignty of its creator States. From its very beginning efforts were exerted to dismantle the Republic and replace it with a centralized government by incrementally eroding its foundation of State sovereignty—efforts that achieved their goal, for without State sovereignty, that Republic cannot exist.
Governments may control actions, but they cannot control ideas. They may chain a man’s body, but they cannot chain his mind. The Republic that Lincoln destroyed first existed as an idea and it still exists in that form. Jefferson Davis said, “The contest is not over, the strife is not ended. It has only entered upon a new and enlarged arena, and the principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form.” Given the grassroots disaffection for the federal social programs being forced upon the states and the arrogant usurpation of Constitutional authority by the federal government today, it appears that the cause of State Sovereignty still reposes in American hearts. Those voices of dissent in Congressional “Town Hall Meetings” and “Tea Parties” across the land in our time are faint sounds from the stirring wings of the great Phoenix of Davis’ principle rising from the ashes of Lincoln’s war to reassert itself “at another time and in another form.”
Deo Vindice
Jerry C. Brewer
Elk City, Oklahoma
May 18, 2009
Chapter 1
“...To Alter Or To Abolish...”
“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government.” 1
When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence he drew from a large body of thought expressed by political philosophers of the Enlightenment. One of those was John Locke. Born in 1632, Locke authored a work in 1680 entitled, Second Treatise on Government. In it, he affirmed that man is born as a free sovereign into a state of nature and whatever portion of his individual freedom he delegates to a political society is done voluntarily for the preservation of his greater liberties—that the individual members of political society, not kings, are sovereign.
“Whosoever, therefore, out of a state of Nature unite into a community, must be understood to give up all the power necessary for the ends for which they unite into society to the majority of the community, unless they expressly agreed in any number greater than the majority. And this is done by barely agreeing to unite into one political society, which is all the compact that is, or needs be, between the individuals that enter into or make up a commonwealth. And thus, that which begins and actually constitutes any political society is nothing but the consent of any number of freemen capable of majority, to unite and incorporate into such a society. And this is that, and only that, which did or could give beginning to any lawful government in the world.” 2
Locke argued that governments are created by compacts of sovereign individuals who voluntarily associate in commonwealths for the protection of their liberties. From that premise he concluded that those surrendered freedoms may be reclaimed any time the agent to whom they were surrendered fails in its obligation to protect them. That failure, he said, constitutes a declaration of war upon members of the body politic by the agent of government.
“. . . whenever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence. Whensoever, therefore, the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society, and either by ambition, fear, folly, or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people, by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and by the establishment of a new legislative (such as they shall think fit), provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society.” 3
The substance of what Jefferson wrote was that the American Colonists were free sovereigns under protection of the English Crown and that the Crown had failed in securing the Colonists’ greater rights. The “equality” of which he wrote referred not to the social status of individuals, but to members of political communities who constitued the body politic.
“That Declaration is to be construed by the circumstances and purposes for which it was made. The communities were declaring their independence; the people of those communities were asserting that no man was born—to use the language of Mr. Jefferson—booted and spurred, to ride over the rest of mankind; that men were created equal—meaning the men of the political community; that there was no divine right to rule; that no man inherited the right to govern; that there were no classes by which power and place descended to families; but that all stations were equally within the grasp of each member of the body politic. These were the great principles they announced; these were the purposes for which they made their declaration; these were the ends to which their enunciation was directed.” 4
Rule by divine right was an ancient claim among English monarchs and the antithesis of Locke’s philosophy. That he had a divine right to rule was boldly affirmed by James I in a speech to parliament on March 21, 1610.
