There is a nefarious move afoot to (in effect) eliminate the Electoral College and replace it with a National Popular Vote (NPV). The Left has been agitating for this. But now, there is an organized & concerted effort to get this done.
Here is the formal paper which I have just posted. I hope it will make you weep when you see the gifts our Framers gave us and how they provided for the States to be able to CONTROL the national government.
I provide links to the NPV website. Look at all the State Legislatures who have signed this "Compact".
Please study my paper. If you have any questions at all, ask.
You must be on watch to what your State legislators are doing. If your State has passed this, then you must contact some reasonable politicians and get them to withdraw.
People - legislators - are so shallow.
You will come across people who don't know any better clamoring for this. So YOU must be part of the army to turn back the tide.
http://publiushuldah.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/national-popular-vote...
Tags: 12th Amendment , 17th Amendment, National Popular Vote, electoral college
Permalink Reply by Publius Huldah on Scalia is not nearly as smart as some people say. His "thinking" is very conformist - he couldn't think outside of the box if his life depended on it. Still, he is one of the 4 best on that Court.
I have railed before against the nasty poison of the Pledge of Allegiance - every time we say it, we program ourselves to believe a monstrous Lie. See last para of last footnote here: http://publiushuldah.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/the-presidents-enumer... :
We are a trusting People easily lead astray. Make something sound “patriotic”, and we are all for it. Since 1892, American public school children have been indoctrinated with the statist Lie that ours is an indivisible national government. This was done by means of the Pledge of Allegiance: “….one nation … indivisible…”. Is it any wonder that the author of this nasty bit of poison, Francis Bellamy, was a socialist who worked with the National Education Association to institute this statist indoctrination into the public schools? This pernicious pledge is why you don’t know, and no one knows, that our Constitution created a “federation” of sovereign & independent States, united only for the limited purposes enumerated in the Constitution. Wikipedia has good info on Bellamy. PH
Scalia doesn't know that we can't properly amend the Constitution by means of a "Pledge"?
Thanks for your links. I'll read the longer paper later and will write a paper showing why States have an ultimate "natural right" of secession.
Permalink Reply by Mollie Baxter on Scalia ought to read what James Madison said....and Lincoln should have to! And our Conservative media ought to learn their history. I taught it to 8th graders just 6 years ago. I had to research it and learn it for myself because I was certainly taught incorrect "facts" when I was in school about five and a half decades ago. Fox keeps beating the drums about the terrible liberal books in the public schools. Well, I taught from a very good one. I know because I was sure it was wrong and double checked everything.
Here is some more food for thought.
Any federal republic by its very nature invited challenge to central control, a danger that James Madison recognized. He sought at the convention a clause that would prohibit secession from the proposed union once the states had ratified the Constitution. In debate over other points, Madison repeatedly warned that secession or "disunion" was a major concern. The Constitution as framed and finally accepted by the states divided the exercise of sovereign power between the states and the national government. By virtue of the fact that it was a legal document and in most respects enumerated the powers of the central government, the division was weighted toward the states. Yet much of the charter was drawn up in general terms and was susceptible to interpretation that might vary with time and circumstance.
The national judiciary, they felt, was packed with their opponents. Neither resolution claimed original sovereignty for the states, but both argued for a strict reading of enumerated powers. During the War of 1812, a disaffected Federalist majority in New England advanced the compact theory and considered secession from the Union.
http://www.history.com/topics/secession
Though "contraband" slaves had been declared free, Lincoln continued to insist that this was a war to save the Union, not to free slaves. But by 1862, Lincoln was considering emancipation as a necessary step toward winning the war. The South was using enslaved people to aid the war effort. Black men and women were forced to build fortifications, work as blacksmiths, nurses, boatmen, and laundresses, and to work in factories, hospitals, and armories. In the meantime, the North was refusing to accept the services of black volunteers and freed slaves, the very people who most wanted to defeat the slaveholders. In addition, several governments in Europe were considering recognizing the Confederacy and intervening against the Union. If Lincoln declared this a war to free the slaves, European public opinion would overwhelmingly back the North.
