The Constitution Vs The Declaration of Independence

In exploring the workings of governments; the bureaucracies that outline how they work together with the citizenry, and the way the citizenry are manipulated for political and financial functions; I’ve discovered that there’s a nice deal of confusion within the common citizen in regards to the formation of governments and the facility obtainable to protect these governments.

A very good instance is the shortage of understanding of our personal historic foundations. Europeans found the Americas and related islands over 250 years earlier than some of the British colonies seceded from the British Empire, and established their very own governments. For over two and one half centuries the legal guidelines of Britain together with the colonial legal guidelines, permitted by Britain, offered to the citizenry their social, financial, and political construction. With the growing improvement of the colonial economies and the abundance of assets for manufactures and commerce, England regularly taxed the Colonies of their productive labor and useful resource wealth. Economic disparity with England, strengthened by the social and political disparities between England and the Colonies, was the motivation for colonial self-determination and want for full management and possession of the wealth generated by the Colonies.

Thus was born the Declaration of Independence; a really unusual doc, whose validity can’t be argued in any courtroom, because it predates any courtroom that its formulators would acknowledge as a legitimate courtroom. The authority claimed by those that wrote this doc is positioned by them above all different. However, the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution with its Bill of Rights, are in such nice battle with one another, that they mutually exclude the authority of the opposite to be the car by which society might set up, promote and protect its authorities; to implement the authority of one is to negate the authority of the opposite. It is unattainable to consider that each of these paperwork are legitimate of their unique philosophies.

From the Declaration of Independence:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them,… …That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new Guards for their future security…… We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions do, in the Name, and by authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

This seems like fairly robust stuff. Why would the Colonies, which have been being handled like Third World nations, need to justify their intentions and subsequent actions? Principally as a result of the validity of any authorities shaped to regulate the myriad duties of authorities, should comply with from some authority. When the British, and different peoples, have been colonizing the world, they ruled by the authority of their King or queen and their Parliament. They enforced their authority with their military and navy. The American colonists wanted some equal or higher authority to justify their unlawful revolt, and proceeded to say that authority from the Creator. The Declaration informs us that the elected representatives of some of the colonists had acquired authority from some of their constituents to dump the British authorities and to type an unbiased authorities for every Colony. Since you needed to be white, male, and a property proprietor, simply to be a constituent, it’s unlikely that any pure law or divine authority might be forthcoming from such a restricted group.

The authors of the Declaration have knowledgeable us that the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” entitle self-determination; that individuals are endowed by their Creator with sure unalienable rights; and that these authors appealed to the Supreme Judge of the world to say validity for his or her actions; and that they prayed for the safety of divine Providence for his or her undertakings. These authors have been in truth claiming divine authority for his or her intentions. The widespread citizen of the time had no authority to provide. Over 2 hundred years later it’s nonetheless not clear if this authority from the Creator is a one shot deal, or if any group of individuals prepared to train self-determination may use this beautiful authority.

Oddly sufficient, the United States Supreme Court couldn’t rule on the legality of anybody forming a authorities in an identical method. To rule in favor of such an motion can be to intrude with a overseas energy. To rule towards such an motion can be to negate its personal existence, and thereby render all of its selections null and void. The Supreme Court is restricted to solely verifying whether or not or not a legal argument introduced earlier than it’s constitutional inside the framework of the United States Constitution. No structure has the authority to void or nullify the formation of different constitutions. The Supreme Court can’t rule on the validity of the United States Constitution itself, and is thereby unable to legally rule on the validity of another constitutions. The legality of insurrections and revolutions should all the time be decided by a unique courtroom than we will peacefully convene on Earth; specifically, the courtroom of struggle.

After gaining the required authority to justify their actions, the colonists then proceeded to boost an Army and a Navy, which after an extended and troublesome conflict, have been capable of exhibit to the British Army and Navy that they not had any energy to implement British political and financial authority within the American Colonies.