“The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth; for kings are not only God’s lieutenants upon the earth, and sit upon God’s throne, but even by God himself they are called gods . . . Kings are justly called gods for that they exercise a manner of resemblance of divine power upon earth, for if you will consider the attributes to God you shall see how they agree in the person of a king. God hath power to create or destroy, make or unmake, at his pleasure; to give life or send death, to judge and be judged not accountable to none; to raise low things and to make high things low at his pleasure; and to God are both soul and body due. And the like power have kings; they make and unmake their subjects; they have power of raising and casting down; of life, and of death, judges over all their subjects, and in all causes, and yet accountable to none but God only. They have power to exalt low things, and abase high things, and make of their subjects like men at chess—a pawn to take a bishop or a knight—and cry up or down any of their subjects, as they do their money. And to the king is due both the affection of the soul and the service of the body of his subjects...so it is sedition in subjects to dispute what a king may do in the height of his power, but just kings will ever be willing to declare what they will do, if they will not incur the curse of God. I will not be content that my power be disputed upon, but I shall ever be willing to make the reason appear of all my doings, and rule my actions according to my laws.”5
Sixty seven years later, the same claim was made by a devout royalist and Justice of the Peace, just three years before Locke wrote the Second Treatise of Government.
“The laws have not their maintenance from the parliament, as some of the late seditious pamphlets do falsely suggest to the people, but from the king; for it is he that makes judges and justices of the peace and other officers, for the better execution of the laws; and the power of all the forces in this kingdom are (sic) in the king, as one of his most just and undoubted prerogatives...And therefore, having jus gladii only in himself, he is both the prime author and preserver of our laws — nay, is no longer a law than the supreme power is pleased to allow it so, because he is uncontrollable in his actions, and hath no lawful superior on earth to control him.
“And this power is given him from God, and therefore due to him jure divino; wherefore the king is called by the Apostle, God’s officer or minister, not the people’s officer; neither doth he bear the sword in vain. And St. Peter strictly chargeth us to submit ourselves to all mankind in authority in regard of the Lord. . . We see then the supreme power lodged in his Majesty jure divino, by the law of God.” 6
Kings’ claims of rule by divine right directly clashed with Locke’s position that the God-given right to rule inheres in sovereign individuals who constitute the body politic. That was the position of the American Colonies and the claim of any king—George III included—to a “divine right” to rule them was an affront to their sovereignty. Colonial leaders were political products of the Enlightenment who embraced Locke’s philosophy of individual sovereignty. Neither Jefferson nor his Colonial contemporaries believed any man was born, in Davis’ words, “booted and spurred” to ride roughshod over members of the body politic as the English kings claimed. The signers of the Declaration of Independence found that claim repulsive but they had no design upon the government of England. Their only purpose was to dissolve their relationship with Britain and govern themselves as sovereigns.
What the British called the Colonies’ “rebellion” was something unique in the annals of history. The American Colonies simply declared the dissolution of “the political bands”that bound them to Great Britain and asserted their sovereign right to “assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle(d) them.” They called for neither abolition of the British monarchy nor the overthrow of Parliament.
American Colonists did not go to war against Britain, nor did the Declaration of Independence include such a declaration. War ensued but it was not precipitated by the Colonists. The failure of the crown to secure the sovereign rights of its people constituted a state of war against them. Their declaration and reclamation of their rights was an act of self-defense. A state of war between the Colonies and Britain already existed before the Colonies declared their independence. Declaring one’s independence is not a declaration of war. War is initiated when despots use military force to prevent free people from exercising their God-given rights. American Colonists did not begin the War for Independence. That war was declared by the British Empire long before 1776.
That the world might know their reasons for declaring independence from Britain, Jefferson enumerated Colonial grievances against the Crown. George III exercised absolute power over them and no law could be enacted by Colonial legislative bodies without his approval. In exercising that power the king disenfranchised the colonists whom those laws affected.
•“He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
•“He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
•“He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
•“He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
•“He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
•“He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
•“He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.”
