Table of Contents
Justice Scalia: A constitutional convention is a horrible idea
Posted by Rita Dunaway on May 13, 2015 (source)
So where does U.S. Supreme Court Justice Scalia actually stand on the Convention of States Project’s effort to use Article V to rein in federal power? It’s hard to say.
While our opponents will likely tout recent quotes as evidence that he opposes using Article V, he actually didn’t say that at all. See for yourself:
“A constitutional convention is a horrible idea,” he said. “This is not a good century to write a constitution.”
We agree with him completely.
As we have explained repeatedly, a “constitutional convention” is a different creature entirely from an Article V Convention. As Justice Scalia’s own words indicate, a “constitutional convention” is a meeting of delegates empowered to “write a constitution.” An Article V Convention, on the other hand, is a meeting of delegates to propose amendments to the Constitution we already have, pursuant to the procedure prescribed in Article V itself.
The Philadelphia Convention of 1787 was a true “constitutional convention.” There, state delegations gathered pursuant to the states’ residual powers as individual sovereigns—not pursuant to any provision of the Articles of Confederation for proposing amendments. (And no, our Constitution is not the result of a “runaway convention.” The states instructed their delegates to “render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of the Union,” and that is exactly what they did).
An Article V convention, on the other hand, derives its authority from the terms of Article V itself. Delegates are limited to proposing amendments germane to the topic specified by the 34 state legislatures that trigger the convention. They are also limited to the specific instructions given to them by their respective states.
We agree entirely with Justice Scalia that it is neither necessary nor desirable for America to undertake the writing of a new Constitution. What is desperately needed is for the states to use the process our existing Constitution provides for them to end federal overreach. We need to close the court-created loopholes that have damaged the Constitution we know and love.
An open letter concerning the 2nd Amendment and the Convention of States Project
source
Posted by Charles J. Cooper on October 09, 2015
Charles J. Cooper is a founding member and chairman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC. Named by The National Law Journal as one of the 10 best civil litigators in Washington, he has over 35 years of legal experience in government and private practice, with several appearances before the United States Supreme Court and scores of other successful cases on both the trial and appellate levels.
Our constitutional rights, especially our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, are in peril.
With every tragic violent crime, liberals renew their demands for Congress and state legislatures to enact so-called “commonsense gun control” measures designed to chip away at our individual constitutional right to armed self defense. Indeed, were it not for the determination and sheer political muscle of the National Rifle Association, Senator Feinstein's 2013 bill to outlaw so-called “assault weapons” and other firearms might well have passed. But the most potent threat facing the Second Amendment comes not from Congress, but from the Supreme Court. Four justices of the Supreme Court do not believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms. They believe that Congress and state legislatures are free not only to restrict firearms ownership by law-abiding Americans, but to ban firearms altogether. If the Liberals get one more vote on the Supreme Court, the Second Amendment will be no more.
Constitutional law has been the dominant focus of my practice for most of my career as a lawyer, first in the Justice Department as President Reagan's chief constitutional lawyer and the chairman of the President's Working Group on Federalism, and since then as a constitutional litigator in private practice. For almost three decades, I have represented dozens of states and many other clients in constitutional cases, including many Second Amendment cases. In 2001, for example, I argued the first federal appellate case to hold that the Second Amendment guarantees every law-abiding responsible adult citizen an individual right to keep and bear arms. And in 2013 I testified before the Senate in opposition to Senator Feinstein's anti-gun bill, arguing that it would violate the Second Amendment. So I am not accustomed to being accused of supporting a scheme that would “put our Second Amendment rights on the chopping block.” This charge is being hurled by a small gun-rights group against me and many other constitutional conservatives because we have urged the states to use their sovereign power under Article V of the Constitution to call for a convention for proposing constitutional amendments designed to rein in the federal government's power.
