Constitution Party National Chairman

Justin Magill

The U.S. Constitution is signed September 17, 1787

The signing of the U.S. Constitution, by the delegates of the Convention of 1787, begins its long journey to ratification. The delegates had met for months creating a new government in secrecy. It was now being sent on to the Congress with the recommendation to send it on to the States for ratification.

But ratification was not a foregone conclusion. The Convention had created a new constitution rather than attempt to modify the old one to cure the problems facing our States. The Framers created a confederated republic using fundamentals from other systems. The public were faced with a new animal, and needed time to explore it, have it explained, and have questions answered.

The debates that raged through the States, in newspaper and flyers and in the ratification conventions, provide us with many insights into the views and understandings that Americans had of the new document.
It took nine months for the required nine States to ratify the new constitution and it took nearly two and a half years to get all thirteen States to ratify it.

Today we have people pushing for another convention to open up the U.S. Constitution for changes; great and small. The Constitution Party opposes these attempts that put the constitutional protections of our natural rights at risk, and we encourage everyone to contact their State legislatures to tell them to refuse to go along with such efforts. We also encourage those in States that have made application or passed resolutions, to contact their State legislatures to call for a recission.

Constitution Party Platform: Constitutional Convention

Letter of the President of the Federal Convention, Dated September 17, 1787, to the President of Congress, Transmitting the Constitution. In Convention, September 17, 1787.

Sir,

We have now the honor to submit to the consideration of the United States in Congress assembled, that Constitution which has appeared to us the most adviseable.

The friends of our country have long seen and desired, that the power of making war, peace, and treaties, that of levying money and regulating commerce, and the correspondent executive and judicial authorities should be fully and effectually vested in the general government of the Union: But the impropriety of delegating such extensive trust to one body of men is evident-Hence results the necessity of a different organization.

It is obviously impracticable in the federal government of these states, to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each, and yet provide for the interest and safety of all: Individuals entering into society, must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest. The magnitude of the sacrifice must depend as well on situation and circumstance, as on the object to be obtained. It is at all times difficult to draw with precision the line between those rights which must be surrendered, and those which may be reserved; and on the present occasion this difficulty was encreased by a difference among the several states as to their situation, extent, habits, and particular interests.

In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily in our view, that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence. This important consideration, seriously and deeply impressed on our minds, led each state in the Convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude, than might have been otherwise expected; and thus the Constitution, which we now present, is the result of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensible.

That it will meet the full and entire approbation of every state is not perhaps to be expected; but each will doubtless consider, that had her interest been alone consulted, the consequences might have been particularly disagreeable or injurious to others; that it is liable to as few exceptions as could reasonably have been expected, we hope and believe; that it may promote the lasting welfare of that country so dear to us all, and secure her freedom and happiness, is our most ardent wish.

With great respect, We have the honor to be, Sir,

Your Excellency’s most obedient and humble servants,

GEORGE WASHINGTON, President.

By unanimous Order of the Convention.

His Excellency the PRESIDENT of CONGRESS.

---

Source:
Documents Illustrative of the Formation of the Union of the American States.
Government Printing Office, 1927.
House Document No. 398.
Selected, Arranged and Indexed by Charles C. Tansill

Source: Avalon Project

(1) Reprinted from Documentary History of the Constitution, Vol. II (1894) pp. I, 2. Back

(2) From Washington’s copy of the Journal of Congress (Vol XII, p. 164). Back

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We oppose any attempt to call for a Constitutional convention, for any purpose whatsoever, because it cannot be limited to any single issue, and such convention could seriously erode our Constitutionally protected unalienable rights.

We affirm the original text of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

We affirm that the nation’s Charter, i.e., the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights contain the foundational law of the federal union between the states.

We condemn all legislative, executive, and judicial action that departs from the texts and intent of the Charter and the Constitution and their original meaning.  

The Real Question of an Article V Convention

The Dangerous Threat Of an Article V Constitutional Convention

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by Janine Hansen, Constitution Party Western States Area Chairman

Last week I spoke at Carole Fineberg’s Conservative Talk Lunch in Reno, about the dangerous threat of an Article V Constitutional Convention now being promoted by such “conservative” elitist as Mark Levin, Glenn Beck, Michael Farris, Mark Meckler, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity.

Most recently, in the June 2014 Newsletter, I included an article by Phyllis Schlafly about the threat to our Right to Keep and Bear Arms from the Article V Constitutional Convention. I have fought this dangerous idea for more than 30 years and serve as the National Constitutional Issues Chairman for Eagle Forum. But now more than ever before, the extreme hazards of this bad idea have been exposed.