On July 22, 1862, Lincoln showed a draft of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet. It proposed to emancipate the slaves in all rebel areas on January 1, 1863. Secretary of State William H. Seward agreed with the proposal, but cautioned Lincoln to wait until the Union had a major victory before formally issuing the proclamation. Lincoln's chance came after the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam in September of 1862. He issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22. The proclamation warned the Confederate states to surrender by January 1, 1863, or their slaves would be freed.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2967.html
It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states.
Permalink Reply by Publius Huldah on Food for thought? Or lies? Where are the citations to original sources to support the statements made by History.com?
This is why we must critically examine everything we read. Always make the writer PROVE what he is saying!
I will write a paper on secession and I will cite to original sources. We must reject mere conclusionary allegations made by the people who churn out the lies which poison the minds of our people. I think academics of today are incapable of writing an honest history text book. Heck! It's a lot of work digging thru to find original sources of information!
Permalink Reply by Mollie Baxter on The Federalist Papers, a primary source for interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, described in detail the dangers of disunion. Hamilton used stark language in Federalist 6 to predict that disunion would lead to war, much as occurred constantly in continental Europe.
A man must be far gone in Utopian speculations who can seriously doubt that, if these States should either be wholly disunited, or only united in partial confederacies, the subdivisions into which they might be thrown would have frequent and violent contests with each other. To presume a want of motives for such contests as an argument against their existence, would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious. To look for a continuation of harmony between a number of independent, unconnected sovereignties in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages.
Hamilton repeated his fear of disunion in Federalist 7, predicting that if America lacked a strong union it would "be gradually entangled in all the pernicious labyrinths of European politics and wars." Madison echoed these fears in Federalist 41, observing that peace on the American continent depended on distance from Europe and a strong union. Disunion would lead to large standing armies and war much as occurred in Europe.
Debates on the legality of secession often looked back to the example of the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence. Law professor Daniel Farber defined the borders of this debate:
What about the original understanding? The debates contain scattered statements about the permanence or impermanence of the Union. The occasional reference to the impermanency of the Constitution are hard to interpret. They might have referred to a legal right to revoke ratification. But they equally could have referred to an extraconstitutional right of revolution, or to the possibility that a new national convention would rewrite the Constitution, or simply to the factual possibility that the national government might break down. Similarly, references to the permanency of the Union could have referred to the practical unlikelihood of withdrawal rather than any lack of legal power. The public debates seemingly do not speak specifically to whether ratification under Article VII was revocable.[29]
In the public debate over the Nullification Crisis the separate issue of secession was also discussed. James Madison, often referred to as “The Father of the Constitution”, spoke out against secession as a constitutional right.[30] In a March 15, 1833, letter to Daniel Webster congratulating him on a speech opposing nullification, Madison discussed “revolution” versus “secession”:
I return my thanks for the copy of your late very powerful Speech in the Senate of the United S. It crushes "nullification" and must hasten the abandonment of "Secession." But this dodges the blow by confounding the claim to secede at will, with the right of seceding from intolerable oppression. The former answers itself, being a violation, without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged. The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy.[31]There were numerous references to the secession of the New England States before the War of 1812 but they all referred to the Hartford Convention which produced a document in 1814. Of course, I am now totally lost! Here is the document.
Permalink Reply by Publius Huldah on I would be totally lost also if I got my "information" pre-digested for me by law professors and history professors who don't know what they are talking about or who put their own interpretations on things. This is why I NEVER read secondary sources - I care not one whit what some law professor or history professor says about our Founding when I can read the original source documents for myself!
This is why I cite as Authority only original sources - NEVER someone else's interpretation - and why I never set forth my own interpretations (I have no "opinions" about The Constitution - and if I did, they would be irrelevant.)
The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution are "original sources". The Federalist Papers are "original sources". So is Madison's Journal of the Federal Convention. Thomas Jefferson's writings have a high authoritative status because he is primary author of Our Declaration of Independence.
But Professor so & so is not an authority.
What is Hamilton talking about in Federalist No. 6 & 7? He is worried that if the States remain under The Articles of Confederation and do not ratify the proposed federal Constitution, that they will eventually make war on each other.
Federalist No. 6 & 7 are not treatises on the impropriety of nullification and secession should the newly created federal government become destructive of the purposes for which it was created! The Declaration of Independence (2nd para) addresses that scenario (so do various of The Federalist Papers. E.g., the second half of Federalist No. 46.)
