Patrick Henry, a Forgotten Argument, and the Necessity of Morality and Religion to a Free Society

Posted on October 6, 2025 by zeev1776

By Zack Strong

*This article is a repost of the same article, by the same title, which I wrote for the Independent American Party of Utah on May 31, 2014. Though there are many things I would say differently or clarify were I to write it anew today, I have decided to keep it as-is.*

It is well known that Patrick Henry was among those who opposed the proposed Constitution in 1787. However, most do know know why Anti-Federalists like Henry opposed the new system. Anti-Federalists cited their belief that the Constitution “squints toward monarchy” or that it is foolish to think that a republic can be extended over a large territory. They criticized the provisions allowing for an army and thought the power of taxation could potentially be abused. Among the many reasons they gave for their opposition, however, one is often overlooked. Henry and others scoffed at the fact that the Framers were staking their whole experiment upon the goodness and morality of the People and upon the honesty of office holders in government. Henry believed this was a ludicrous idea, but others of the Founders proclaimed that only a moral and religious People were capable of Freedom and that an immoral and irreligious People would inevitably collapse under the weight of their own corruption.

Below is a lengthy quotation from an address by Patrick Henry wherein he discusses why he opposed the Constitution. In particular, this quotation highlights Henry’s incredulity towards the notion that our Constitution could only work if people were moral, honest and good. I will contrast Henry’s thoughts to those of other prominent Founders and then add some thoughts of my own regarding how this applies today:

“Where are your checks in this Government? Your strong holds will be in the hands of your enemies: It is on a supposition that our American Governors shall be honest, that all the good qualities of this Government are founded: But its defective, and imperfect construction, puts it in their power to perpetrate the worst mischiefs, should they be bad men. And, Sir, would not all the world, from the Eastern to the Western hemisphere, blame our distracted folly in resting our rights upon the contingency of our rulers being good or bad. Shew me the age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty? I say that the loss of that dearest privilege has ever followed with absolute certainty, every such mad attempt. If your American chief, be a man of ambition, and abilities, how easy is it for him to render himself absolute: The army is in his hands, and, if he be a man of address, it will be attached to him; and it will be the subject of long meditation with him to seize the first auspicious moment to accomplish his design; and, Sir, will the American spirit solely relieve you when this happens?” (Patrick Henry, June 7, 1788, “The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debates,” Ralph Ketcham, ed., p. 214)

Patrick Henry is very clear that the only real check on government usurpation and tyranny that he can find in the Constitution is the goodness and honesty of its administrators, and the “spirit” of the American People. Peppered throughout Anti-Federalist arguments against the Constitution is the apprehension that the new system can only work if the People are virtuous and if their representatives are honest and unambitious. They were cynical and thought that history proved that people, and particularly their rulers, could not be virtuous. According to this view of mankind, such a Constitution as ours would be pointless because it could only lead to ruin.

Other Founders, however, believed that the American People in fact had the potential to break the historical cycle and create a Zion-like society. The book “The Majesty of God’s Law” by W. Cleon Skousen does a marvelous job of showing, through their own writings and quotations, how our Founders were anxious to found a Biblical society which they often called a “New Jerusalem” (Skousen, 24). So strong was this sentiment that Hebrew became a required language in some colleges and there was even a push to make Hebrew the official national language (Skousen, 23). But at any rate, many of the Founders believed that a moral and religious society was not only possible, but absolutely necessary.

On September 17, 1787, the day of the signing of the Constitution in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin anticipated many of the arguments that would be made against the Constitution. We would do well to review some of his comments on that occasion:

“I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other . . . Much of the strength and efficiency of any Government in producing and securing happiness to the people, depends, on opinion, on the general opinion of the goodness of the Government, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its Governors.”

Benjamin Franklin wisely observed from history that when the People become corrupt and decadent and immoral, their governments become despotic. Therefore, said he, no system of government can survive unless the People are good. Consequently, Franklin and his fellow Framers were staking the success of the Constitution on the People being good. They hoped that America could become something different, something unique – a shining city on a hill. Henry and several of his fellow opponents to the Constitution thought this was madness. Yet, it seems to be the prevailing view among our Founders that morality and religion are indispensable to Freedom. I will discuss some of these sentiments below, but for a more in depth discussion on this subject, please see my previous article: http://www.independentamericanparty.org/2014/05/morality-and-religion-pillars-of-free-society-by-zack-strong/.

In his memorable Farewell address in 1796, George Washington declared: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of man and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.” Indispensable is a strong word, yet the Father of Our Country was definitive in his view that morality and religion were absolutely essential to free government.

In that same address, Washington firmly stated: “And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle . . . It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a

necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who, that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?” Only the most ignorant of history can conclude that morality and religion are not essential to free society.

Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll, flatly stated: “Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime & pure, which denounces against the wicked eternal misery, and insured to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments” (Charles Carroll to James McHenry, November 4, 1800).

Like Carroll, John Adams bluntly said: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other” (John Adams to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, October 11, 1798). There is no misunderstanding Adams – morality and religion were absolute necessities to free society in his view. And, furthermore, the Constitution was calculated to compliment just such a society.

