Our Dysfunctional Republic Part 8

I have already mentioned that in my day to day discussions with people I found that many people were lacking in their understanding of what the Constitution said in regards to the function and authority granted their government. However it came as even more of a shock to find that many were not aware that the Constitution covered much more than the establishment of the federal government.

The next segments of this series are designed to remedy that ignorance in regards to what the rest of the Constitution has to say.

Article 5 of the Constitution covers the states themselves, the text of which states,

Section 1. Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.

Section 2. The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.

A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another state, shall on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime.

No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.

Section 3. New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.
The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular state.

Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.

It might be asked why would a group of men write a Constitution that designs a system of government also include a section regarding the individual states.

First, these men knew that our country would over time grow, and they wanted to ensure that procedures were established for the formation of new states. They also wished to ensure that all states were fair and equitable in their treatment of each other. As Alexander Hamilton said in Federalist Paper #6, "The three last numbers of this paper have been dedicated to an enumeration of the dangers to which we should be exposed, in a state of disunion, from the arms and arts of foreign nations. I shall now proceed to delineate dangers of a different and, perhaps, still more alarming kind--those which will in all probability flow from dissensions between the States themselves, and from domestic factions and convulsions. These have been already in some instances slightly anticipated; but they deserve a more particular and more full investigation.

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 goes on to say in Federalist #7, "It is sometimes asked, with an air of seeming triumph, what inducements could the States have, if disunited, to make war upon each other? It would be a full answer to this question to say--precisely the same inducements which have, at different times, deluged in blood all the nations in the world. But, unfortunately for us, the question admits of a more particular answer. There are causes of differences within our immediate contemplation, of the tendency of which, even under the restraints of a federal constitution, we have had sufficient experience to enable us to form a judgment of what might be expected if those restraints were removed."

It is clear that the founders wanted to hold the states together and to do so required that some sort of binding rule would be in place to make sure the states were fair in their dealings with the citizens of their neighboring states, and that the laws of one state would be respected by the local governments of their neighbors as well.

I would like to go into a bit more detail regarding Section 4, "The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence."

The federal government is Constitutionally obligated to provide for each state a republican form of government, and offer us overall protection against invasion, and upon the request of the state legislatures, domestic violence.

If a brigade, (between 1,500-3,200 soldiers) were to invade the united states our government would consider that an armed invasion and take drastic measures to repel the invaders and secure our nation from further incursions. However, daily we are being invaded by upwards of 7000 illegal aliens crossing our borders. These unarmed invaders are taking our jobs, causing our wages to be depressed, bringing crime and diseases into our country, using our social services, our medical system, and overburdening our schools. Yet our government refuses to take firm action to stop it. They are paralyzed with fear because the special interest groups that finance their political campaigns demand this supply of cheap labor. The tremble at the thought of offending the politically correct who support these illegal aliens in their so called demand for rights, that in all actuality they have no claim to. Yet it our governments Constitutional obligation to protect us from this very invasion. This issue alone is a clear example of why I entitled this series, Our Dysfunctional Republic.

I do not wish to turn this into a rant regarding the issue of illegal immigration, so I will move on to the second part of Section 4, the requirement that our government provide us with protection, upon request of the states, against domestic violence.

In 1878, our government passed the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 (USC Title 18 Part I Chapter 67 Section 1385) which states, “Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.“

Yet, since that Act was signed into law we have seen numerous Acts, laws and directives signed which weaken that very act. Among them, in 1971 we had D.O.D. Directive 3025.12 the Employment of Military Resources in the Event of Civil Disturbances. Also, taken directly from the Dept. of Homeland Security's webpage;
(http://www.dhs.gov/xprepresp/committees/editorial_0566.shtm)

The National Response Plan, last updated May 25, 2006, and currently under review, establishes a comprehensive all-hazards approach to enhance the ability of the United States to manage domestic incidents. The plan incorporates best practices and procedures from incident management disciplines — homeland security, emergency management, law enforcement, firefighting, public works, public health, responder and recovery worker health and safety, emergency medical services, and the private sector — and integrates them into a unified structure. It forms the basis of how the federal government coordinates with state, local, and tribal governments and the private sector during incidents. It establishes protocols to help

-Prevent an imminent incident, including acts of terrorism, from occurring

-Conduct law enforcement investigations to resolve the incident, apprehend the perpetrators, and collect and preserve evidence for prosecution and/or attribution

Notice now that the Dept. of Homeland Security is coordinating the functions of different agencies, such as law enforcement, which can also include the U.S. military as per D.O.D. Directive 3025.12 and Executive Order 12656.

It is clear that our federal government is overstepping their authority by commandeering the military and local law enforcement agencies for their own purposes upon U.S. soil. All this is taking place without the request of the various state legislatures. These also are clear violations of their Constitutional authority. We are nearing the time when the government can declare martial law for any number of reasons including civil unrest, natural disasters, up to another terrorist attack.

This alone ought to be enough to cause grave concern among the people of this country, yet they have been brainwashed by the media and our elected representatives that these measures are only there for our own safety. President Bush is quoted as saying, "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/05/20050524-3.html

That is what has happened to this country, the same lies and propaganda have been fed to us over and over and we have come to the point where we believe them as truth, when the truth is that these programs are unconstitutional and we should be both concerned and outraged. In concluding my discussion of Article 4 of the Constitution I would like to leave you with a quote by Benjamin Franklin, "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

...to be continued