Those of you reading this issue of the Medical Sentinel may or may not have read its previous columns on the U.S. Constitution. Therefore, what may have been said before and repeated subsequently is intentional to provide instant reference and clarity. Repetition enhances memory and constitutional concepts are worth repeating and remembering.(1,2)
The British Colonies in America declared their bonds to Great Britain disconnected on July 4, 1776. King George III would not concur and accede, so it took a long and bloody war with the Crown to actually establish that change of status from Colony to Statehood when General George Washington forced British General Cornwallis to surrender at Yorktown on October 19, 1781.
The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were agreed to at a Continental Congress on November 15, 1777. The American States, newly disunited from the United Kingdom, set up their own Union and completed the ratification of the Articles on March 1, 1781. It soon became evident that that arrangement was faulted and inadequate, whereupon a convention was called on February 21, 1787 to “revise” the Articles. However, instead of just amending the Articles at that meeting in Philadelphia, the Delegates from the States drafted and substituted an entirely new document, the Constitution of the United States Of America which was adopted on “the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth.”(3) With this precedent being the only time a Constitutional Convention has been convened and the fact that that Convention scrapped and totally replaced the Articles it was called to revise, there is grave doubt that a Constitutional Convention (Con Con) called today to just amend the present Constitution (whether to balance the budget, or for authorizing prayer in the schools, etc.) could be restricted just to the stated reason given for the call. At a Con Con, our whole Constitution could again be replaced, disastrously. At least one such substitute “Constitution” has already been prepared(4) and is being held ready to present should, if, and/or when, a Con Con is convened for any reason. Powerful, well-financed forces are working tirelessly for a Con Con for this purpose, using any apparently desirable/laudable excuse. Faced with this catastrophic probability, we should not allow a Con Con to be called no matter how convincing an argument is deceptively put forward to do so.
The Constitution was ratified by the requisite nine State Legislatures on June 21, 1788. State ratification of The Bill of Rights (the first ten Amendments) was completed on December 15, 1791.
Article I, Section 2, Paragraph 1, of the Constitution states, “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States….”
Article I, Section 3, Paragraph 1, of the original Constitution states, “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof for six years….” For a century and a quarter, Senators were appointed by their State Legislature.
Contrariwise, the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution, declared ratified on May 31, 1913, states, “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years….”
The Sixteenth Amendment that inaugurated the personal confiscatory income tax and the Federal Reserve Act that took the control of the dollar away from the Congress, were also ratified and enacted, respectively, in 1913. Thus 1913, with this troika (XVI and XVII Amendments, and the establishment of the Federal Reserve), is the pivotal year in which our glorious Constitutional Republic of freedom under fixed law was rechannelled into an abhorrent democracy of the fickle majority under the connivance and capriciousness of avaricious men, currying favor from a misinformed electorate at the expense of the rule of law.
Before and after the Seventeenth Amendment, the brilliant and ingenious framers of our Ship of State sat Representatives in one wing of the Capitol, the House, who were sent to Washington by and beholden for their tenure to the PEOPLE of the home district of each — to concern themselves with and jealously guard and represent the interests of the individual citizens of their respective district.
Likewise, before the Seventeenth Amendment, in the other wing of the Capitol, the Senate, sat Senators chosen by and beholden for their tenure to the LEGISLATURE of the home State of each — to concern themselves with and jealously guard and represent the interests of their home State. They were to be State’s men. Today, taking into account how they vote, whether or not they uphold the Constitution (i.e., their Constitutional voting record), you can count the statesmen in Washington on the fingers of one hand.
You see, the House and Senate were set up to have different bosses and responsibilities. Each is to promote and protect the interest of those who sent him to Washington.
To see to it that one House does no harm to the interests of the other, for a Bill to be submitted to the President to become Law by his signature, it must first have been passed in both Houses of the Congress in identical form. So, a measure passed by the Senate that would encroach on the freedoms or activities retained by the people of a State would be turned down by the House that is watching out for the people back home — protecting the people. Likewise, a measure passed by the House that abridged the interest, status, retained autonomy, prerogatives, and rights of the States would be voted down by the Senate that is there to watch out for the interests of each State back home — protecting the States. And without the concurrence of both Houses, the measure is dead.
But after the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment, both Houses have the same boss. Both Houses represent the same people, concern themselves with the same issues, and are beholden only to the same people for their tenure. So the States have been stripped of representation — disenfranchised. It is axiomatic that a creature is never greater than its creator (whether the relationship be man vis-à-vis God; or the Federal government vis-à-vis the States). This is the belief — the faith — foundational to the Founders and their descendants.
(In Part II of this article which will appear in the next issue of the Medical Sentinel, we will relay the story of how the States formed a Union.)
References
1. Caine, CW. U.S. Constitution 101. Medical Sentinel 1996;1(1):29-30.
2. Caine, CW. The Seventeenth Amendment. Medical Sentinel 1997;2(1):32-33.
3. Article VII. The Constitution of the United States.
4. Tugwell, RG. The proposed constitutional model for the Newstates of America.
Dr. Caine is an anesthesiologist in Jackson, Mississippi, and a member of the Editorial Board of the Medical Sentinel. His e-mail address is [email protected].
Originally published in the Medical Sentinel 1998;3(1):30-31. Copyright © 1998 Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).
(This column on the Constitution appears in the Medical Sentinel to remind us that it is the unConstitutional (and thus illegal) activities in medicine and all other facets of our lives that have trampled on and outlawed our God-endowed freedom and liberty.)