John Adams’ cousin Samuel Adams, the Father of the American Revolution, was even more dire in his predictions of what would befall an immoral People. He wrote: “He who is void of virtuous Attachments in private Life is, or very soon will be, void of all Regard for his Country. There is seldom an Instance of a Man guilty of betraying his Country, who had not before lost the Feeling of moral Obligations in his private Connections . . . No People will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when Knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preservd. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own Weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders” (Samuel Adams to James Warren, November 4, 1775). Think of how many individuals have betrayed their country in our generation alone! In every case, we can point to their lack of character and morals. And, tragically, it is self-evident that America is sinking under her own weight of corruption, just as Adams predicted.

John Witherspoon was also convinced that morality was necessary to our national survival. He wrote: “Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the rotten materials together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best constitution will be ineffectual, and slavery must ensue. On the other hand, when the manners of a nation are pure, when true religion and internal principles maintain their vigor, the attempts of the most powerful enemies to oppress them are commonly baffled and disappointed” (John Witherspoon, “The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Man,” May 17, 1776). Indeed, nothing is more certain nor more proven by history.

Finally, I quote once more from the illustrious George Washington. Said he, “Religion and morality are the essential pillars of civil society” (George Washington to the Clergy of Philadelphia, March 3, 1797). Long ago I adopted the similar term “pillars of free society” to describe morality and religion. I believe them so very important to our existence as a free country. I believe the wholesale violation of the eternal laws of right and wrong, or morality, or basic human decency, and of true religion will be America’s final undoing if we persist on this path.

Unless we repent as a People, we will collapse, crumble, and fall as every empire of the past has done. We will be hated by posterity for not salvaging this, the greatest, freest, most prosperous nation in the history of the world. Unfortunately, the seeds of our destruction were sown well over a century ago, with multiple generations carefully cultivating them. And now we are reaping the horrid harvest by perpetuating this moral corruption. This country may not last long enough to see another generation before America sits in ruins and is but a painful memory of what could have been had we the integrity and sense to humble ourselves before our Creator and simply follow His eternal laws of justice, truth, goodness, and happiness.

America might not be salvageable, but individuals certainly are. A remnant of God-fearing, humble, moral, decent individuals will always be preserved no matter which path society as a whole chooses. We must make it our job to be among that group and to enlist as many people as we can into our ranks. A “tireless minority,” as Samuel Adams said, will eventually prevail and the brushfires of Freedom will spread over the face of the globe. If we stand on God’s side and follow the eternal laws of morality, nothing can shake us.

Study the Constitution

Posted on September 17, 2025 by zeev1776

Zack Strong
September 17, 2025

Do we comprehend how blessed we are because we have the Constitution as our system of government? The federal Constitution of the United States is the most inspired work ever created by human wisdom. Indeed, it was not created by human wisdom at all, but was inspired by the Lord through noble, wise, and worthy men who loved by the Lord and the Liberty wherewith He had made them free. This Constitution Day, a long-neglected holiday by ungrateful and unthinking Americans, I plead for you to show gratitude to our inspired national charter of rights, to the men who fought and labored for it, and to the Lord Jesus Christ who blessed us with its bounties.

It must be admitted that America in 2025 is a vastly different place than it was in 1789 when George Washington became the first President of these United States. Not only have technology and social norms evolved, but our understanding of republicanism has evolved. Sadly, our comprehension of republicanism, federalism, constitutionalism, and sound governmental principles has lapsed. The average American knows practically nothing about the Constitution – most have never read it and wouldn’t understand it if they did. America is also a less free place in 2025 than it was in 1789.

Some balk at the idea that we are a less free nation now than in the past. What about slavery? What about women’s rights? What about this or that or whatever ideological talking point you remember from your government education? Even though slavery has been formally abolished, for U.S. citizens, Liberty has in fact decreased. A very quick overview looks like this: Government has ballooned in size (starting primarily with Abraham Lincoln), an unelected bureaucracy reigns regardless of changes in administration, intelligence agencies spy on everyone and collect our data without warrant or just cause, the Federal Reserve and Congress have utterly destroyed the purchasing power of the dollar while racking up unheard of debt totaling $37.5 trillion as of this writing, free speech is under withering attack and socialistic “hate speech” laws plague us, all fifty states have gun laws in blatant disregard of the Second Amendment, crime so often goes unpunished by corrupt judges and district attorneys, private property is being seized left and right by federal and state agencies, and we are being nickled and dimed to death by insane fees and taxes far exceeding those that enraged our forefathers and caused them to rebel against the tyrannical British. The list could go on and on. The fact is that the U.S. Constitution is hanging by a brittle thread and the Republic, which functions more like an empire, is on the blink of collapse.

Why have we fallen so precipitously? The prophetic patriot Ezra Taft Benson told us exactly how we would fall in 1968:

“I do not believe the greatest threat to our future is from bombs or guided missiles. I do not think our civilization will die that way. I think it will die when we no longer care, when the spiritual forces that make us wish to be right and noble die in the hearts of men, when we disregard the importance of law and order.

“If American freedom is lost, if America is destroyed, if our blood-bought freedom is surrendered, it will be because of Americans. What’s more, it will probably not be only the work of subversive and criminal Americans. The Benedict Arnolds will not be the only ones to forfeit our freedom. . . .

“If America is destroyed, it may be by Americans who salute the flag, sing the national anthem, march in patriotic parades, cheer Fourth of July speakers–normally good Americans, but Americans who fail to comprehend what is required to keep our country strong and free – Americans who have been lulled away into a false security.

“Great nations are never conquered from outside unless they are rotten inside. Our greatest national problem today is erosion, not the erosion of the soil, but erosion of the national morality – erosion of traditional enforcement of law and order.