The real threat to our constitutional rights today is posed not by an Article V convention of the states, but by an out-of-control federal government, exercising powers that it does not have and abusing powers that it does. The federal government's unrelenting encroachment upon the sovereign rights of the states and the individual rights of citizens, and the Supreme Court's failure to prevent it, have led me to join the Legal Board of Reference for the Convention of States Project. The Project's mission is to urge 34 state legislatures to call for an Article V convention limited to proposing constitutional amendments that “impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit its power and jurisdiction, and impose term limits on its officials and members of Congress.” I am joined in this effort by many well-known constitutional conservatives, including Mark Levin, Professor Randy Barnett, Professor Robert George, Michael Farris, Mark Meckler, Professor Robert Natelson, Andrew McCarthy, Professor John Eastman, Ambassador Boyden Gray, and Professor Nelson Lund. All of us have carefully studied the original meaning of Article V, and not one of us would support an Article V convention if we believed it would pose a significant threat to our Second Amendment rights or any of our constitutional freedoms. To the contrary, our mission is to reclaim our democratic and individual freedoms from an overreaching federal government.
The Framers of our Constitution carefully limited the federal government's powers by specifically enumerating those powers in Article I, and the states promptly ensured that the Constitution would expressly protect the “right of the people to keep and bear arms” by adopting the Second Amendment. But the Framers understood human nature, and they could foresee a day when the federal government would yield to the “encroaching spirit of power,” as James Madison put in the Federalist Papers, and would invade the sovereign domain of the states and infringe the rights of the citizens. The Framers also knew that the states would be powerless to remedy the federal government's encroachments if the process of amending the Constitution could be initiated only by Congress; as Alexander Hamilton noted in the Federalist Papers, “the national government will always be disinclined to yield up any portion of the authority” it claims. So the Framers wisely equipped the states with the means of reclaiming their sovereign powers and protecting the rights of their citizens, even in the face of congressional opposition. Article V vests the states with unilateral power to convene for the purpose of proposing constitutional amendments and to control the amending process from beginning to end on all substantive matters.
The day foreseen by the Framers - the day when the federal government far exceeded the limits of its enumerated powers - arrived many years ago. The Framers took care in Article V to equip the people, acting through their state legislatures, with the power to put a stop to it. It is high time they used it.
Justice Scalia: A constitutional convention is a horrible idea
Posted by Rita Dunaway on May 13, 2015 (source)
So where does U.S. Supreme Court Justice Scalia actually stand on the Convention of States Project’s effort to use Article V to rein in federal power? It’s hard to say.
While our opponents will likely tout recent quotes as evidence that he opposes using Article V, he actually didn’t say that at all. See for yourself:
“A constitutional convention is a horrible idea,” he said. “This is not a good century to write a constitution.”
We agree with him completely.
As we have explained repeatedly, a “constitutional convention” is a different creature entirely from an Article V Convention. As Justice Scalia’s own words indicate, a “constitutional convention” is a meeting of delegates empowered to “write a constitution.” An Article V Convention, on the other hand, is a meeting of delegates to propose amendments to the Constitution we already have, pursuant to the procedure prescribed in Article V itself.
The Philadelphia Convention of 1787 was a true “constitutional convention.” There, state delegations gathered pursuant to the states’ residual powers as individual sovereigns—not pursuant to any provision of the Articles of Confederation for proposing amendments. (And no, our Constitution is not the result of a “runaway convention.” The states instructed their delegates to “render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of the Union,” and that is exactly what they did).
An Article V convention, on the other hand, derives its authority from the terms of Article V itself. Delegates are limited to proposing amendments germane to the topic specified by the 34 state legislatures that trigger the convention. They are also limited to the specific instructions given to them by their respective states.
We agree entirely with Justice Scalia that it is neither necessary nor desirable for America to undertake the writing of a new Constitution. What is desperately needed is for the states to use the process our existing Constitution provides for them to end federal overreach. We need to close the court-created loopholes that have damaged the Constitution we know and love.
An open letter concerning the 2nd Amendment and the Convention of States Project
source
Posted by Charles J. Cooper on October 09, 2015
Charles J. Cooper is a founding member and chairman of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC. Named by The National Law Journal as one of the 10 best civil litigators in Washington, he has over 35 years of legal experience in government and private practice, with several appearances before the United States Supreme Court and scores of other successful cases on both the trial and appellate levels.
Our constitutional rights, especially our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, are in peril.
With every tragic violent crime, liberals renew their demands for Congress and state legislatures to enact so-called “commonsense gun control” measures designed to chip away at our individual constitutional right to armed self defense. Indeed, were it not for the determination and sheer political muscle of the National Rifle Association, Senator Feinstein's 2013 bill to outlaw so-called “assault weapons” and other firearms might well have passed. But the most potent threat facing the Second Amendment comes not from Congress, but from the Supreme Court. Four justices of the Supreme Court do not believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms. They believe that Congress and state legislatures are free not only to restrict firearms ownership by law-abiding Americans, but to ban firearms altogether. If the Liberals get one more vote on the Supreme Court, the Second Amendment will be no more.