So what did these free, unbiased, and self-determining Colonies do to additional this God-given alternative for any peoples to say the suitable of self-determination? They shaped a Confederation, elected a Congress that would appoint army males, and gave to them the required authority to unite the Colonial Armies and Navies into one pressure. After the conflict they shaped a brand new Continental Congress, which established a Constitution based on the authority of the confederated congress and its Army and Navy. They proceeded to enact statutes that forbade divine proper as a justification for establishing authorities, as being invalid and unlawful. They now had the authority of their very own Army and Navy to help any physique of law that they might select to determine. They proceeded to invalidate the Declaration of Independence and their earlier twelve years of labor and sacrifice.

Although we connect a fantastic deal of significance to our Declaration of Independence, we should perceive that this Declaration, and all declarations, are irrelevant to some other teams exercising political authority. They solely function purple flags waved within the face of institutional authority. Everyone that declared their independence from England in 1776 was selling and partaking in an rebellion towards established and lawful authority. This sort of motion can solely end in civil conflict. Both sides name themselves patriots. But the established society calls the revolutionists rebels, whereas the revolutionists name the ruling authorities despots and demagogues.

Our historical past has two examples of revolt and civil warfare. The rebels of 1776 succeeded in declaring their independence by elevating a military enough to determine the authority that arises from superior arms. Superior arms, nevertheless, defeated the Confederate States of America in 1865, and subsequently their declaration of independence has failed to determine a date from which to document the start of a brand new nation.

Declarations of independence and constitutions are phrases on paper; they carry completely no authority. From their very starting and all through their existence their authority arises both from voluntary assent of the citizenry, or drive of arms to compel dissenters to behave in accordance with present law. A nation is made entire on a regular basis, by assent or by pressure.

The following are excerpts from the U.S. Constitution, which can exhibit the battle between the Declaration and the Constitution.

Article 1, Section eight:

The Congress shall have energy… …To present for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

Article 1, Section 9:

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, until when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the general public Safety might require it.

Article three, Section 1:

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing however gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of money owed; cross any Bill of Attainder, ex submit facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility

No State shall, with out the consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, besides what could also be completely vital for executing its inspection legal guidelines: and the web Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be topic to the Revision and management of the Congress.

No State shall, with out the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, hold Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with one other State, or with a overseas Power, or interact in War, until truly invaded, or in such imminent Danger as won’t admit of delay.

Article three, Section three:

Treason towards the United States, shall consist solely in levying War towards them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No individual shall be convicted of Treason until on the Testimony of two witnesses to the identical overt act, or on Confession in open Court.

Article four, Section three:

New States could also be admitted by the congress into this Union; however no new state shall be shaped or erected inside the Jurisdiction of another state; nor any state be shaped by junction of two or extra States or Parts of States, with out the Consent of the Legislatures of the States involved in addition to the Congress.

The Congress shall have energy to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or their Property belonging to the United States and nothing on this Constitution shall be construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States or of any specific State.

Article four, Section four:

The United States shall assure to each State on this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall shield every of them towards Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature can’t be convened) towards home Violence.

Article 5:

The Congress, every time two thirds of each homes shall deem it needed, shall suggest Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures or two thirds of the a number of States, shall name a Convention for proposing Amendments, which in both Case, shall be legitimate to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the a number of States, or be Conventions in three fourths thereof, because the one or the opposite Mode of Ratification could also be proposed by the Congress.

These are the a number of areas of Constitutional law which are in direct battle with the ensures of the Declaration. In Article 1, Section eight, the nationwide authorities is given the best to determine and name forth the militia (armed forces) “. . . to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections . . .” Such legal guidelines are extraordinarily opposite to all peoples declared proper to abolish the federal government over themselves, and their declared proper to determine new legal guidelines of their very own selecting. The United States was born out of the ethical illegality of the British utilizing army forces to implement unpopular legal guidelines. How shortly the founding fathers forgot that governments would not have the appropriate to militarily oppress any residents of any nation, together with their very own. Nor have any governments the proper to militarily suppress any individuals’s efforts to separate themselves from previous authorities, and set up new authorities for their very own profit and happiness; may doesn’t make proper.