“In this blessed land we have exalted security, comfort, and ease above freedom. If we dwelled at length on the many things that are disturbing in the life of America today, we might well become discouraged. I mention only a few of the reported startling evidences of our national illness, our moral erosion.

“There is a decline of U.S. morals and moral fiber, a turning to pleasure and away from hard work and high standards of the past. . . .

“America is the biggest market for narcotics.

“Although we consider ourselves a people who believe in law and order, we have seen much evidence of the passion of the mob. . . .

“The sky-rocketing cost of the welfare state. . . .

“Inflation has struck a serious blow to the value of the American dollar.

“We continue to move in the direction of more federal intervention, more concentration of power, more spending, more taxing, more paternalism, more state-ism. . . .

“The facts are clear. Our problem centers in Washington, D.C. And this applies to the administration of both political parties. In the words of James Madison, “Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.” (Elliot’s Debates, Vol. 3, p. 87.)

“If America is to withstand these influences and trends, there must be a renewal of the spirit of our forefathers, an appreciation of the American way of life, a strengthening of muscle and sinew and the character of the nation. America needs guts as well as guns. National character is the core of national defense.”

Benson was correct. Our biggest problems – and we have many – are our immorality and apathy. We are shockingly complacent. As our national house burns down around us, we sit absentmindedly scrolling on social media. We perpetuate a cycle of pride, contention, sacrilege, hedonism, and both political and spiritual blindness. Most Christians are Christians-in-name-only but do not follow the teachings of the Savior of the world. They certainly do not follow His laws governing morality and sexual relations. We have become a nation of porn-addicted, degenerate, self-centered pleasure-seekers instead of seekers of God, goodness, and the general welfare.

Separation of Church and State by Jon McNaughton

Because we have abandoned the God of this land, who is Jesus Christ, He has left us to our own devices – or, if you will, to our own vices. These vices, apathy, and ignorance have been our undoing as we have allowed – usually by electing them – vipers and monsters into office at all levels of government. The Lord has given us what we deserve – and what we deserve is pedophiles, adulterers, liars, Satanists, and corrupt self-aggrandizers in our government. These wolves in sheep’s clothing come in two sizes – Republican and Democrat. Neither fights for the American People. The fact that so many conservatives still believe that the Republican Party is on their side is indicative of how low we have sunk as a nation. If we want to have moral, upright, and good people restored to offices in government, we must do what the Lord told the Israelites through His prophet Isaiah and repent. I quote the inspired words:

“Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.

“Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

“From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.

“Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

“And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.

“Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. . . .

“Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

“Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

“If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:

“But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

“How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.

“Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:

“Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.

“Therefore saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies:

“And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin:

“And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city.

“Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness.

“And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the Lord shall be consumed.” (Isaiah 1:4-9, 16-28).

If you care about America, repent. Turn to the Redeemer Jesus Christ. Rid yourself of unworthiness and of the corruption and demoralizing taint of the world. The Savior stands with open arms ready to save. Everyone is welcome – none are forbidden to partake of His mercy. He bled in Gethsemane for your sins, suffered scourging, an unjust mock trial, and endured crucifixion as the great and last blood sacrifice, for you. No matter what you have done, you may repent. You cannot merely claim Jesus and think that cleanses you. It does not. Neither does deathbed repentance benefit you. Only a sincere, abiding repentance – that is, a turning away from evil and a turning to good – has the power to save you, cleanse you, and make you reborn sons and daughters of the Lord of lords. I repeat, if you love America, repent.

This Constitution Day, it is imperative to drink deeply from the wells of wisdom of our ancestors. Our forefathers were paragons of truth and political brilliance. In my studies of world history, I find no comparable group of men – men who understood so thoroughly the principles of Liberty, the dangers of tyranny, and the price required to both obtain and maintain Freedom. It is incumbent upon you to study our national documents – the Declaration of Independence and Constitution – and learn their holy and just principles.

James Wilson, one of the legal geniuses among the Founding Fathers, gave us important advice when he said that we cannot truly comprehend or love Liberty if we do not also comprehend and love law. We lie to ourselves if we claim to love Liberty but do not understand law – in our context, if we do not understand the Constitution. Wilson recommended that we all study the science of law through which we gain Liberty. He observed:

“Were I called upon for my reasons why I deem so highly of the American character, I would assign them in a very few words—That character has been eminently distinguished by the love of liberty, and the love of law. . . .

“In free countries—in free countries, especially, that boast the blessing of a common law, springing warm and spontaneous from the manners of the people—Law should be studied and taught as a historical science. . . .

“. . . Before we can be distinguished by the same honours [as illustrious men like Benjamin Franklin], we must be distinguished by the same virtues.

“What are those virtues? They are chiefly the same virtues, which we have already seen to be descriptive of the American character—the love of liberty, and the love of law. But law and liberty cannot rationally become the objects of our love, unless they first become the objects of our knowledge. The same course of study, properly directed, will lead us to the knowledge of both. Indeed, neither of them can be known, because neither of them can exist, without the other. Without liberty, law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness. In denominating, therefore, that science, by which the knowledge of both is acquired, it is unnecessary to preserve, in terms, the distinction between them. That science may be named, as it has been named, the science of law.

“The science of law should, in some measure, and in some degree, be the study of every free citizen, and of every free man. Every free citizen and every free man has duties to perform and rights to claim. Unless, in some measure, and in some degree, he knows those duties and those rights, he can never act a just and an independent part.”