A Constitutional Convention will be the Greatest Political event in the history of our nation since the original Constitutional Convention… Do you think that the liberals will sit back and let the Conservatives control the Convention? Are you dreaming? 

Just ask yourself: Do we control our City Council, County Commission, State Legislature or Congress? How in the world are “conservatives” going to control a Constitutional Convention of the States?  This is the myth being promoted by the Convention of the States group…that the people, of course the conservatives, will control a Convention.

A proponent of a Constitutional Convention (ConCon) said to me at the Conservative Talk Lunch, “That’s what’s the matter with you. You don’t trust the people!” Am I supposed to trust the people who voted for Obama for President? Or perhaps the people who voted for Harry Reid? Did the Founding Fathers trust the people? Absolutely not! That’s why they gave us a Republic not a Democracy and that Republic had lots of checks and balances to restrain the government and the people.

Some Background: Article V of the U.S. Constitution states: “The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress…” Notice that Congress Calls the Convention and will set the rules…not the States. Can you imagine this happening without dingy Harry Reid’s fingers in the pie?

All we know for sure about an Article V Convention is what Article V states. There are no precedents because there has never been one called. All else is speculation. However, proponents tell us that the safeguard is that any amendments coming out of an Article V will have to be ratified by three-quarters of the states. As history tells us the original Constitutional Convention CHANGED the ratification process in the Articles of Confederation which required unanimous agreement to a requirement of only nine states. 

A Convention cannot be Limited: Former Chief Justice Warren Burger stated: “I have also repeatedly given my opinion that there is no effective way to limit or muzzle the actions of a Constitutional Convention. The Convention could make its own rules and set its own agenda. Congress might try to limit the Convention to one amendment or to one issue, but there is no way to assure that the Convention would obey. After a Convention is convened, it will be too late to stop the convention if we don’t like its agenda…”

Interesting note: Michael Farris/Mike Meckler’s Convention of the States organization is proposing three amendments and Mark Levin’s book promotes Ten separate amendments. There can be no legitimate discussion of limiting a convention to a single subject.

How will Delegates be chosen? We don’t know. Will there be one vote per state like the original Constitutional Convention? Can you imagine California or New York putting up with that? If delegates are based on population the large liberal states will control the convention. And don’t forget recent experiences at Republican and Democrat Conventions. He who has the gavel makes the rules.

Who else is interested in Changing the Constitution besides the Conservative Elite? 

Liberal Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens recently published a book about the Six Constitutional amendments he is promoting. Specifically he wants to change the Second Amendment. Stevens proposes that the Second Amendment should be modified by adding five words, as follows: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the militia shall not be infringed.” This change adding “when serving in the militia” eliminates the individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms. A Convention would be a real opportunity for the Gun Grabbers.

Move to Amend is a leftist organization which opposes the U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Citizens United. Move to Amend wants to take away our right of free speech by eliminating independent contributions for campaigns and limit campaigns to government money only (which will silence dissent). They support an Article V Constitutional Convention. This year Vermont became the first State Legislature to pass this radical proposal calling for an Article V Constitutional Convention to implement it. If you go to Move to Amend’s website you will see nine pages of leftist organizations across the nation supporting this radical idea. “We will win our amendment through Congress or through a Constitutional Convention (Article V)…”

Their radical amendment prohibits candidates from spending their own money on their own campaigns. Their claim is that money is not free speech. Really? I guess we can stand on the corner and shout at passing cars with our message, because you won’t be able to purchase literature, pay for a website, place ads on TV, put up campaign signs, pay for phone calls or campaign workers or print and mail a newsletter. Screaming on the corner would be about all that would be left to us if we can’t spend any money to exercise free speech.

Conservative Republicans who claim to support a Balanced Budget Amendment are blowing smoke! 

All States receive a significant portion of their budgets, between 19% and 45%, from the federal government. Nevada receives 25.48% of its budget from the federal government. You could look high and low and not find a conservative Republican legislator willing to refuse the federal money and mandates. They want to cut the federal budget but not their state’s budget! This is why conservatives who say they want a Balanced Budget Amendment are blowing smoke. Legislators, conservative or not, will not vote to reject federal funds and mandates. Do you think they will go to an Article V Convention and vote to cut their own state budgets by 25%?  This is why a Balanced Budget Amendment won’t work.

BBA supporters admit a BBA Article V Convention will raise your taxes, not cut spending. 

Fritz Pettyjohn, a former Alaska Legislator, is the Co-Founder of the Balanced Budget Amendment Task Force and currently the Field Director of Lew Uhler’s National Tax Limitation Committee. February 26, 2014, during a meeting of the Utah Legislature’s Conservative Caucus in a room full of Legislators, Pettyjohn was asked, “What would prevent the Congress from raising our taxes to balance the budget? 