Of the king’s absolute control of judicial processes and the burgeoning bureaucracy sent by him to bleed the Colonies of their resources, Jefferson wrote,
•“He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
•“He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”
At the height of Israel’s national glory, Solomon wrote, “there is no new thing under the sun”7 and his observation was borne out with passage of national healthcare legislation in 2010. That measure adds thousands of Internal Revenue Agents to the already bloated federal bureaucracy to “harass our people, and eat out their substance.” The more things change, the more they remain the same. Americans today face the same oppressive governmental bureaucracy that their Colonial fathers faced almost two and a half centuries ago.
The next grievance could have been penned this morning. A large standing federal military presence in the States has been the standard practice for decades, including the National Guard which is—in reality—“independent of and superior to civil power” of the States. That will be shown in Chapter Thirteen.
•“He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
•“He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.”
Another of the king’s actions toward his American subjects was motivated by his affinity for foreign influences. George III was a German of the House of Hanover and his use of Hessian mercenaries was doubtless influenced by that connection. Foreign influences in domestic law and affairs are strongly resisted and resented by modern Americans. In recent years, some United States Supreme Court Justices have indicated their affinity for “International Law” as a factor in their decisions regarding matters pertaining only to the United States. International law has no place in deciding U. S. Constitutional questions.
Another target of Colonial remonstrance had been a series of laws, dubbed “The Intolerable Acts.” Those were punitive measures passed by a vengeful Parliament in the wake of the Boston Tea Party. One of the “Intolerable Acts” was a tax on the tea that had been dumped in Boston Harbor in December, 1773. “Abolishing the free system of English laws” and “enlarging its boundaries” came in the form of another of the “Intolerable Acts” known as the Quebec Act of 1774. It “provided for the civil government of Canada and extended its boundaries southward to the Ohio River, thereby nullifying all claims of the Thirteen Colonies to the Northwest.” 8 Another of the “Intolerable Acts” “in effect annulled the Massachusetts charter.” 9
•“He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
•“For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
•“For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
•“For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
•“For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
•“For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
•“For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
•“For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
•“For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
•“For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves to be invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.”
Jefferson next catalogued abuses of royal power that endangered the lives of George III’s Colonial subjects through a reign of terror by his military.
•“He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.”
•“He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.”
•“He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the head of a civilized nation.”
•“He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.”
•“He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”
This litany of oppressions had been brought to the British government’s attention many times before. In October, 1774, the First Continental Congress, which denied Parliament’s authority and power of taxation over the Colonies, approved a document entitled, “Address to The People of Great Britain.” Written by John Jay, who later became a U. S. Supreme Court Chief Justice, the “Address” spelled out their grievances. Jay warned the British people that their government’s iron hand of tyranny could be raised against them as it had been against their American brethren and wrote in part,
“This being a state of facts, let us beseech you to consider to what end they lead. Admit that the Ministry, by the powers of Britain and the aid of our Roman Catholic neighbors, should be able to carry the point of taxation, and reduce us to a state of perfect humiliation and slavery. Such an enterprise would doubtless make some addition to your national debt which already presses down your liberties and fills you with pensioners and placement. We presume, also, that your commerce will be somewhat diminished. However, suppose you should prove victorious, in what condition will you then be? What advantages or what laurels will you reap from such a conquest? May not a Ministry with the same armies enslave you? It may be said you will cease to pay them; but remember, the taxes from America, the wealth, and we may add the men, and particularly the Roman Catholics of this vast continent, will then be in the power of your enemies; nor will you have any reason to expect that after making slaves of us, many among us should refuse to assist in reducing you to the same abject state.
“Do not treat this as chimerical. Know that in less than half a century the quitrents reserved to the Crown from the numberless grants of this vast continent will pour large streams of wealth into the royal coffers.
“And if to this be added the power of taxing America at pleasure, the Crown will be rendered independent of you for supplies, and will possess more treasure than may be necessary to purchase the remains of liberty in your island. In a word, take care that you do not fall into the pit that is preparing for us.