Constitutional law has been the dominant focus of my practice for most of my career as a lawyer, first in the Justice Department as President Reagan's chief constitutional lawyer and the chairman of the President's Working Group on Federalism, and since then as a constitutional litigator in private practice. For almost three decades, I have represented dozens of states and many other clients in constitutional cases, including many Second Amendment cases. In 2001, for example, I argued the first federal appellate case to hold that the Second Amendment guarantees every law-abiding responsible adult citizen an individual right to keep and bear arms. And in 2013 I testified before the Senate in opposition to Senator Feinstein's anti-gun bill, arguing that it would violate the Second Amendment. So I am not accustomed to being accused of supporting a scheme that would “put our Second Amendment rights on the chopping block.” This charge is being hurled by a small gun-rights group against me and many other constitutional conservatives because we have urged the states to use their sovereign power under Article V of the Constitution to call for a convention for proposing constitutional amendments designed to rein in the federal government's power.
The real threat to our constitutional rights today is posed not by an Article V convention of the states, but by an out-of-control federal government, exercising powers that it does not have and abusing powers that it does. The federal government's unrelenting encroachment upon the sovereign rights of the states and the individual rights of citizens, and the Supreme Court's failure to prevent it, have led me to join the Legal Board of Reference for the Convention of States Project. The Project's mission is to urge 34 state legislatures to call for an Article V convention limited to proposing constitutional amendments that “impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit its power and jurisdiction, and impose term limits on its officials and members of Congress.” I am joined in this effort by many well-known constitutional conservatives, including Mark Levin, Professor Randy Barnett, Professor Robert George, Michael Farris, Mark Meckler, Professor Robert Natelson, Andrew McCarthy, Professor John Eastman, Ambassador Boyden Gray, and Professor Nelson Lund. All of us have carefully studied the original meaning of Article V, and not one of us would support an Article V convention if we believed it would pose a significant threat to our Second Amendment rights or any of our constitutional freedoms. To the contrary, our mission is to reclaim our democratic and individual freedoms from an overreaching federal government.
The Framers of our Constitution carefully limited the federal government's powers by specifically enumerating those powers in Article I, and the states promptly ensured that the Constitution would expressly protect the “right of the people to keep and bear arms” by adopting the Second Amendment. But the Framers understood human nature, and they could foresee a day when the federal government would yield to the “encroaching spirit of power,” as James Madison put in the Federalist Papers, and would invade the sovereign domain of the states and infringe the rights of the citizens. The Framers also knew that the states would be powerless to remedy the federal government's encroachments if the process of amending the Constitution could be initiated only by Congress; as Alexander Hamilton noted in the Federalist Papers, “the national government will always be disinclined to yield up any portion of the authority” it claims. So the Framers wisely equipped the states with the means of reclaiming their sovereign powers and protecting the rights of their citizens, even in the face of congressional opposition. Article V vests the states with unilateral power to convene for the purpose of proposing constitutional amendments and to control the amending process from beginning to end on all substantive matters.
The day foreseen by the Framers - the day when the federal government far exceeded the limits of its enumerated powers - arrived many years ago. The Framers took care in Article V to equip the people, acting through their state legislatures, with the power to put a stop to it. It is high time they used it.
How a famous English convention clarifies the role of a Convention of States
Posted by Convention of States Project on September 28, 2015
The following article was written by Prof. Rob Natelson, one of the nation's leading Article V experts, and originally published in The American Thinker.
In the Anglo-American constitutional tradition, a “convention” can mean a contract, but the word is more often applied to an assembly, other than a legislature, convened to address ad hoc political problems. The “Convention for proposing Amendments” authorized by Article V of the Constitution is designed to be that kind of assembly.
The first political conventions were held in England in 1660 and 1688-89. These gatherings looked something like parliaments, but they were titled “conventions” because only the Crown could call a parliament, and they were not called by the Crown. Moreover, they were convened to address specific constitutional issues, not to legislate.