In Article 1, Section 9, we see that the Constitution provides the authority to the federal government to droop the Writ of Habeas Corpus and to imprison individuals whom the federal government considers to be in insurrection. But rebel is a declared proper, assured by the Declaration and “Nature’s God,” which individuals might invoke in an effort to pursue the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To move a law towards insurrection, is to confess that unpopular governments have a proper to suppress these they govern; or that a authorities representing a majority has the fitting to oppress and suppress minorities, enslaving them to the desire of others. Popular governments, serving all of the individuals, haven’t any have to worry rebel, and subsequently no want of any legal guidelines towards it. Rebellion was the indispensable midwife on this nation’s start. The battle between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution can’t be larger than that related to the best of riot. The individuals will trend the mode of authorities by which they’ll assent to behave towards one another.

In Article 1, Section 10, the Constitution expressly forbids the varied states from exercising the rights that the Declaration declared they need to retain, that each one peoples have the correct to unite within the method they select and to train all of the rights of an unbiased nation.

In Article three, Section three, the Constitution provides the federal government the fitting to accuse its residents of the act of treason, in the event that they commit acts of friendship in the direction of nations outlined by Congress to be enemies. The Declaration of Independence ensures that any group of individuals have the best to be unbiased and self-determining, and to ” . . .have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances . . .” In different phrases the Declaration makes treason an inconceivable act to commit when establishing a brand new society.

In Article four, Section three, The Constitution provides the federal government the suitable to confess new states to the Union, however prohibits any state from dividing, by itself, into extra states. It additionally provides the federal government the proper to colonize and declare jurisdiction to lands outdoors of its first boundary. This shouldn’t be solely opposite to the expressed themes of the Declaration; additionally it is opposite to the spirit of the Declaration. This part of the Constitution provides the United States the proper to colonize wilderness territory, a proper that the American Colonies rebelled towards when England claimed it.

In Article four, Section four, all states are assured a republican type of authorities and safety towards overseas and home violence. Again, that is opposite to the Declaration’s assure of the best to self-determination for all individuals. Included in the appropriate of self-determination is the correct of minorities to resort to violence when the republican type of authorities is oppressive or unresponsive to the wants of these minorities. The Revolutionary War was fought as a result of of the concepts expressed within the Declaration of Independence, opening the door for that sort of motion endlessly extra.

In Article 5, the Constitution permits for amendments to be added to the Constitution, offering three-fourths of the states ratify them. Even this text is opposite to the spirit of the Declaration, as a result of it permits majorities to oppress minorities. The colonists exclaimed loudly towards taxation with out illustration. If representatives had been despatched to the English Parliament on behalf of the colonists, the bulk in Parliament would have overruled their petitions and levied the taxes anyway. Most colonists have been seemed on as second-class British topics, simply because the colonists seemed on Blacks and Indians as second-class residents. The proper of majorities to oppress by modification or to refuse to liberate by modification, could also be republican, however is definitely immoral. It is opposite to the Declaration’s assured proper to separation and independence for minorities, particularly when petitions for redress go unanswered.

One should perceive that the Constitution didn’t comply with from the Declaration of Independence, however relatively the Constitution adopted from the Articles of Confederation. The Confederation shaped out of the need of warfare that the Colonies type a authorities to boost a military and navy succesful of preventing the British. This doesn’t elevate the Constitution to a place of authority over actions that preceded and promoted its formation. Thomas Paine, in his ebook Rights of Man, tells us that constitutions are shaped and agreed too, in order that governments may be shaped to enact legal guidelines to regulate commerce and social actions. Governments don’t precede constitutions in a democratic surroundings. And constitutions don’t precede the independence of individuals who want to govern themselves. In all instances, any individuals forming a authorities should declare their independence from some other authorities, giving priority of energy for the creation of authorities to that Declaration. A declaration of independence is the liberty to behave inside the elementary principal of authorities, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”; to determine the knowledge we want to embody in a structure; and to type a authorities to use that knowledge to regulate our socio-economic interactions.