If we want to regain the same level of Liberty our forefathers enjoyed, we must love and study law as they did. We must study the workings of our federal Constitution. We must study the principles of the Declaration of Independence. We must know what are our God-given rights and what are the responsibilities and delegates powers of government. We must become truly engaged patriots, not merely sunshine or armchair patriots.

As I said before, if you truly love America, repent. If you have not read the Constitution, acknowledge your fault, repent, and read it. If you are a parent, read it together with your spouse and children. Study it. Inculcate the principles into your children. Live them and hold your elected representatives accountable to that which they hypocritically swear an oath every two, four, or six years. There are many marvelous resources for comprehending the principles therein written if you do not trust in your own native reasoning ability.

Resources for better understanding the Constitution include:

W. Cleon Skousen, The Making of America: The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution
Paul B. Skousen, How to Read the Constitution & the Declaration of Independence
David Barton, Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, and Religion
Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner, ed., The Founders’ Constitution series
Connor Boyack, The Tuttle Twins series, for the kids
Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, The Federalist Papers
Paul B. Skousen, The Federalist Papers Made Easier: The Complete and Original Text Subdivided and Annotated for Easier Understanding
W. Cleon Skousen, The Miracle of America video lesson series

However you choose to study and learn the Constitution, learn it. Internalize it. Live it. Freedom was purchased with blood. It may require blood to fully restore. But Liberty is worth it. The alternative – high-tech feudalism and oppression – is unacceptable. No good parent would put their children through a future of slavery and oppression and life in a decadent, godless society. Be a good parent. Turn to Christ. Be an example of the believers for your children, for your community, and for the world. You just might save your country, but you will certainly save your soul.

Happy Constitution Day. God be praised for sending the Founding Fathers to earth to carve out a haven of Liberty for the oppressed of the world and to institute the wisest document of Freedom ever seen in world history, the U.S. Constitution.

The “Eternal and Unremitting” Writ of Habeas Corpus

Posted on September 16, 2023 by zeev1776

*I herein present, unaltered in any way, an article I published on April 17, 2014, for the Independent American Party (now renamed Independent American Patriots)*

On April 27, 1861 President Abraham Lincoln perpetrated one of his most dastardly attacks upon the United States Constitution and on the rights of Americans. In an action worthy of a dictator, President Lincoln unilaterally suspended the writ of habeas corpus, effectively ending due process in the United States and subjecting the Union to military jurisdiction. By suspending the writ of habeas corpus, President Lincoln broke his oath of office, violated Article 1, Section 9, Clause 2 of the Constitution, obliterated the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, smashed historical precedent, and departed from the limited government philosophy of the Founding Fathers. This article will explain what our Founders thought of the writ of habeas corpus, why it matters today, and why violating is such a heinous act.

Article 1, Section 9, Clause 2 of the Constitution states: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” Habeas corpus laws date back to at least the Magna Carta of 1215 and were later clarified and codified in English law. The Magna Carta declares: “No freemen shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor send upon him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.” Kings had gotten into the habit of kidnapping their subjects and holding them without charge, trial, or any real cause. The Magna Carta addressed this issue and established a legal precedent whereby abductees could be summoned before a court to determine whether or not their imprisonment was justified.

The phrase habeas corpus is Latin for “produce the body.” As explained above, court orders, or writs, were issued to produce the prisoner and bring him before a court to determine the legality of his incarceration. Without this precious right, governments could arbitrarily and at will arrest and imprison their citizens, the latter having no legal means of redress other than armed revolt. In their wisdom, the Founding Fathers erected a formidable defense around the right to have writs of habeas corpus, jury trial, and due process. Let us take time now to see what our Founders believed about the need for habeas corpus.

Alexander Hamilton observed that “the practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.” Hamilton deemed habeas corpus laws the “remedy for this fatal evil” and quoted Sir William Blackstone as referring to habeas corpus as the “bulwark of the British Constitution” (Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, No. 84). The Founders likewise saw the Fourth Amendment as the bulwark of the American Constitution.

Like Hamilton, James Iredell, one of America’s first Supreme Court justices, identified “arbitrary imprisonment” as “the principal source of tyranny in all ages” (spoken at the North Carolina state ratifying convention, July 28, 1788). On the same occasion, Iredell stated that any attempt to suspend jury trial in the United States would draw the “resentment and detestation of the people,” would be worthy of “eternal infamy,” and would ultimately be “as unsuccessful as it was wicked.” Iredell did not mince words nor compromise on this precious right.

Perhaps the biggest supporter of habeas corpus laws was the great Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson referred to “trial by jury . . . the habeas corpus, the freedom of the press, [and] the freedom of religion” as the “first principles of liberty” (Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, November, 1803). The Sage of Monticello chastised his fellow countrymen for being “contented to live under a system which leaves to their governors the power of taking from them the trial by jury in civil cases, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce, the habeas corpus laws, and of yoking them with a standing army.” He referred to this apathetic attitude as a “degeneracy in the principles of liberty” (Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, February, 1788). To Jefferson, habeas corpus laws were just as fundamental as the Freedom of religion or Freedom of the press.

Jefferson felt so strongly about the writ of habeas corpus that in 1788 he proposed a bill of rights be added to the Constitution which, among other things, stipulated “no suspension of habeas corpus” (Jefferson to A. Donald, 1788). After receiving a copy of the newly crafted Constitution while serving as minister to France, Jefferson quickly wrote to James Madison that he was disappointed that the document did not include a “bill of rights providing clearly . . . the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury” among other protections of rights (Jefferson to James Madison, December 20, 1787). In his First Inaugural address as president, Jefferson highlighted “freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected” as part of the “bright constellation” of Liberty-minded principles that would guide his administration (Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801).