“We believe there is yet much virtue, much justice, and much public spirit in the English nation. To that justice we now appeal. You have been told that we are seditious, impatient of government, and desirous of independence. Be assured that these are not facts, but calumnies. Permit us to be as free as yourselves, and we shall ever esteem a union with you to be our greatest glory, and our greatest happiness; we shall ever be ready to contribute all in our power to the welfare of the empire; we shall consider your enemies as our enemies, and your interest as our own.
“But if you are determined that your ministers shall wantonly sport with the rights of mankind; if neither the voice of justice, the dictates of the law, the principles of the constitution, or the suggestions of humanity can restrain your hands from shedding human blood in such an impious cause, we must then tell you that we will never submit to be hewers of wood or drawers of water for any ministry or nation in the world.
“. . . By the destruction of the trade of Boston the Ministry have endeavored to induce submission to their measures. The like fate may befall us all. We will endeavor, therefore, to live without trade, and recur for subsistence to the fertility and bounty of our native soil, which affords us all the necessaries and some of the conveniences of life. We have suspended our importation from Great Britain and Ireland; and in less than a year’s time, unless our grievances should be redressed, shall discontinue our exports to those kingdoms and the West Indies.
“It is with the utmost regret, however, that we find ourselves compelled by the overruling principles of self-preservation to adopt measures detrimental in their consequences to numbers of our fellow subjects in Great Britain and Ireland. But we hope that the magnanimity and justice of the British nation will furnish a Parliament of such wisdom, independence, and public spirit as may save the violated rights of the whole empire from the devices of wicked ministers and evil counselors, whether in or out of office, and thereby restore that harmony, friendship, and fraternal affection between all the inhabitants of His Majesty’s kingdoms and territories so ardently wished for by every true and honest American.”
With their grievances ignored and their lives, liberty, and property jeopardized, the Colonists, turned to their only other alternative—secession from England and establishment of a government that would secure their future liberties. Therefore, as an act of self defense, Jefferson concluded:
“In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
“Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
“We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”
Before there ever existed such a thing as a “Government of The United States of America,” American Colonial delegates, acted in the capacity of their sovereign States and declared themselves free from the ties that had bound them to Great Britain for nearly two centuries. Separately or in concert, they were now free to chart their own courses as sovereign States among the nations of the world.
Chapter 2
“Free, Sovereign And Independent"
“His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia to be free, sovereign and independent states; that he treats them as such; and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.”1
The Colonies’ Declaration of Independence from Britain was unparalleled in history, but not surprising given the political philosophies formulated and expounded in the Age of Enlightenment. Political philosophy of that period was rooted in religious thought during the Protestant Reformation that emphasized individual spiritual sovereignty in the priesthood of the believer. In 1520 Martin Luther,
"...published and gave wide circulation to three tracts. The first one, An Address To The Christian Nobility of The German Nation, appealed to the German nobles to take a lead in the reformation of the church. The first part of the tract stated that the pope was hiding behind three walls. The first wall was that the papacy had created a distinction between priest and layman which was not according to Scripture. This placed the spiritual power over the temporal, and in opposition to this Luther asserted ‘the priesthood of all believers.’2
Luther asserted the sovereignty of the individual believer, declaring that no earthly priest stood between the believer and God. His principle in the spiritual realm was later adopted by political philosophers. They held that the individual is sovereign in the political realm and born free to pursue life and liberty unfettered by restraints of government—that since the individual derives his rights from God, no king stands between him and the Creator. Vox populi, vox Dei—“the voice of the people is the voice of God”—was their political creed. Government is derived not from the divine right of kings, but from the God-given rights of the governed. The individual possessing those rights may surrender some of them to the agent of government in order to better secure them, but that does not eliminate his sovereignty in the continued possession of all of his liberty. His rights are, in effect, on loan to the agent who receives them in a fiduciary trust, but he retains the right to recall them when the agent to whom they were surrendered becomes derelict in their protection. That was the position of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence. They asserted their individual sovereignty and the right to form another government when the king violated their inalienable rights derived from God.