The elementary objective of a declaration of independence is to advertise the institution of authorities. It doesn’t exclude any sort of authorities. The Constitution, then again, does forbid all actions related to the thought of establishing authorities, separate from and equal to the United States Government. The United States Government would make warfare on anybody collaborating within the establishing of unbiased authorities, as historical past has proven. We can solely conclude that the mutual exclusivity of these Documents lies absolutely with the Constitution. There is not any justification by any means for this oppressive language within the Constitution. Government ought to reply to the desire of the individuals. If there’s battle of will, then there have to be arbitration and compromise, or there have to be separation and the institution of unbiased authorities.

Every society, each group, each congregation, has a structure that expresses and explains the principles and bylaws that set up the way during which every group is to control itself. Various and varied constitutions are each fascinating and vital to satisfy the wants of human societies. The flaw in our National Constitution is that those that are elected to the general public belief, by a majority, are given the facility to assault, incarcerate, and punish individuals over whom they’ve completely no authority, morally or by precedent. In reality, the Declaration of Independence is precedent that no such authority can exist, however to the ache and struggling of Creation.

The inclusion into the Constitution of language that permits authoritarian interference by majorities into the political and social actions of minorities is popping out to be one of the undoings of American society. Majorities have for 200 years used that authority (many occasions very oppressively) to maintain minorities from seceding, from forming labor unions, from voting, and so forth.

Because we reside in communities, and since our communities are sometimes based on ethical and moral rules of conduct, stemming from numerous spiritual heritages, we should settle for, even pursue political autonomy for the group, protecting our nice social alliance for financial and safety functions solely.

The Constitution is just not an ideal instrument of authorities; whereas continuous modifications in our social philosophies render it much less good; nevertheless it was mistakenly crafted to be very troublesome to vary. Who, which might be alive at the moment, have elected a consultant to a Constitutional Convention? Whose consultant has voted to uphold every half of the Constitution, or has voted to switch elements with new articles which have extra correspondence with immediately’s social issues and obligations? Your consultant took an oath to uphold a fashion of sustaining authorities and is thus restricted to forming legal guidelines that can’t be in battle with the Constitution. Any law that’s deemed by the courts to be in battle is void and un-enforceable.

England is claimed to not have a structure, as a result of each law handed by Parliament displaces or voids older legal guidelines which might be in battle with the brand new law. In England the desire of the individuals right now, as expressed by means of their representatives at this time, is the law, and can’t be outmoded by the previous. In the United States, the Constitution can’t be modified until 75% of the varied state legislatures comply with the proposed modifications. A brand new law, not in battle with the Constitution, solely wants a easy majority to turn out to be law. A brand new law, desired by the individuals however in battle with a Constitution embodied and empowered by males lengthy since lifeless, have to be put aside, till and until that Constitution is amended to take away any conflicts with such a law. The lifeless have energy that the dwelling ought to envy.

Americans are fond of their democratic heritage, typically referring to majority rule as the inspiration of our social legal guidelines. But 74% of the dwelling, needing a change in the best way society will type legal guidelines and maintain itself accountable, are usually not sufficient to beat the wishes of 26% who would profit extra by leaving the Constitution as structured by the lifeless. This isn’t majority rule, until one considers the lifeless extra clever than the dwelling, and higher capable of formulate the way of making legal guidelines, in addition to the breadth and depth of legal guidelines.

Those who say that we should make it very arduous to amend the Constitution are suggesting that we wouldn’t have authorities by the individuals, and for the individuals. They recommend that factions run our authorities and that some prosper extra, on the expense of others. They would have us consider that working on a foundation like England, the place each new law would routinely turn out to be half of the Constitution, would make it simpler for some faction to take full management of the nation and take away the rights of others. However, in such an occasion the bulk might shortly regain their sovereignty and simply powers by altering the law. America is managed politically and economically by a faction that makes use of the close to impossibility of altering the Constitution as a political defend for his or her financial energy. The problem in altering the Constitution is a curse, not a blessing. And if social oppression continues, the Constitution will probably be changed by way of many declarations of independence.