From these quotations, and others that could be cited, it is clear that the Founders jealously guarded the precious writ of habeas corpus. Yet, in 1861 President Lincoln perverted the nature of the United States government by suspending habeas corpus jury trial, and attacking other rights such as the Freedom of the press. Even at the time the general consensus was that President Lincoln had overstepped the Constitution. However, because of the suspension of habeas corpus and attacks on dissenting press, the fear of being hauled off to a military prison prevented most from vigorously protesting Lincoln’s usurpations. A low estimate finds that over 13,500 Northerners were arbitrarily imprisoned, never charged with a crime, and denied their basic rights guaranteed in the Constitution and Bill of Rights (James G. Randall, Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln, New York: 1926, 152-153).

Of those who did speak out against President Lincoln’s theretofore unprecedented violations of the Constitution, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney of the United States Supreme Court is perhaps the most well-known. On May 25, 1861 John Merryman, who was thought to be a secessionist, was arrested in his home in Maryland in the dead of night, without a warrant, by federal troops. Merryman was whisked away to the military prison at Fort McHenry while Lincoln’s troops put Maryland under martial law to nip in the bud suspicions that the state was planning to secede. When the writ of habeas corpus filed by Merryman’s lawyers reached Justice Taney, he immediately moved to grant the writ. Military officers at Fort McHenry refused to comply, however, prompting Justice Taney to declare the military and the president beyond their constitutional bounds. Justice Taney subsequently released an official judicial opinion on the matter. The main points of his opinion will be reviewed below.

After giving background information on the arrest of Merryman, Justice Taney explained the illegal actions of General Cadwallader of Fort McHenry. He wrote, “Having the prisoner thus in custody upon these vague and unsupported accusations, [General Cadwallader] refuses to obey the writ of habeas corpus, upon the ground that he is duly authorized by the President to suspend it (this and all subsequent Taney quotations taken from Opinion of Chief Justice Taney, In the Case of Ex Parte John Merryman, Applying for a Writ of Habeas Corpus, New Orleans, 1861; link below).

Justice Taney continued: “As the case comes before me, therefore, I understand that the President not only claims the right to suspend the writ of habeas corpus himself, at his discretion, but to relegate that discretionary power to a military officer, and to leave it to him to determine whether he will or will not obey judicial process.” He further wrote that he was surprised to hear President Lincoln claim this authority since, as Justice Taney recorded, “I had supposed it to be one of those points of constitutional law upon which there was no difference of opinion, and that it was admitted on all hands that the privilege of the writ could not be suspended, except by act of Congress.”

President Lincoln, it seems, invented his notion of executive authority out of whole cloth. Justice Taney made the observation that the vestiture of power in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 2 to suspend habeas corpus falls under the section of the Constitution that deals exclusively with legislative authority. As Article 1, Section 1 plainly states, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress” – not in the president. Justice Taney recounted how the American Founders had thrown off “arbitrary government” to establish “free institutions” and a “freer” government and therefore would never have granted the Executive Branch power to arbitrarily suspend habeas corpus.

Justice Taney was equally worried about military involvement in judicial affairs. He explained that the military “has, by force of arms, thrust aside the judicial authorities and officers to whom the Constitution has confided the power and duty of interpreting and administering the laws, and substituted a military government in its place, to be administered and executed by military officers.” Cognizant of historical precedent wherein militaries gradually usurp control over civil matters, the Founders crafted the Constitution so as to empower civilian jurisdiction and preeminence in judicial affairs.

One lengthy paragraph of Justice Taney’s opinion is of particular interest because it gives a good synopsis of who holds political power in the American system and where the boundaries are drawn. That paragraph is quoted here in full:

“With such provisions in the Constitution, expressed in language too clear to be misunderstood by any one, I can see no ground whatever for supposing that the President, in any emergency, or in any state of things, can authorize the suspension of the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus, or the arrest of a citizen, except in aid of the judicial power. He certainly does not faithfully execute the laws, if he takes upon himself legislative power, by suspending the writ of habeas corpus – and the judicial power also, by arresting and imprisoning a person without due process of law. Nor can any argument be drawn from the nature of sovereignty, or the necessity of government, for self-defense in times of tumult and danger. The Government of the United States is one of delegated and limited powers; it derives it existence and authority altogether from the Constitution, and neither of its branches, executive, legislative or judicial, can exercise any of the powers of government beyond those specified and granted. For the tenth Article of the Amendment to the Constitution, in express terms, provides that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Justice Taney accurately explained that the Constitution delegates only a handful of carefully specified powers to the federal government while reserving the rest to the American People. When an elected representative breaks his oath to the Constitution by overstepping its boundaries, he comes out in open war against the People and their natural rights. Such was the case with Abraham Lincoln when he illegally waged war on the Southern states and suspended habeas corpus and jury trials in order to quell opposition to his rule.