The political philosophy of that age had heretofore been only a theory. Now, the American Colonists would translate it into practice. With absolutely no designs on the king or his government, the Americans desired only to go their own ways and govern themselves. But the king was not about to let his milk cow slip away without a fight. The Declaration of Independence was a gauntlet flung at his feet which he would neither abide nor ignore. He immediately placed a bounty on the heads of the Declaration’s signers and dispatched troops to North America to bring the “rebellious”Colonies to heel.
Needing a united effort against British aggression, the Continental Congress set about to craft a confederacy of their states. The confederacy they crafted was established under the Articles of Confederation adopted in 1777.
“The articles of Confederation did not establish a government, but a confederation of sovereign states. The Revolution was being fought to abolish central control, and liberty was deemed safe only when government was sharply restricted and kept close to home where the governed could watch it.”3
Five years after declaring their independence from Britain, they secured it with George Washington’s victory over Lord Cornwallis’ troops at Yorktown and official recognition of their independence came in 1783 in the Treaty of Paris. By that treaty “His Britannic Majesty” acknowledged that the states named in it were “free, sovereign and independent.” Each of the original 13 states functioned as a sovereign entity, determining its own destiny, electing its officials, governing its citizens within its own borders, and jealously guarding its hard-won sovereignty. None was willing to surrender its sovereignty to a powerful central government like the one from which they had lately been freed. They knew the dangers of placing their lives and liberty in the hands of another. If that was ever to be, there had to be erected such safeguards that they would never again be subjected to tyranny, and the most powerful buffer against government tyranny was their sovereignty. So long as that was maintained no tyrant could rule them with impunity.
The Treaty of Paris in 1783 clearly recognized the sovereign status of the former colonies. Listing them in Article 1, the treaty said, “His Britannic Majesty” recognized them “to be free, sovereign, and independent states; that he treats them as such...” That Britain negotiated with 13 individual sovereign states—not a central government styled, “The United States of America”—was not only implied, but clearly stated. The American union under the Articles of Confederation in 1777 was undergirded by State sovereignty, as was the Republic ten years later. In neither of those unions did any state surrender its sovereignty to a central power as had been the case under British rule. Britain had created the colonies with sovereignty residing in the British crown, but the States were creators of the unions of 1777 and 1787 with sovereignty residing in each creator State. That was specified in both the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. Article 1 of the Articles of Confederation said, “The stile of this Confederacy shall be The United States of America.” In Article 2 they specified that, “Each state retains its freedom, sovereignty, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.”
Their assertion of State sovereignty was later written into the 10th Amendment to United States Constitution in these terms: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” The 10th Amendment is the last of those styled, “The Bill of Rights.” These were added to the Constitution when the States insisted that such guarantees be written into it. Among the others enumerated in the Bill of Rights are freedom of speech, freedom of religion and the right of individuals to bear arms.
During the debates on the adoption of the Constitution, its opponents repeatedly charged that the Constitution as drafted would open the way to tyranny by the central government. Fresh in their minds was the memory of the British violation of civil rights before and during the Revolution. They demanded a ‘bill of rights’ that would spell out the immunities of individual citizens. Several state conventions in their formal ratification of the Constitution asked for such amendments; others ratified the Constitution with the understanding that the amendments would be offered. 4
That the States insisted on inclusion of a Bill of Rights before they would ratify the Constitution is not surprising. A strong central government without such safeguards could—and probably would—devolve into tyranny. They were not about to surrender their hard won sovereignty, or even a small portion of it without the guarantee—in writing—that they retained all their rights and privileges not expressly delegated to the United States.