Pettyjohn responded by saying, “They probably will raise our taxes, but there’s nothing wrong with that. It would make the people so mad they would throw them out.” WOW! The Article V BBA failed at the Utah Legislature. Many Legislators were not willing to support a measure that would result in taxes being raised.

I often hear the argument in favor of an Article V Constitutional Convention that everything is so bad that we have to do something. If my house was on fire and the only liquid available was gasoline I would not throw gasoline on my burning house because I had to do something. That’s what an Article V gives us…the real chance of throwing gasoline on an already burning Constitution.

I was asked what is the alternative to an Article V Convention? I agree that the situation is truly bleak. The solutions to our nation’s plight will not be legislated by corrupt politicians representing morally bankrupt citizens. The only real solutions to this problem is the answer given by the Lord in 2 Chronicles 7:14 KJV, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked way; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” 

Originally published in the August 2014 Nevada Families for Freedom Newsletter, www.nevadafamilies.org

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Is There Enough Wrong With The Constitution To Risk Destroying All Of It?

By Lisa Wamsley

The question is often asked, “What’s wrong with a Constitutional Convention?” 

Perhaps the real question should be, “Is there enough wrong with the Constitution to risk destroying all of it?” 

The next logical question would be, “Is the U.S. Constitution the problem, or the solution?”  

It seems to me that the real problem is not the Constitution, but rather the government’s failure to comply with it and, with even more culpability, the lack of knowledge and apathy towards its content by the majority of the American people, including our elected officials.   

Government, historically, will take whatever power and control that it can. 

John C. Calhoun (1782-1850): “Government has within it a tendency to abuse its powers.”                                                                       

Frederick Douglas (1818-1895): “The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress.”          

Edmund Burke (1729-1797): “Those who have been intoxicated with power… can never willingly abandon it.”      

Our Constitutional Republic was beautifully crafted to allow “We the People” to be the strongest arm of government, and we were to be left alone to govern ourselves in as many areas as possible.  Our Constitution does not need a transformation, but rather a restoration.  It seems that we have let old Benjamin Franklin down by not keeping the Republic.  

THE SINGLE-ISSUE ARGUMENT

Rex E. Lee (1935-1996): “The only relevant precedent would indicate that the convention could not be so limited [to a single issue].  Anyone who purports to express a definitive view on this subject is either deluded or deluding.”    

Proponents of a Constitutional Convention (or Con-Con) frequently use the “single-issue” deception to entice unsuspecting, uninformed Americans into advocating for one.  Lack of knowledge and feelings of desperation seem to be the impetus for many of those well-meaning Americans as they fall in line behind the often-unseen people and organizations fueling the movement; those whose motives are to significantly morph the Constitution and obliterate its original intent.  

Karl Marx (1818-1883): “A people without a heritage are easily persuaded.”  

However, the single-issue argument is null and void right out of the chute.  To call a convention for the sole purpose of proposing an amendment to the United States Constitution to require a balanced budget, or term limits, or a debt ceiling, etc., as many state legislatures have attempted, is a moot argument.  The Constitution can be amended, for a single issue, via our legislative body, the Congress.  

Are these proposed, single-issue amendments even necessary?  For example, consider the highly advocated balanced-budget amendment.  If our federal government, intended to be as small as possible and granted only very limited powers, were forced to live within its constitutional confines, would we be suffering from the exponentially explosive national debt?  We don’t need a new amendment; we need the states to require Congress to act within their constitutional limits.

The original intent of our Founding Fathers is no secret if one desires to know and teach the truth.  Their plethora of writings and speeches provide inexhaustible evidence.   

Thomas Jefferson: “I am not a friend to a very energetic government.  It is always oppressive.”    

James Madison:  “Do not separate text from historical background.  If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.”

Alexander Hamilton: “It’s not tyranny we desire; it’s a just, limited, federal government.” 

Our Founders recognized the need for a federal government but realized that if left to its own ambitions the American people (and states) would not remain a free and sovereign people.  An out of control federal government is the reason we do not have a balanced budget.  Neither an amendment through the amendment process nor through a constitutional convention is necessary.  

Chaining the federal government within the constitutional box in which it is limited is the solution.  If we fail to scale back the federal government’s encroachments upon our God-granted, constitutionally-protected, unalienable rights they will erode into oblivion; obscured in the annals of history. 