Some might question the relevance of an article on the writ of habeas corpus. After all, don’t we have a well-oiled justice system and don’t we live in a civilized and enlightened society? The fact is that America’s justice system is a farce. The law is not administered uniformly, but favors the wealthy and influential. Politicians, for example, get a slap on the wrist when they break the law whereas average Americans are being thrown into privately-owned, for-profit prisons for such ridiculous offenses as throwing a shoe at an elected representative or posting a supposedly threatening comment on Facebook or collecting rain water on their own property. Not only is injustice rampant, but the writ of habeas corpus has come under direct attack by Congress and the Executive Branch in recent legislation.

In October, 2001 the infamous PATRIOT Act was quite literally ramrodded through Congress by the Bush Administration and foisted upon the unsuspecting American People. Members of Congress only had 15 minutes to read the hundreds of pages of legislation which had been drafted in secret. Had they read the the PATRIOT Act, they 4 would have realized that it authorizes the federal government to spy on Americans, tap their phones without a warrant, and conspicuously does away with Fourth Amendment guarantees of due process – including the right to writs of habeas corpus. The Act also allows federal agents to write and administer their own search warrants and place a gag order, on pain of prosecution, upon those they secretly investigate. Numerous individuals have been arrested and imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and other military facilities out of the reach of civilian jurisdiction pursuant to the PATRIOT Act.

The National Defense Authorization Act 2012 (NDAA) likewise shreds the protections given in the Bill of Rights and authorizes, in purposefully vague language, the Executive Branch to use the military to arrest and detain indefinitely in military prisons, without charge or trial, anyone deemed by the president to be a threat to national security. Were a president today to have the ambition of Lincoln, he could do untold harm to Americans under the PATRIOT Act and the NDAA.

Many other dastardly pieces of legislation such as the 2005 Civilian Inmate Labor Program, the 2006 Military Commissions Act, the 2007 John Warner National Defense Authorization Act, and the 2009 National Emergency Centers Act assault our rights and subvert the Constitution. Whether it is Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, or the myriad of other despots who have ruled the United States for a century and a half, both sides of the power structure – Republicans and Democrats alike – are waging war against the American People and our God-given Liberties. However, as cockroaches scurry into hiding when hit by light, these political tyrants will flee when exposed by the brilliant light of truth. It is our job to become informed and to hold our representatives accountable for not honoring their oath to defend the Constitution.

When we make a sincere effort to study real history, we learn that our legacy is far more glorious than we are led to believe, while simultaneously darker and more sordid than we want to admit. The love and devotion our Founders had to personal Liberty and rule of law is humbling and inspiring. And the true nature and deeds of celebrated national heroes like Abraham Lincoln is revolting and maddening. The good and the bad both must be studied, however. Education in truth is the key to effecting positive change. We must become intellectually honest and doggedly pursue truth and fact at every peril, even if it takes us through the field where the sacred cows of our heart sit grazing on the ignorance fostered by our lack of commitment to unbiased truth. Only an educated, moral, God-fearing, and vigilant People are worthy of Freedom. Let us rise up and diligently earn our inheritance, along with our noble Founders, in the paradise of Freedom desired by so many yet achieved by so few.

Zack Strong,
September 16, 2023 (originally published April 17, 2014)

A Few Sources for Further Study on the Constitution and Habeas Corpus:

The Making of America: The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution by W. Cleon Skousen. Available at http://www.nccs.net. Perhaps the greatest book ever written on the true interpretation of the Constitution.

Full text for Justice Roger Taney’s opinion on Lincoln’s unjust suspension of habeas corpus: https://archive.org/details/16643818.4120.emory.edu/mode/2up

An analysis of the Ex Parte Merryman case:
https://www.fjc.gov/history/cases/famous-federal-trials/ex-parte-merryman-habeas-corpus-during-civil-war

Article by Laurence M. Vance: http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig4/vance4.html

Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, No. 84: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed84.asp

Text of the Magna Carta: http://www.constitution.org/eng/magnacar.htm

Full text of James Randall’s book Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln. Beware, however, Randall’s sycophantic praise of Lincoln: https://archive.org/details/constitutionalpr00randa

Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address: http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres16.html

Article “No More Asking For Permission to Speak” by Judge Andrew Napolitano on the
PATRIOT Act: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/03/andrew-p-napolitano/no-more-asking-for-permission-tospeak/

“How Congress Has Assaulted Our Freedoms in the Patriot Act” by Judge Napolitano: http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig6/napolitano2.html

Lost Wisdom for a Lost America

Posted on February 20, 2023 by zeev1776

On Presidents Day 2023, I reach back into the annals of presidential inaugural and farewell addresses and draw out gems of wisdom and truth that are sorely lacking in the political discourse of our day. Most modern political speeches lack substance or contain hollow phrases unsupported by accompanying action. These hollow declarations are made by men lacking principle, character, and virtue. The men I will quote today, however, were upright men of strong character, nobility, and uncommon intelligence. I will weave their enlightening thoughts in with my own in what I pray will be a clarion call to all patriots to man up and be better in the glorious cause of Freedom.

A president’s duty, first and foremost, is to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. This is what he swears to do. This is what he must answer for to the American People and to God. I therefore quote President John Adams who praised the Constitution in his Inaugural Address:

“I first saw the Constitution of the United States in a foreign country. Irritated by no literary altercation, animated by no public debate, heated by no party animosity, I read it with great satisfaction, as the result of good heads prompted by good hearts, as an experiment better adapted to the genius, character, situation, and relations of this nation and country than any which had ever been proposed or suggested. In its general principles and great outlines it was conformable to such a system of government as I had ever most esteemed, and in some States, my own native State in particular, had contributed to establish. Claiming a right of suffrage, in common with my fellow-citizens, in the adoption or rejection of a constitution which was to rule me and my posterity, as well as them and theirs, I did not hesitate to express my approbation of it on all occasions, in public and in private.”