The 1660 convention led to the restoration of the Stuart line of kings after the failed English experiment with republicanism under Oliver and Richard Cromwell. The 1688-89 convention dealt with the political crisis arising when the second James Stuart (i.e., James II) was forced to flee the kingdom by popular outrage over his arbitrary and unconstitutional misrule and by the invading army of William of Orange.
The American Founders were much influenced by the English convention experience, which they grouped with the gathering of the barons that forced King John to agree to Magna Carta (1215). Between 1689 and 1787, Americans themselves frequently used the convention device, either to address problems within particular polities (conventions of the people) or to address issues of regional or continental importance (conventions of colonies or states).
Particularly important to the American Founders were the proceedings of the 1688-89 convention because it led to parliamentary supremacy over the Crown and adoption of the English Bill of Rights — or, as that document was entitled after adoption, the “Declaration of Right.” Both our own Declaration of Independence and our Bill of Rights owe a great deal to the English Declaration of Right.
After James II’s flight left the throne vacant, the two houses of the previous parliament instructed William of Orange to call a “Convention of the Estates of the Realm.” The estates of the realm were the lords and the commons, and they met separately. Each elected its own officers and decided on its own procedures. In essence, each estate had one vote, and the concurrence of each was necessary for the convention to approve any measure.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, the great 19th century English literary figure, described in Chapter 10 of his History of England the general philosophy under which the 1688-89 convention operated:
The business of an extraordinary convention of the Estates of the Realm was not to do the ordinary work of Parliaments… but to put right the great machine of government. . . .
On these grounds the Commons wisely determined to postpone all reforms till the ancient constitution of the kingdom should have been restored in all its parts, and forthwith to fill the throne without imposing on William and Mary any other obligation than that of governing according to the existing laws of England. In order that the questions which had been in dispute between the Stuarts and the nation might never again be stirred, it was determined that the instrument by which the Prince and Princess of Orange were called to the throne, and by which the order of succession was settled, should set forth, in the most distinct and solemn manner, the fundamental principles of the constitution. This instrument [was] known by the name of the Declaration of Right . . .
After describing the contents of the Declaration, Macaulay added:
But, though a new constitution was not needed, it was plain that changes were required. The misgovernment of the Stuarts, and the troubles which that misgovernment had produced, sufficiently proved that there was somewhere a defect in our polity; and that defect it was the duty of the Convention to discover and to supply.
Thus the Convention had two great duties to perform. The first was to clear the fundamental laws of the realm from ambiguity. The second was to eradicate from the minds, both of the governors and of the governed, the false and pernicious notion that the royal prerogative was something more sublime and holy than those fundamental laws. The former object was attained by the solemn recital and claim with which the Declaration of Right commences; the latter by the resolution which pronounced the throne vacant, and invited William and Mary to fill it.
Today, the role of the Convention for Proposing Amendments should be seen, and usually is seen, in much the same light: not to alter the fundamentals of the Constitution, but to
- clarify the Constitution's true meaning by sweeping away false interpretations that have accrued over the years and
- adopt changes that require the federal government to comply with the vision of the Founders in modern conditions.
The first goal can be met by amendments overruling rogue Supreme Court decisions, just as amendments previously have been used for that purpose. The second can be met by, for example, requiring a balanced budget, more firmly limiting federal authority, and reorganizing the judiciary so that it more fairly applies the constitutional system of checks and balances.
It's time for the states to declare liberty from a tyrannical federal government
Posted by Rita Dunaway on July 07, 2015 (source)
This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com. Click here to read it there.
Americans today still celebrate the concept of liberty, but most neither appreciate nor enjoy it in the way envisioned by those who signed the Declaration of Independence at our nation's founding.
The revolutionary vision was a nation whose government would protect the natural, inalienable rights of the people, keep us safe from foreign and domestic enemies, and provide the most basic structure necessary to an ordered society. But beyond that, our government was designed to leave us free to flourish.
To prosper by means of hard work. To better our own position in society through education. To provide for the needs of our own families by the work of our own hands, and, as we have opportunity, to also provide for the needs of those around us who are unable to work hard themselves. To pursue Truth through an open, uninhibited exchange of ideas. To worship according to the dictates of our own consciences, without sacrificing our livelihood on account of our beliefs. To bear arms. To experiment with public policy at the state and local government levels, where our representatives are most responsive to our needs and desires.
Our national government, in particular, was strictly limited to performing a handful of very specific functions listed in the Constitution. All other powers were reserved the states or the people.