State Sovereignty In The Articles Of Confederation
The retention of State sovereignty expressed in the second of The Articles of Confederation was also expressed in other parts of the document. Article 5 mandated delegates to the Congress to be appointed as the legislature of each state decided. Delegates were appointed without a popular vote in their states and could be recalled at any time by the sovereign State they represented. Article 5 said,
“For the most convenient management of the general interests of the United States, delegates shall be annually appointed in such manner as the legislatures of each State shall direct, to meet in Congress on the first Monday in November, in every year, with a power reserved to each State to recall its delegates, or any of them, at any time within the year, and to send others in their stead for the remainder of the year.”
Nor did the Articles of Confederation allow direct taxes on individuals by the Union they established. Expenses incurred in war time had to be approved by the legislatures of the States, according to Article 8.
“All charges of war, and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several States in proportion to the value of all land within each State, granted or surveyed for any person, as such land and the buildings and improvements thereon shall be estimated according to such mode as the United States in Congress assembled, shall from time to time direct and appoint. The taxes for paying that proportion shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction of the legislatures of the several States within the time agreed upon by the United States in Congress assembled.”
Noticeably absent from the Articles is mention of an executive power. The supreme power of that confederacy was vested in its Congress. That manifested their distrust of power concentrated in the hands of one person and tacitly expressed their sovereign status.
Neither could States with large populations infringe on the sovereignty of the smaller ones by their votes in Congress. Article 5 said, “In determining questions in the United States in Congress assembled, each state shall have one vote.” This provision would be revisited when the Constitution of 1787 was written, resulting in the creation of a bicameral federal legislature.
From the sovereignty of the individual, as John Locke explained, came the sovereignty of the state when sovereign individuals convened in deliberations for their mutual good. From that philosophy came the assertion that members of the body politic are “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights” such as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and that they have the right to “alter or abolish” their form of government when it fails to maintain those rights. Their unprecedented Declaration in 1776 brought freedom to the thirteen “free, sovereign, and independent” North American States. Out of that came the reassertion of their sovereignty in the Articles of Confederation which would lead to “a more perfect union” ten years later.
Chapter 3
“A More Perfect Union”
Finding the proper balance between an effective central power strong enough to govern, but sufficiently restricted to preserve individual liberty, was an ages old effort. With the age of Enlightenment and the assertion of individual sovereignty, that became even more difficult. To create a government that maintained liberty, but at the same time was strong enough to unify and protect the States was an intellectually herculean task, calling for the greatest minds of the 18th century. The creation of a Republic of Sovereign States under the United States Constitution was born of such minds.
Delegates to the Constitutional Convention—minus Rhode Island—met in Philadelphia from May to September, 1787, debating the various issues relating to the document upon which their new government would rest. Paramount among their concerns was the loss of individual rights and State sovereignty. Writing the Constitution was just the beginning. In order for a union to exist under it, nine of those sovereign 13 States had to ratify it. That process precipitated numerous debates after the convention through publication of the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, and in the ratifying conventions of the several states.
“The series of anti-federalist writings which most nearly paralleled and confronted The Federalist was a series of sixteen essays published in the New York Journal from October, 1787, through April, 1788, during the same period The Federalist was appearing in New York newspapers, under the pseudonym ‘Brutus’, in honor of the Roman republican who was one of those who assassinated Julius Caesar, to prevent him from overthrowing the Roman Republic. The essays were widely reprinted and commented on throughout the American states. The author is thought by most scholars to have been Robert Yates, a New York judge, delegate to the Federal Convention, and political ally of anti-federalist New York Governor George Clinton. All of the essays were addressed to ‘the Citizens of the State of New York’.” 1
Not surprisingly, the first Anti-Federalist Paper expressed the writer’s fear that the new Constitution granted too much power to the central government that would result in negating State sovereignty. That much power, he wrote, is an intoxicant which those possessing it are wont to increase and would do so by consolidating and concentrating it to the detriment of State sovereignty.
