Time: Sun May 25 05:41:32 1997
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Date: Sun, 25 May 1997 05:29:08 -0700
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: L&J: Constitution Column (fwd)
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<snip>
>
>Constitution Column
>
>By Matt Erickson
>
>Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution for the United States of
>America reads: "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in
>a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and
>House of Representatives."
>
> The Constitution grants governmental powers into three separate
>branches—Legislative, Executive, and Judicial.  Article I covers the
>legislative, Article II covers the executive, and Article III covers the
>judicial.
>
>The legislative powers are the law-making power—the power to enact
>laws.  The legislative authority is specifically "granted" to Congress
>(which was also created by this document).  The signatories of the
>contract were the States which later ratified it.  I refer to the
>Constitution being a contract even though some people point to the fact
>that only one party signed it (those representing the principals—the
>States).  This is the only way this could be done, since this contract
>created a new entity.  Until the Constitution was ratified and the new
>government set up, there were no officers in existence which could have
>signed for the agent—the federal government.  The potential problem of
>only one party signing the contract is solved by an oath of office when
>each new officer is sworn in, as this completes the contract (see
>Article VI, Clause 3—both parties reaching agreement to specific terms).
>
>While Section 1 specifically states "All legislative Powers herein
>granted shall be vested in a Congress", it should be understood to mean
>"The legislative powers are granted herein, and shall be vested in
>Congress..."  The framers of the Constitution were masters of brevity,
>and did not ramble on dealing with issues well understood in that day. 
>The idea that the President, executive agencies, government
>corporations/independent establishments, or the Judiciary would attempt
>to dictate life in America through executive orders, administrative
>"law" codes, or judicial "interpretation" evidently didn't even register
>with the Framers.  None of these other entities have any legislative
>power—no authority whatsoever to enact law or that treated as law.
>
>Congress passes laws according to the powers vested with it; the
>Executive executes or puts into action that law; the Judicial branch
>issues decisions to settle disagreements brought before it (issues and
>rulings according to law).  These are the core responsibilities of these
>three branches.
>
>Article I, Section 1 states that Congress has all the legislative
>authority and acknowledges that those powers are limited to those
>granted within the Constitution.  Congress has the legislative power
>"vested" with it.  Black's Law Dictionary defines "vested" as "fixed",
>"settled", "absolute."  This means that Congress could not even delegate
>any of that authority elsewhere, since it is not within their
>discretion—the power is fixed with it by a power not their own.
>
>The branch of government which writes the law is the most powerful
>branch of government, as acknowledged by James Madison in The Federalist
>#51; "In republican government the legislative authority, necessarily,
>predominates."  In that all three branches must be somewhat equal in
>strength if they are to provide checks and balances with each other,
>Congress is, in turn, subdivided into a Senate and House of
>Representatives.
>
>The idea that Citizens elect their representatives who pass law
>according to the powers vested with them is at the very core of the
>republic.  To attempt to not only bypass the Citizen but also their
>Congressman to have executive agencies pass "regulations" which are
>treated as law completely destroys the idea of a representative
>government.
>
>To have the President pass Executive Orders or Presidential
>Proclamations which are treated as law (other than the specific
>Constitutional authority to do so, such as pardons—see Art. II:2:1)
>likewise allows for a tyrannical monarchy, rather than Constitutional
>Republic.
>
>The thought of taxation without representation made the framer's blood
>boil to a point of revolution in 1776.  Representation means having laws
>passed by one's elected officials—Congressmen.  It is not representation
>to have the majority of that treated as law—regulations—enacted by
>appointed bureaucrats within the executive branch.
>
>Article I, Section 2 covers the House of Representatives.  Clause 1 of
>that section states:
>"The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every
>second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in
>each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the
>most numerous Branch of the State Legislature."
>
>Clauses are not actually numbered in the original Constitution.  Some
>people thus refer to them as Paragraphs, such as Article I, Section 2,
>Paragraph 1.  While this is allowable, I prefer to call them "Clauses,"
>as this is how the Constitution refers to them (see Article V).
>
>The Representatives were meant to be the more numerous branch elected
>more often.  This group was meant to be closer to the common man, to
>represent his interests.  An election every two years was the means used
>for ensuring that the Representatives didn't venture far from the
>voter's desires.
>
>The Representatives in the House are elected according to democratic
>principles, with the elected Representative operating within a structure
>that is federal.  This means that within each State, the individual
>meeting the qualifications and receiving the most votes wins the
>office.  The important differentiation with a pure democracy is that
>while the mob rules on who becomes the office-holder, that office-holder
>is bound to the rules of that office—he is not free to make any law he
>desires.  Since the office has limited powers which the office-holder is
>powerless to expand (except by deception over an ignorant populace), one
>has safety in a Republic even if the office-holder has
>less-than-honorable intentions (the Constitution provides further
>safeguards in that Congress may punish its members for disorderly
>behavior, expel or even impeach a member—see Article I:5:2, Art. I:2:5,
>& Art. 1:3:6,7).
>
>Clause 1 declares that Representatives shall be chosen by the "People of
>the several States" but then goes on to qualify that "the Electors in
>each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the
>most numerous Branch of the State Legislature."  At first glance, it
>would appear that everyone who could qualify as one of the "People"
>could elect the Representatives, but then one sees that there are
>qualifications being imposed by the States as to who would qualify to be
>an Elector.  Most are readily familiar with some of the major
>disqualification's of the time—being female, Negro, or Oriental.
>
>Each State was free to decide the qualifications of its voters for State
>elections.  This standard was then used to decide who could vote on
>Representatives.  The usual qualifications of the time period was that
>one must be a free white male of 21 years with property.  While this may
>seem monstrously unjust to many people today, please realize that
>limiting the vote to certain people will do little damage when the
>topics of their vote, or the authority of those whom they elect, is
>severely limited.
>
>Only when one seeks to expand upon the roles which government is to play
>in our society does one need to seek moral justification through
>universal suffrage.  The rationale behind universal suffrage is that how
>can one argue the outcome of any question when it was decided by a vote
>of all the interested parties?
>
>It is far more important that the topic of the vote be limited than
>simply that the voters not be limited.
>
>The Constitution mentions "the several States" in this clause.  Many
>patriots debate whether one should write "State" or "state" when
>discussing the States of the Union.  The main argument seems to be that
>a small "s" signifies one of the States in their sovereign capacity as a
>country within a federal framework—as one of the States of the Union. 
>"State" with a capital "s" is then to signify the corporate State, apart
>from the state's constitutional authority.  The corporate State would
>have extra-constitutional authority, drawing upon the private right to
>contract to gain powers.  Most people entering into contract with the
>corporate State would not realize the difference between the
>Constitutional (limited/governmental) authority, and the corporate
>(unlimited/non-governmental) authority.
>
>While I recognize the theory of this position, on things constitutional
>I rely upon the Constitution to find the answer.  On this subject,
>whether talking of "the several States", "each State", "that State",
>"the State", "any State", "one State", "a State", "another State",
>"every State", in every case where State is mentioned in the
>Constitution, it is  likely that the corporate/constitutional authority
>issue is not as simple as the spelling "State" with a small or capital
>"s."....
>
>Matt's Column will continue in the June issue of The Oregon Observer.
>Available online at:
>http://www.oregonobserver.com
>
>
>-- 
>Patriot In Distress!!
>http://www.involved.com/ewolfe/distress/index.htm
>
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>

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