c/o general delivery
San Rafael
California Republic
zip code exempt
(DMM 122.32)
July 29, 1993
Dear Al:
I am in receipt of a copy of your letter from attorney William A.
Cohan, dated June 21, 1993. In this letter, Mr. Cohan wrote the
following to you:
The "non-resident alien" position has been repeatedly
rejected by the courts; your assertion of that position
undermines your credibility.
In the margin, you wrote the following in long hand:
"Guess we made fools of ourselves. Al B"
Although I do not have the time to write as thorough a response
as I wish I could, I do have enough time to make a few careful
remarks about these statements. Please consider the electronic
fourth edition of The Federal Zone as a necessary supplement to
the rest of this letter; it is not yet available in hard copy.
First of all, I do not believe that your assertion of the
"nonresident alien" position undermines your credibility. It may
undermine your credibility in the eyes of Mr. Cohan, but it
certainly does not undermine your credibility in my eyes, nor in
the eyes of those who have studied and carefully documented the
meaning of State Citizenship as that term was used and intended
to be understood by the framers of the U.S. Constitution. Even
IRS documents admit that you are an alien if you are not a
citizen of the United States. Simple logic is all that is
necessary to explain away the "alien" half of the problem, but
there is much more proof, as you know.
I have recently made a crucial discovery in the writings of
attorney Roger Foster. Foster was a Yale lecturer and recognized
expert in federal jurisprudence at the time the so-called 16th
Amendment was declared "ratified". The second edition of his
treatise on the federal income tax of 1913 states, in unequivocal
language, that the tax was levied in Alaska, the District of
Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Philippine Islands; the 48 States
are not even mentioned (see Chapter 3 in The Federal Zone). In
and of itself, this documentary evidence is important proof of
the territorial extent of the 1913 federal income tax.
What is even more stunning is the comparable section from the
first edition of Foster's treatise. In this section, he rambles
on about the lack of court precedent authorizing Congress to tax
bond interest that is payable to nonresident aliens by domestic
corporations. Because he makes repeated use of the term "United
States", a term which we now know to have multiple different
meanings in law, this section is almost always vague about the
exact territorial extent of the 1913 Act. There is, however, one
place where he tips his hand by utilizing the term "Union" in a
territorial sense. In other words, the first edition of Foster's
treatise considers the "Union of several States" to be the
territorial reach of the 1913 Act, but in the second edition this
whole section is replaced with a much smaller section which
limits that reach to Alaska, the District of Columbia, Puerto
Rico and the Philippine Islands. Therefore, Foster has admitted,
in writing, that his first edition was in error about the
territorial extent of the 1913 federal income tax! Read it for
yourself and see if you agree with me.
It is not entirely correct to state that the "non-resident alien"
position has been repeatedly rejected by the courts. Such a
statement overlooks the obvious fact that the Brushaber decision
is still standing case law in America. As you must already know,
this ruling was issued by the United States Supreme Court. None
of the cases cited in Mr. Conklin's essay, "The Citizenship
Argument Bites the Dust in the Courts", was decided by the U.S.
Supreme Court. Moreover, most of those lower court cases remain
unpublished, unlike the long list of Supreme Court decisions
which have carefully considered the meaning of Citizenship (e.g.
Cruikshank, Dred Scott, Slaughter-House Cases, to name a few of
the key ones). Why?
Treasury Decision 2313 also remains as a standing decision of the
U.S. Treasury Department. There was only one Plaintiff in the
Brushaber case; that Plaintiff was Mr. Frank R. Brushaber who
was "a citizen of the State of New York and a resident of the
Borough of Brooklyn, in the City of New York", by his own
admissions. To assert anything else about his status is to
assume facts that were not in evidence. If he had been a native
of France, according to federal government propaganda, then where
was his green card? The courts issued their decisions on the
basis of facts that were in evidence. Therefore, there was and
still is no basis in fact, or in law, for the Secretary of the
Treasury in 1916 to extend the Brushaber decision to those who
were not parties to that action. It is conclusive, therefore,
that Frank R. Brushaber was the "nonresident alien" to which
Treasury Decision 2313 refers.