“...the legislature of the United States are vested with the great and uncontroulable powers, of laying and collecting taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; of regulating trade, raising and supporting armies, organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, instituting courts, and other general powers. And are by this clause invested with the power of making all laws, proper and necessary, for carrying all these into execution; and they may so exercise this power as entirely to annihilate all the state governments, and reduce this country to one single government. And if they may do it, it is pretty certain they will; for it will be found that the power retained by individual states, small as it is, will be a clog upon the wheels of the government of the United States; the latter therefore will be naturally inclined to remove it out of the way. Besides, it is a truth confirmed by the unerring experience of ages, that every man, and every body of men, invested with power, are ever disposed to increase it, and to acquire a superiority over every thing that stands in their way. This disposition, which is implanted in human nature, will operate in the federal legislature to lessen and ultimately to subvert the state authority, and having such advantages, will most certainly succeed, if the federal government succeeds at all. It must be very evident then, that what this constitution wants of being a complete consolidation of the several parts of the union into one complete government, possessed of perfect legislative, judicial, and executive powers, to all intents and purposes, it will necessarily acquire in its exercise and operation.” 2
The ominous warning that, “the power retained by the individual states, small as it is, will be a clog upon the wheels of the government of the United States,” and, “the latter therefore will be naturally inclined to remove it out of the way,” was prophetic. That is what happened in the ensuing years and continues to the present day. As state sovereignty has been steadily eroded, federal power has grown to dangerous proportions. So before the Constitution was ever ratified there was concern that States would lose their sovereignty to a powerful central government. To allay that concern, Congress proposed amendments to the Constitution that would secure States’ and individuals’ rights.
“On September 25, 1789, the First Congress of the United States therefore proposed to the state legislatures 12 amendments to the Constitution that met arguments most frequently advanced against it. . . . Articles 3 to 12, ratified, by three-fourths of the state legislatures, constitute the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights.” 3
The Bill of Rights guarantees individual freedoms and State sovereignty. Those rights are, 1) a prohibition against the establishment of a state religion, or prohibiting the free exercise of religion by the people; a guarantee of a free press and the freedom of speech; a guarantee of the people’s right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances. 2) A guarantee of the individual’s right to keep and bear arms. 3) A prohibition against quartering soldiers in private homes in time of peace without the consent of the owners, or in war except as prescribed by law. 4) A guarantee of one’s security in his home against unreasonable searches and seizures, with warrants to be issued only upon probable cause and upon oath, with a particular description of the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.
George III had issued search warrants called “Writs of Assistance” to his officers in the Colonies authorizing them to search any person’s property for smuggled goods on which British taxes had not been paid. These were general warrants authorizing searches without specifying the search’s cause or location of the property to be searched. In 1761 about 60 Boston merchants opposed the writs. They were represented in court by James Otis who argued that, “. . . one of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one’s house. A man’s house is his castle . . . This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege. Custom-house officers may enter our houses when they please; we are commanded to permit their entry.”4
5) A guarantee that, “no person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger”; a guarantee against double jeopardy. This provides that no person acquitted of a crime may again be tried for the offense of which he was acquitted; a guarantee against being compelled to testify against oneself in a court of law; a guarantee against deprivation of life or property without due judicial process; and a guarantee that government cannot take private property for public use without compensating the owner. 6) A guarantee of the right to a “speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed”; a guarantee of the right of the accused to face his accuser and the witnesses against him; a guarantee of the accused’s right to legally summon witnesses to testify in his behalf and the right to legal counsel. 7) A guarantee of the right of trial by jury “in suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars...and no fact tried by a jury, shall otherwise be reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of common law.” 8) A prohibition against excessive bail, excessive fines, and against “cruel and unusual punishment.” 9) A guarantee that the rights enumerated in the Constitution “shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” 10) A guarantee that the states reserved all powers not specifically delegated to the United States by them in the Constitution. The last two of these amendments are fundamental to maintaining sovereignty. The 9th Amendment guarantees individual sovereignty and the 10th Amendment guarantees state sovereignty