Posted on 05/14/2016 2:11:15 AM PDT by Jacquerie
Beginning with “We the People,” the Constitution is a compact, an agreement among equals, the people of the American civil society. The events of 1787-1788 could have been scripted straight out of John Locke’s Second Treatise. A preexisting civil society came to the conclusion that its current form of government was inadequate to secure its unalienable rights, which, as per the Declaration (also a Lockean document), is the broad purpose of government.
Through state sponsored conventions, special delegations of the sovereign people debated the pro/con of establishing a new government. Just as Locke described the steps that men, emerging from the State of Nature, naturally gather in society, and subsequently set up forms of government, so too did our Framing generation.
Distinguishing our Constitution as a compact is relevant because it establishes the power relationship between the sovereign people and the government of their creation. By the compact of the Constitution, We The People are the principals, and government is our agent, our servant. This phantasm, this artificial reality called government exists only by virtue of an agreement among the people. It is ours. It owes its very existence to us. We the People do not exist to serve. Government is to serve at our pleasure. At any time, we may adjust the bounds of the trust we temporarily grant to fellow citizens in government.
So, the agents of the sovereign people can never be superior to the sovereign people, a fact which is further recognized in our Declaration of Independence, the 9th and 10th Amendments, and Article V.
In a vivid display of continuing violence against the public trust, of the inversion of the master/servant relationship of our governing compact, the White House issued a diktat yesterday concerning public school restrooms. Defying the Law of Nature, the Constitution, and our Declaration, Obama’s ministers determined that teenage boys and girls must share restroom facilities. From what power source does Obama command this outrage? Mystical? Divine? It certainly isn’t Constitutional. Perhaps muslim caliphs are permitted to treat infidels, the kafirs, this way.
An artificial entity called government has usurped a compact to which it is not a party. Are we in possession of a free republic if our liberty depends on the person elected president? Are we to be ruled through the arbitrary will of the person in the White House, or shall we reform our institutions such that they serve their legitimate functions? We must realize that what we experience isn’t government. Government exerts legitimate force. Illegitimate compulsion is violence and is exercised by tyrants.
Stop the violence. We are the many; our oppressors are the few. Be proactive. Be a Re-Founder of the American Republic. Restore the compact. Join Convention of States. Sign the COS Petition.
Article V.
Always an informative and enjoyable read ... thanx for the brevity
OUTSTANDING! Thanks, Jacquerie.
Reading about all that the law should do, who would not believe that it descended from heaven, pure and infallible, without need of intermediaries whose errors falsify it, whose personal calculations disfigure it, whose vices sully and pervert it? But this is not the case if the law is the work of men. If it is stamped with men’s imperfections, weakness, and perversity, who does not realize that the work does not merit more confidence than its authors, and that they themselves have no right to inspire us more in one capacity than another? We fear them [26] as rulers because they are despots; we fear them as peoples because they are blind and ignorant. A change of name does not change their nature at all. It seems to me that here are strong enough reasons to mistrust men, even when they find it convenient to call themselves legislators.
It is assuredly far from my mind to want to weaken respect for the law when it is applied to objects within its competence. I will describe them soon. But extending the law’s competence to everything, as Mably, Filangieri, and so many others do, is to organize tyranny and to return, after so many long declamations, to the state of slavery from which we were hoping to free ourselves. It is once again to subject men to unlimited force, which is equally dangerous whether we call it by its true name, despotism, or by a gentler name, legislation.
The government’s legitimacy depends on its purpose as much as on its source. When this authority is extended over purposes which are outside its sphere, it becomes illegitimate.
Benjamin Constant
http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/commentary-on-filangieris-work
Superb post. Thanks. I have several books from the Library of Liberty; it is a treasure for the ages.
Have you considered compiling some of their works into a few FR posts?
We must keep the language of liberty alive.
I try to keep my squibs to around 500 words. Sometimes I just can’t help myself and end up with longish posts in the neighborhood of a thousand words which probably aren’t read.
But they insisted on constraints to ensure they were not ransacked.
The principal constraints were the Rule of Law and the Preservation of Private Property within the law.
When either, or both, of those constraints are usurped, the compact has been broken.
And at that point white men with property and power are free to act in their own best interests.
Even this short piece took me all morning to read, what with all of life’s little interruptions. I have so little time to myself these days, I get thoroughly annoyed when I spend it reading something that turns out to be a waste of time. On the flip side, I feel truly blessed when I can start my day with a well written treasure like this. I’ll probably read it a couple more times, though it may take a day or two to squeeze it into my “me time.” Thanks for sharing it.
If you haven't read Lock's Second Treatise, you clearly demonstrated the Law of Nature (The Law of Reason) on your own. It isn't rocket science.
If John Locke could come back and examine our situation, there is no doubt he would describe it as a state of war.
The people are expected to follow a compact that no longer exists. We are to regard all of Obama’s diktats as the supreme law of the land, while Obama acts without restraint.
This is not government; it is violence.
We here in FreeRepublic are SUPPOSED TO BE interested in the things that got us here and the things that can help us henceforth
Well done. Thanks for these posts.
Actually, I first came across "squib" in Bernard Bailyn's The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution.
We must keep the language of liberty alive.
(just home from work about 1 hour ago)…No, I hadn't considered compiling…and ABSOLUTELY "We must keep the language of liberty alive."
Thanks for your tremendous work on keeping liberty alive in your posts, Jacquerie.
An artificial entity called government has usurped a compact to which it is not a party. Are we in possession of a free republic if our liberty depends on the person elected president? Are we to be ruled through the arbitrary will of the person in the White House, or shall we reform our institutions such that they serve their legitimate functions? We must realize that what we experience isn’t government. Government exerts legitimate force. Illegitimate compulsion is violence and is exercised by tyrants.
Stop the violence.
BUMP!
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