Quite apart from the technical issues involved in understanding
and explaining Treasury Decision 2313, I would like to dedicate
the remainder of my remarks here to a discussion of the
importance of the U.S. Constitution. If my research has
established anything, it is that the U.S. Constitution has
explicitly recognized State Citizenship from the beginning, even
if there was no definition of State Citizenship as such in that
document. If the Constitution is perpetual, then so is the
status of State Citizenship which it recognizes (see Texas v.
White), until and unless each and every reference to State
Citizens is lawfully amended so as to alter the original meaning
of those provisions. The intent of any law is the law, and this
principle applies as well to the Constitution itself (the supreme
Law).
You will find explicit references to State Citizens throughout
the U.S. Constitution (see 1:2:2, 1:3:3, 2:1:5, 3:2:1, 4:2:1).
In my opinion, three of the most important references are found
in the qualifications for election to the offices of U.S.
Senator, Representative, and President. Since these provisions
have never been amended, their meaning remains the same as it was
on the day the Constitution became the supreme Law in America.
Anyone who argues something different about the construction of
these provisions is woefully, and maybe even dangerously,
ignorant of the basic principles of constitutional law in our
country (see Dred Scott v. Sandford in particular, a decision
which is "infamous" to me only because it was such an
authoritative and irrefutable mirror on the legal acceptability
of chattel slavery at that point in American history).
Prior to the 1866 Civil Rights Act, there was simply no such
thing as a "citizen of the United States" (see Ex parte Knowles,
which is still standing case law in the California Republic). If
you can find the time to wade into the huge body of case law
which interpreted the so-called 14th Amendment, you will find
some jurists who credit that amendment with finally settling the
definition of "citizen of the United States" (see Field's dissent
in the Slaughter-House Cases for a good example of this
position). On the other hand, the pertinent U.S. Supreme Court
decisions have never ruled that a ratified 14th Amendment ever
abolished the status of State Citizenship; the amendment itself
even stipulates that federal citizens are also "citizens ... of
the State wherein they reside", giving some jurists reason to
conclude that federal citizens were intended to be State Citizens
too, as long as they resided within one of the Union States.
To my knowledge, I am the first published author to call
attention to the lower-case "c" in this class of State citizens;
the weight of subsequent history has shown that they remain
second-class citizens, even when they "reside" within one of the
Union States, because the Bill of Rights has at best a limited
application to them when they do. We must credit The Informer
for pointing out additional evidence in Section 2 of the 14th
Amendment: "[W]hen the right to vote ... is denied to any of the
male inhabitants of such State ... and citizens of the United
States ...." This section is here referring to two different
classes of people.
The Cruikshank case is perhaps the most lucid example of standing
High Court case law for ruling that "[W]e have in our political
system a government of the United States and a government of each
of the several States. Each of these governments is distinct
from the others, and each has citizens of its own ...." This
means that, even if the so-called 14th Amendment had been
properly approved and adopted, the status of State Citizen
remains an integral part of the U.S. Constitution, so integral in
fact, that the highest elective offices in our land must be
occupied by People who enjoy and exhibit this status before
occupying those offices. Remember also that the Cruikshank case
was decided after the alleged ratification of the 14th Amendment
and after the pivotal Slaughter-House Cases. The failed
ratification of this amendment lends even greater clarity to
logic of Cruikshank, namely, that federal citizens are aliens
with respect to the Union States, and State Citizens are likewise
aliens with respect to the District of Columbia.
The Constitution also plays a crucial role in determining whether
or not a proposed amendment is ever elevated to the status of a
ratified amendment. Hiding in the huge body of case law which
has interpreted the so-called 14th Amendment, there are two
pivotal decisions of the Utah Supreme Court which actually struck
down the ratification of that amendment (see State v. Phillips
and Dyett v. Turner). The facts on which that Court relied were
assembled and published in the Congressional Record; courts must
take judicial notice of the Congressional Record. The U.S.
Supreme Court has never actually ruled on the ratification of the
14th Amendment and has been prevented from doing so by treasonous
behavior (see 28 Tulane Law Review 22, and 11 South Carolina Law
Quarterly 484).