High praise from a man of such brilliance – a man who helped write the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of Massachusetts. America is what it is because it has grown within the framework of the Constitution which I hold to be an inspired document.

Regarding the government which the Constitution created, President Andrew Jackson proclaimed:

“[T]he bulwark of our defense is the national militia, which in the present state of our intelligence and population must render us invincible. As long as our Government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of person and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending; and so long as it is worth defending a patriotic militia will cover it with an impenetrable aegis. Partial injuries and occasional mortifications we may be subjected to, but a million of armed freemen, possessed of the means of war, can never be conquered by a foreign foe. To any just system, therefore, calculated to strengthen this natural safeguard of the country I shall cheerfully lend all the aid in my power.”

In his Farewell Address, after two wildly successful terms destroying the foreign-controlled national bank that had a death grip on our People, General Jackson again praised the Constitution and how it was instrumental in America’s rise to greatness:

“We have now lived almost fifty years under the Constitution framed by the sages and patriots of the Revolution. The conflicts in which the nations of Europe were engaged during a great part of this period, the spirit in which they waged war against each other, and our intimate commercial connections with every part of the civilized world rendered it a time of much difficulty for the Government of the United States. We have had our seasons of peace and of war, with all the evils which precede or follow a state of hostility with powerful nations. We encountered these trials with our Constitution yet in its infancy, and under the disadvantages which a new and untried government must always feel when it is called upon to put forth its whole strength without the lights of experience to guide it or the weight of precedents to justify its measures. But we have passed triumphantly through all these difficulties. Our Constitution is no longer a doubtful experiment, and at the end of nearly half a century we find that it has preserved unimpaired the liberties of the people, secured the rights of property, and that our country has improved and is flourishing beyond any former example in the history of nations.

“In our domestic concerns there is everything to encourage us, and if you are true to yourselves nothing can impede your march to the highest point of national prosperity.”

By the Age of Jackson – our nation’s historical high point of greatness and America-first politics – the Constitution had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was not a mere political experiment, but a lasting institution calculated to better mankind, rein in government, and “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

A few years prior to General Jackson’s administration, the highly underrated President James Monroe spoke also of the excellence of our Constitution. During his First Inaugural Address, he recounted:

“From the commencement of our Revolution to the present day almost forty years have elapsed, and from the establishment of this Constitution twenty-eight. Through this whole term the Government has been what may emphatically be called self-government. And what has been the effect? To whatever object we turn our attention, whether it relates to our foreign or domestic concerns, we find abundant cause to felicitate ourselves in the excellence of our institutions. During a period fraught with difficulties and marked by very extraordinary events the United States have flourished beyond example. Their citizens individually have been happy and the nation prosperous.

“Under this Constitution our commerce has been wisely regulated with foreign nations and between the States; new States have been admitted into our Union; our territory has been enlarged by fair and honorable treaty, and with great advantage to the original States; the States, respectively protected by the National Government under a mild, parental system against foreign dangers, and enjoying within their separate spheres, by a wise partition of power, a just proportion of the sovereignty, have improved their police, extended their settlements, and attained a strength and maturity which are the best proofs of wholesome laws well administered. And if we look to the condition of individuals what a proud spectacle does it exhibit! On whom has oppression fallen in any quarter of our Union? Who has been deprived of any right of person or property? Who restrained from offering his vows in the mode which he prefers to the Divine Author of his being? It is well known that all these blessings have been enjoyed in their fullest extent; and I add with peculiar satisfaction that there has been no example of a capital punishment being inflicted on anyone for the crime of high treason. . . .

“Such, then, is the happy Government under which we live–a Government adequate to every purpose for which the social compact is formed; a Government elective in all its branches, under which every citizen may by his merit obtain the highest trust recognized by the Constitution; which contains within it no cause of discord, none to put at variance one portion of the community with another; a Government which protects every citizen in the full enjoyment of his rights, and is able to protect the nation against injustice from foreign powers.”

Not many of us today truly believe we have a government capable of protecting our rights and defending us against foreign powers. Yet, we once did, and it was due to the inspired nature of the Constitution, the integrity of the men who administered the government, the self-governing of the People at large, and the goodness of Americans generally. If we want to return to the happy state of affairs enjoyed by our forefathers, we must return to our constitutional roots and learn how to self-govern according to just and holy principles once more.

Before either Monroe or Jackson, the Father of our Country, in his momentous Farewell Address which ought to be read by every American, declared his undying allegiance to and faith in the Constitution, and explained how a combination of wicked and conspiring men could overthrow it unless the People were careful to guard their Liberty. Said he:

“To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a constitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.

“All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

“However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

“Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.”

Herein we see the story of how the United States has been subverted. A small international clique of gangsters has, for generations, eroded the constitutional bulwark of our Republic. They have divided us into factions, pitted us against each other, gradually but fundamentally changed our free enterprise monetary system into a corporatist (“state capitalist,” as Lenin called it) leviathan, massively expanded the federal government beyond its original scope, and hacked away at the tree of Liberty until now it needs refreshing with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

The only two things that have held back the full tidal wave of Marxian tyranny from sweeping over us has been the overpowering strength of the Constitution (even in its mangled state) and the righteous Christian population (though dwindling faster each year). I have sometimes said that only the American gun owner is holding back the full onslaught of tyranny worldwide. That’s true, but what protects the American gun owner? The Constitution. What secures Americans in their right to be tried by their fellow citizens in their own jurisdiction and not be carried off to the Hague? The Constitution. What ensures Americans the right to peacefully demonstrate in the streets and to criticize their own government? The Constitution. And so on it goes, with all of our most sacrosanct rights being guaranteed to us by that most spectacular of charters, the U.S. Constitution.