Thomas Jefferson described the basic plan this way:
“The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the states are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign nations. Let the general government be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce, which the merchants will manage the better, the more they are left free to manage for themselves, and our general government may be reduced to a very simple organization, and a very inexpensive one; a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants.”
Sadly, many modern Americans are all too eager to trade their birthright—the birthright of liberty—for a drastically different kind of government. And Washington, D.C., has been all too willing to oblige, achieving a fundamental transformation in the role, size, and reach of the national government by creatively “interpreting” its constitutional powers.
As illustrated by last month's landmark Supreme Court decisions and by ongoing national policy initiatives, what we now have is a national government that assumes responsibility for our basic human needs, hijacks state governments to “regulate” productive industries out of existence in pursuit of illegitimate national policies, orders states to license “love” between individuals, and is hard at work to engineer “income equality” for us all.
While this government may be well-suited to a people incapable of governing themselves, it is no government for the sons and daughters of Liberty.
That's why, in celebration of the spirit of the Founding Generation, the spirit that birthed the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, the Convention of States Project will unveil its own declaration tonight, July 6, 2015—a Declaration of Liberty.
After the Boston Tea Party, King George reportedly said, “The die is now cast. The colonies must either submit or triumph.”
Now it is time for the states to triumph over the constitutionally illegitimate acts of an imperious national government. For the choices are only two: triumph, or submit.
To learn about the Convention of Sates Project's Declaration of Liberty and our plan to triumph, visit www.conventionofstates.com.
Rita Martin Dunaway serves as Staff Counsel for The Convention of States Project and is passionate about restoring constitutional governance in the U.S. Follow her on Facebook (Rita Martin Dunaway) or e-mail her at rita.dunaway@gmail.com.
How a famous English convention clarifies the role of a Convention of States
Posted by Convention of States Project on September 28, 2015
The following article was written by Prof. Rob Natelson, one of the nation's leading Article V experts, and originally published in The American Thinker.
In the Anglo-American constitutional tradition, a “convention” can mean a contract, but the word is more often applied to an assembly, other than a legislature, convened to address ad hoc political problems. The “Convention for proposing Amendments” authorized by Article V of the Constitution is designed to be that kind of assembly.
The first political conventions were held in England in 1660 and 1688-89. These gatherings looked something like parliaments, but they were titled “conventions” because only the Crown could call a parliament, and they were not called by the Crown. Moreover, they were convened to address specific constitutional issues, not to legislate.
The 1660 convention led to the restoration of the Stuart line of kings after the failed English experiment with republicanism under Oliver and Richard Cromwell. The 1688-89 convention dealt with the political crisis arising when the second James Stuart (i.e., James II) was forced to flee the kingdom by popular outrage over his arbitrary and unconstitutional misrule and by the invading army of William of Orange.
The American Founders were much influenced by the English convention experience, which they grouped with the gathering of the barons that forced King John to agree to Magna Carta (1215). Between 1689 and 1787, Americans themselves frequently used the convention device, either to address problems within particular polities (conventions of the people) or to address issues of regional or continental importance (conventions of colonies or states).
Particularly important to the American Founders were the proceedings of the 1688-89 convention because it led to parliamentary supremacy over the Crown and adoption of the English Bill of Rights — or, as that document was entitled after adoption, the “Declaration of Right.” Both our own Declaration of Independence and our Bill of Rights owe a great deal to the English Declaration of Right.
After James II’s flight left the throne vacant, the two houses of the previous parliament instructed William of Orange to call a “Convention of the Estates of the Realm.” The estates of the realm were the lords and the commons, and they met separately. Each elected its own officers and decided on its own procedures. In essence, each estate had one vote, and the concurrence of each was necessary for the convention to approve any measure.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, the great 19th century English literary figure, described in Chapter 10 of his History of England the general philosophy under which the 1688-89 convention operated:
The business of an extraordinary convention of the Estates of the Realm was not to do the ordinary work of Parliaments… but to put right the great machine of government. . . .
On these grounds the Commons wisely determined to postpone all reforms till the ancient constitution of the kingdom should have been restored in all its parts, and forthwith to fill the throne without imposing on William and Mary any other obligation than that of governing according to the existing laws of England. In order that the questions which had been in dispute between the Stuarts and the nation might never again be stirred, it was determined that the instrument by which the Prince and Princess of Orange were called to the throne, and by which the order of succession was settled, should set forth, in the most distinct and solemn manner, the fundamental principles of the constitution. This instrument [was] known by the name of the Declaration of Right . . .