Thus, the undeniable preponderance of historical evidence now
proves that the Utah Supreme Court was correct in striking down
the 14th Amendment. I invite you to review the shocking and
sordid history of its "passage" by studying carefully the details
recited in the Dyett decision. The bottom line is that the
federal government has been exercising unlawful dominion ever
since the Civil War, and the failed ratification of the so-called
14th Amendment is just one among several historical facts which
constitute conclusive evidence of this unlawful dominion. The
so-called 16th Amendment is another excellent example of this
unlawful dominion.
By holding, as the Utah Supreme Court has done, that the 14th
Amendment was never properly approved and adopted, we are still
entirely justified in taking the U.S. Supreme Court's view in
Cruikshank, namely, that each governmental jurisdiction has
citizens of its own. This view is supported by the decision in
Colgate v. Harvey, which ruled that the 14th Amendment did not
create a national citizenship (the italics implying that the
amendment was simply declaratory of existing federal law, which
federal law was the 1866 Civil Rights Act). Simply stated,
California has its Citizens; Oregon has its Citizens; Utah has
its Citizens; ... and the District of Columbia has its citizens
(51 governmental jurisdictions in all).
Notice that I have been careful to spell State Citizen with an
UPPER-CASE "C", and federal citizen with a lower-case "c". I do
so primarily because authentic copies of the U.S. Constitution do
evidence this convention; those authentic copies also maintain a
similar distinction between "Person" and "person". Prior to the
14th Amendment, "Person" was consistently spelled with an UPPER-
CASE "P" (see the qualifications for Senator, Representative and
President, where the term "No Person" is repeated). Formal
English also recognizes an important difference between Proper
Nouns and common nouns. Did you ever attend a baseball game that
was won by the chicago cubs (or the cHICAGO cUBS)?
Al, I invite you to take a closer look at the underlying
rationale for the "nonresident alien" position which I have
endorsed and explained in my book The Federal Zone, whether or
not you choose to utilize it in any future litigation. There is
simply too much in the way of undeniable factual evidence and
relevant constitutional history for me to be dissuaded by this or
that unpublished decision by lower federal courts. I doubt very
much that Mr. Cohan would have us believe that federal and State
courts are always correct, and that their decisions are never
overturned. I have read some of these lower court decisions, and
I find them to be riddled with errors.
Specifically, any court in America which henceforth issues
decisions that are predicated upon the lawful ratification of the
so-called 14th and 16th Amendments is plainly in error (see
People v. Boxer). Any licensed attorney in America who bases his
advice to clients (or prospects) on such rebuttable presumptions
might justifiably be applauded for seeking the path of least
resistance, with the complete approval of his clients; but
attorneys and clients together should also seriously reconsider
just how dedicated they really are to upholding and defending the
Constitution for the United States of America, as compared to
other priorities that can and do take precedence under the
pressures of day-to-day practice. I say this only because the
published evidence available to me shows that licensed attorneys
in America are expected to place the court first, public policy
second, and the client third in order of importance; the
Constitution isn't even mentioned!
It is high time that we return to basic issues of constitutional
Law. If we don't, then we shall surely lose the Constitution
forever. It is quite simply impossible for public officials
anywhere in America to perform their solemn duty to uphold and
defend the U.S. Constitution, if the weight of material evidence
should prove that the exact provisions of that Constitution are
still in doubt. This was the major issue that was addressed in
the case of People v. Boxer; copies of the pleadings and
affidavits were shipped to Mr. Cohan several months ago, without
any response from him.
I don't mean to be rude or disrespectful to any licensed
attorneys when I suggest that they too should be obliged to take
the same solemn oath, if they have not already done so. The
constitutional provisions which cite State Citizens have never
been in any serious doubt, even if our decision to defend this
status is fraught with much additional peril, above and beyond
the peril we might endure by resisting this or that tax
assessment by the collection agency of a foreign banking cartel.
If the Constitution is perpetual, then so is the Sovereign State
Citizenship which that Constitution has recognized from the
beginning, with or without the so-called 14th Amendment.
Let the judges in question come forward to explain why their
recent decisions were "unpublished". I am all ears.
The road less traveled may be the surest path to our destination,
and to our destiny as a free People.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell
Paul Andrew Mitchell, B.A., M.S.
Private Attorney General
enclosures
copies: William A. Cohan, Esq.
John Voss, N.C.B.A.
Richard McDonald
# # #
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