And do not forget what Hamilton says throughout the Federalist Papers about what The people and the States may do when the federal government usurps power! For starters, read this: http://publiushuldah.wordpress.com/2011/04/17/nullification-smackin...
And of course nullification is not a "constitutional right"! Rights don't come from the Constitution - they come from God and thus pre-date & pre-exist The Constitution. Read the 2nd para of the Declaration of Independence. Outline it. Ask:
(1) Where do Rights come from?
(2) What is the purpose of civil government?
(3) Where do civil governments obtain their powers?
(4) What happens when civil governments become destructive of the purpose for which they were instituted?
States do not get their "Rights" from the Constitution! The States are the SOVEREIGNS who created the federal government. The States do not look to the Constitution - their creation - to see what they are permitted to do. It is only the federal government who must look to the Constitution to see what IT is permitted to do.
But we have allowed ourselves to be manipulated in adopting the exact opposite view: That the federal government may do any thing it *amn well pleases, and the States and the People can do ONLY what the Constitution permits them to do!
It is this complete failure to understand the 2nd para of the Declaration of Independence and the relationship between the States and THE PEOPLE on the one hand; and their "creature" - the federal government - on the other hand which brings about all the widespread confusion about nullification and secession.
It is really very easy. The Key is the 2nd para of The Declaration of Independence. THAT's why the hard left hates it so much. But it is so easily understood - I am mystified as to how the Left has managed to confuse hundreds of millions of Americans about it. All it takes is a few minutes to read the 2nd para!
Permalink Reply by Publius Huldah on And remember that the Declaration of Independence is the fundamental act of our Founding. The second para must be the most wonderful thing ever written (after the Bible). That para clearly sets forth the natural inherent RIGHT of a People to throw off a government which becomes destructive of the purposes for which it was created. So of course, States have a natural retained right of secession!
The left HATES our Declaration of Independence. Elena kagan refused to acknowledge its relevance when Sen. Tom Coburn questioned her during her confirmation hearings. I have the link to this questioning in my paper on the Source of Rights.
And I have received nasty hate mail from people telling me that I am WRONG to speak of the Declaration of Independence because [they claim] "its not relevant to the meaning of the Constitution."
Permalink Reply by Thomas Angle on Just out of curiosity, what do the haters of the Declaration of Independence state was the right for us to break away from the England? If it was not based on the Declaration of Independence? I fail to see their reasoning, when the Declaration of Independence was the base of the foundation of this country.
Permalink Reply by Mollie Baxter on Dose the left need a reason? :)
Permalink Reply by Publius Huldah on Next time, I'll ask! That is a good question to ask them.
Permalink Reply by Jon Brunke on Publius I have been working on a local election and I'm just now catching up. You my dear, are and will always be my hero! I love this thread!
Permalink Reply by Publius Huldah on Wish there were a "like" button, Jon!
Permalink Reply by Publius Huldah on Everything Phyllis Schlafly does might not be 100% correct (she supported the idiotic "cut, cap and balance" scheme); but on the whole, she has done much great work for our Country. And her paper on why the NPV is a terrible idea is a very good paper. Notice she and I focus on different things: She on the actual workings of the NPV, e.g., pointing out that a candidate could win the presidency who didn't even get a majority of the votes. I focused on the original intent of the Constitution.
Our Country is "democratic" in two senses: (1) We see that political power originates with "THE PEOPLE" - who then delegate some of that power to civil government. That is a "democratic" concept. The view of the Europeans and the Asians is that political power originates with the STATE - the civil government - itself. All power is seen to originate with The King or the State.
(2) Our Representatives to the House were to be "democratically" elected - by popular vote of the People of the Congressional districts.
Right, A. Lincoln was a tyrant and a usurper. The States had and have an absolute right of secession. Those idiots on Fox who babble about how he was the greatest President ever don't know what they are talking about.
But the Southern States surrendered the moral high ground b/c of slavery. Today, most people think that the war was over slavery - so of course, they think Lincoln was right! But if the Southern States had abolished slavery in the early 1800s, they then could have claimed - and properly so - the moral high ground on the issue of the oppressive tarriffs levied on them by the federal government.
© 2013 Created by Judson Phillips.