After describing the contents of the Declaration, Macaulay added:
But, though a new constitution was not needed, it was plain that changes were required. The misgovernment of the Stuarts, and the troubles which that misgovernment had produced, sufficiently proved that there was somewhere a defect in our polity; and that defect it was the duty of the Convention to discover and to supply.
Thus the Convention had two great duties to perform. The first was to clear the fundamental laws of the realm from ambiguity. The second was to eradicate from the minds, both of the governors and of the governed, the false and pernicious notion that the royal prerogative was something more sublime and holy than those fundamental laws. The former object was attained by the solemn recital and claim with which the Declaration of Right commences; the latter by the resolution which pronounced the throne vacant, and invited William and Mary to fill it.
Today, the role of the Convention for Proposing Amendments should be seen, and usually is seen, in much the same light: not to alter the fundamentals of the Constitution, but to
- clarify the Constitution's true meaning by sweeping away false interpretations that have accrued over the years and
- adopt changes that require the federal government to comply with the vision of the Founders in modern conditions.
The first goal can be met by amendments overruling rogue Supreme Court decisions, just as amendments previously have been used for that purpose. The second can be met by, for example, requiring a balanced budget, more firmly limiting federal authority, and reorganizing the judiciary so that it more fairly applies the constitutional system of checks and balances.
It's time for the states to declare liberty from a tyrannical federal government
Posted by Rita Dunaway on July 07, 2015 (source)
This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com. Click here to read it there.
Americans today still celebrate the concept of liberty, but most neither appreciate nor enjoy it in the way envisioned by those who signed the Declaration of Independence at our nation's founding.
The revolutionary vision was a nation whose government would protect the natural, inalienable rights of the people, keep us safe from foreign and domestic enemies, and provide the most basic structure necessary to an ordered society. But beyond that, our government was designed to leave us free to flourish.
To prosper by means of hard work. To better our own position in society through education. To provide for the needs of our own families by the work of our own hands, and, as we have opportunity, to also provide for the needs of those around us who are unable to work hard themselves. To pursue Truth through an open, uninhibited exchange of ideas. To worship according to the dictates of our own consciences, without sacrificing our livelihood on account of our beliefs. To bear arms. To experiment with public policy at the state and local government levels, where our representatives are most responsive to our needs and desires.
Our national government, in particular, was strictly limited to performing a handful of very specific functions listed in the Constitution. All other powers were reserved the states or the people.
Thomas Jefferson described the basic plan this way:
“The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the states are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign nations. Let the general government be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce, which the merchants will manage the better, the more they are left free to manage for themselves, and our general government may be reduced to a very simple organization, and a very inexpensive one; a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants.”
Sadly, many modern Americans are all too eager to trade their birthright—the birthright of liberty—for a drastically different kind of government. And Washington, D.C., has been all too willing to oblige, achieving a fundamental transformation in the role, size, and reach of the national government by creatively “interpreting” its constitutional powers.
As illustrated by last month's landmark Supreme Court decisions and by ongoing national policy initiatives, what we now have is a national government that assumes responsibility for our basic human needs, hijacks state governments to “regulate” productive industries out of existence in pursuit of illegitimate national policies, orders states to license “love” between individuals, and is hard at work to engineer “income equality” for us all.
While this government may be well-suited to a people incapable of governing themselves, it is no government for the sons and daughters of Liberty.
That's why, in celebration of the spirit of the Founding Generation, the spirit that birthed the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, the Convention of States Project will unveil its own declaration tonight, July 6, 2015—a Declaration of Liberty.
After the Boston Tea Party, King George reportedly said, “The die is now cast. The colonies must either submit or triumph.”
Now it is time for the states to triumph over the constitutionally illegitimate acts of an imperious national government. For the choices are only two: triumph, or submit.
To learn about the Convention of Sates Project's Declaration of Liberty and our plan to triumph, visit www.conventionofstates.com.
Rita Martin Dunaway serves as Staff Counsel for The Convention of States Project and is passionate about restoring constitutional governance in the U.S. Follow her on Facebook (Rita Martin Dunaway) or e-mail her at rita.dunaway@gmail.com.