Another highly energized argument for calling for a single-issue Constitutional Convention is to impose term limits.  Although there is a profusion of elected officials who really should not be re-elected, are term limits for U.S. congressmen really an issue for the federal government to consider?  The Founders did not seem to think so.  They removed term limits which had been a part of the original Articles of Confederation (Article V), which preceded the Constitution.  Nevertheless, a single amendment, if actually justified, can be accomplished by a simpler and much safer process that does not endanger the entirety of the longest lasting constitution in history.   

WHO’S IN CHARGE

A Constitutional Convention, however, would take control away from the American people and our elected representatives, giving a select few (who would not necessarily be elected) the power to totally transform our nation and exterminate a form of government that has existed for nearly 225 years. Even the ratification by three-fourths of the states (Article V) is not a safeguard, as some tout. The state legislatures can be circumvented by the calling of state conventions to ratify changes (as was done with the 21st Amendment in 1933).

The most insidious warning bell, however, is that the Constitutional Convention delegates can change or abolish any rules for ratification, as was done in 1787.  Although that outcome was exceptional, and some believe divinely inspired, there are no statesmen today who are even remotely close in caliber to our Founding Fathers whom we could rely on for a favorable outcome. 

In the early 1980’s, our beloved Constitution nearly arrived at the terrible fate of a Constitutional Convention.  According to the John Birch Society who has battled this campaign for 30 years, 32 out of the required 34 states had passed legislation to force Congress to subject the Constitution to the possibility of total evisceration, under the guise of the ‚single-issue‛ of requiring a balanced budget amendment.   

Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court Warren Burger wrote: “I have also repeatedly given my opinion that there is no effective way to limit or muzzle the actions of a Constitutional Convention.  The Convention could make its own rules and set its own agenda.  Congress might try to limit the Convention to one amendment or to one issue, but there is no way to assure that the Convention would obey.  After a Convention is convened it will be too late to stop the Convention if we don’t like its agenda.” 

He also stated: “Whatever gain might be hoped for from a new Constitutional Convention could not be worth the risk involved. It could plunge our Nation into constitutional confusion and confrontation at every turn. We should be celebrating its long life, not challenging its very existence.”

Thankfully, through the efforts of great patriotic citizens and organizations, sixteen states have now rescinded all previous calls for a Constitutional Convention.  

(2025 Update: 19 states have passed Convention of the States (COS) legislation, 34 are needed to present to Congress).

WE HAVE BEEN WARNED

James Madison (referred to as the Chief Architect of the Constitution) wrote in 1788: “If a General Convention were to take place for the avowed and sole purpose of revising the Constitution, it would naturally consider itself as having a greater latitude than the Congress; it would consequently give greater agitation to the public mind; be courted by the most violent partisans on both sides; consist of the most heterogeneous characters; would be the very focus of that flame which has already too much heated men of all parties; contain individuals of insidious views, who might have a dangerous opportunity of sapping the very foundations of the fabric.

Under all these circumstances it seems scarcely to be presumable that the deliberations of the body could be conducted in harmony or terminate in the general good. Having witnessed the difficulties and dangers experienced by the first Convention, which assembled under every propitious circumstance, I should tremble for the result of a Second meeting in the present temper of America, and under all the disadvantages I have mentioned.” 

Many great patriots today believe that if a Constitutional Convention were to be allowed in today’s American society the result would be America’s Last Will and Testament.  

The Founders would have agreed. Is the majority of Congress today guided by those same, unselfish and unwavering godly principles as our Founding Fathers?  

Daniel Webster: “Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.”

John Adams warned: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.  Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.  Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” 

Does 21st century America have noble, godly leaders, of the same caliber as our Founding Fathers, who could be trusted with a runaway convention?  Leaders who would put God first and set aside self-interest and potential bribes for the common good of our country?  Leaders who are willing to risk their lives, liberty and sacred honor to do what is the best for the common good and not bow to special interests?  

To anyone who might think they are, our collective response should be:  “I know about George Washington. George Washington was a friend of liberty. You, sir or madam, are no George Washington!”

IS THE CONSTITUTION THE PROBLEM OR THE SOLUTION?

The original intent of the Founding Fathers was to have an extremely limited federal government with specific enumerated powers (Article I, Section VII).  

Will our government, which has trampled on our current constitution for too many years, willingly choose to live within the chains of a new constitution?

Probably not.  Americans must become educated.  We must know our Christian heritage, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and other founding documents and study our Founding Fathers.  We must recognize that our unalienable rights are granted by God (not the government) and that the role of government is to protect those rights.  

The solution is to enforce the existing constitution, not amend it.  The solution includes the firing of all governmental officials who refuse to obey their oath to “support and defend” it.  

Are those who continue to push for a constitutional convention just unwilling to invest the time and energy to restore the Constitution?  Or worse, do they have an ulterior motive to change our form of government? 

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