We have to be allowed to have governments that promote and shield our ethical philosophies. Treaties such because the Constitution serve to determine commerce and communication externally, the place totally different political buildings interface. But internally our Constitution is permitting the guise of particular person alternative to regulate commerce for the profit of enterprise, and morality to be diluted.

If the Constitution is alive, then it should perform for all of the individuals. If it can’t perform for all of the individuals, then it have to be altered to take action or get replaced with new constitutions for the profit and safety of the communities who’ve it of their curiosity to be self-determining. Self-determination has gone too far in defining particular person rights, and never almost far sufficient in defining group rights.

The Constitution’s originators assumed that the person would all the time help the group she or he belonged to, or transfer to at least one that they might help. So the language of the Constitution is made to favor the person. But in immediately’s world, people out of sync with their group don’t transfer to extra harmonious conditions. Instead they enlist the help of the courts and the language of the Constitution to pursue not solely a person, but in addition a non-communal philosophy. They pressure acceptance of their conduct onto a group that doesn’t want their presence. To be really particular person is to be singularly self-determining, to be a nation unto oneself. This is just a worthy objective of anarchists, and shouldn’t be a political or judicial objective of our authorities.

The prisons that maintain these deemed to have transgressed some social law will not be the place to measure society’s potential to determine and keep concord. More and extra prisons exhibit a failed social authorities. These prisons are microcosms of the good jail that society is to itself. While the bulk of residents have grow to be financial prisoners of a political elite. Who in the present day doesn’t really feel imprisoned by the menace of violence towards their individual and property, at house and in public? The quantity of prisoners incarcerated is a signpost of the financial despair and social corruption growing in our society. We segregate them within the hope of purifying that which decays, as a result of it’s imperfect by design, and stored imperfect by a political-industrial conspiracy of greed and revenue in place of social equity.

Below are some excerpts from Tom Paine’s ebook “Rights of Man.” They are endlessly well timed.

“Reason and Ignorance, the opposite to each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of Government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.”

“Whether the varieties and maxims of Governments that are nonetheless in apply have been tailored to the situation of the world on the interval they have been established isn’t on this case the query. The older they’re the much less correspondence can they’ve with the current state of issues.

Time, and alter of circumstances and opinions, have the identical progressive impact in rendering modes of Government out of date as they’ve upon customs and manners. Agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and the tranquil arts, by which the prosperity of Nations is greatest promoted, require a unique system of Government, and a unique species of information to direct its operations, than what may need been required within the former situation of the world.

From what we now see, nothing of reform within the political world should be held unbelievable. It is an age of Revolutions, through which the whole lot could also be seemed for.”

“It is for the good of Nations and not for the emolument or aggrandizement of particular individuals, that Government ought to be established, and that mankind are at the expense of supporting it. The defects of every Government and Constitution, both as to principle and form, must on a parity of reasoning, be as open to discussion as the defects of a law, and it is a duty which every man owes to society to point them out. When those defects, and the means of remedying them, are generally seen by a Nation, that Nation will reform its Government or its Constitution in the one case, as the Government repealed or reformed the law in the other. The operation of Government is restricted to the making and the administering of laws; but it is to a Nation (the citizens) that the right of forming or reforming, generating or regenerating, Constitutions and Governments belong; and consequently those subjects, as subjects of investigations, are always before a country as a matter of right, and cannot, without invading the general rights of that country, be made subjects for prosecution.”

© April 2009

Craig D. Hanks

Source by Craig Hanks

The post The Constitution Vs The Declaration of Independence appeared first on Utah Business Lawyer.

from
http://www.utbusinesslawyer.com/the-constitution-vs-the-declaration-of-independence/