The moment the Constitution goes, that moment the United States ceases to exist and, that moment, I cease to swear allegiance to whatever monstrosity replaces it. I wrote in my 2022 article “I Will NEVER Swear Allegiance to New Government” the following:

“We must not allow the Constitution to be mutilated any further and we must never allow it to be exiled completely. No government has ever secured to as many people as much Freedom. Nothing Europe has ever produced has come close, to say nothing of the other parts of the darkened world. The only light still shining is here in America. This light shines from the hearts of patriots who understand, love, and defend the Constitution and all just and holy principles that make men free and accountable before God. . . .

“Those of us who still revere the Constitution and understand its ennobling principles have a God-given duty to stand in the gap and defend the Constitution so that its glorious principles and system of Freedom may bless mankind. Who will stand up for the Constitution? Will you? Or will you go along with a scheme to rewrite or do away with our national charter? Will you abandon the Constitution and the tradition of the men who established it or will you hold the line like a Spartan at Thermopylae? I can’t answer for you, but I can answer for me before the world and before God: I stand with the Constitution now and forever!”

George Washington stood with the Constitution. John Adams stood with it. Andrew Jackson stood with it. I stand with it. Do you?

The second thing holding back the onslaught of global oppression is the righteous remnant of Christians. Though Christians are decreasing in size while simultaneously we are witnessing a surge in Witchcraft (Wicca is the fastest growing religion in America and Britain), the occult, and outright Satanism, there are still tens of millions of good-hearted, upright disciples of Jesus, who is the God of this land. That said, God has been de facto banned from America. He has been banned from public schools. The courts have attacked Him. Government mocks Him. The Judaized press, Hollywood, social media, and academia excoriate Him.

Officialdom is intent on crucifying Him anew every day. As they do, we edge closer to the precipice of fearful cleansing. The cleansing will come and America will be swept clean of false men and women, traitors, anti-Christs, occultists, hypocrites, murderers, liars, whoremongers, druggies, pedophiles, socialists, communists, and collectivists, feminists and MGTOW pawns, those who love money, those who cheat their employees or employers, the slothful, ineffective stewards, and so forth. The only people who will remain will be those who are true Christians and the legitimately upright and virtuous of all stripes who go about doing good.

George Washington certainly believed in the Father of us all and knew that He had intervened on America’s behalf during the War for Independence. In his First Inaugural Address, President Washington witnessed:

“Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow-citizens at large less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency; and in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their united government the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities from which the event has resulted can not be compared with the means by which most governments have been established without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government can more auspiciously commence.”

America was born under the protection, and with the divine assistance, of Heaven, to fulfill an important role in God’s economy. Nearly all of our ancestors believed it and proclaimed it. They knew, as I do, that America is not just another nation, but a chosen land and a land whose God is Jesus Christ. We must continue forward as we began, in humble supplication to our great God and in reverence for His providential agency which interposed to give us Independence and a free Constitution.

To our fiery faith in the Redeemer, we must add sensible principles and lasting ideals. My hero and friend, Thomas Jefferson, upon ascending to the presidency, gave us the following precepts which guided his administration, and which may, if we are wise, guide America back into safe harbors. He said:

“I believe this . . . the strongest Government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

“Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter — with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens — a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

“About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people — a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.”

If every nation adopted these principles, the world would turn into an Edenic paradise overnight. Can you imagine, dear reader, that our great nation, now a scene of bickering confusion, coarse depravity, and galloping despotism, was once guided by such enlightened principles? Can you fathom living in a nation where the “sum of good government” is for the government to protect your natural rights, not steal your money or property, and allow you to pursue your own life in your own way totally unmolested? That was Jefferson’s vision for America. That was the America our Founding Fathers offered. That was the America the Constitution was designed to provide, if we scrupulously obeyed its provisions.

I leave you to ponder Jefferson’s sublime principles more on your own and encourage you to believe them, for they are true, and they will lead us unfailingly, like the North Star, to political safety. I turn to one more quote, taken from President James Madison’s First Inaugural Address. He pointed our minds to the ultimate sources we may trust in for a brighter future – We the People and God. He assured us:

“[T]he source to which I look or the aids which alone can supply my deficiencies is in the well-tried intelligence and virtue of my fellow-citizens, and in the counsels of those representing them in the other departments associated in the care of the national interests. In these my confidence will under every difficulty be best placed, next to that which we have all been encouraged to feel in the guardianship and guidance of that Almighty Being whose power regulates the destiny of nations, whose blessings have been so conspicuously dispensed to this rising Republic, and to whom we are bound to address our devout gratitude for the past, as well as our fervent supplications and best hopes for the future.”

On this Presidents Day, I, too, encourage you to look to God and live. Place your confidence in Him and in His Son. The American Republic rose to unsurpassed greatness because we exalted the People, protected their rights, reined in the power of government via the inspired Constitution, exercised virtue as a society, and fervently looked to Almighty God for our support and guidance. This is the way. If we want to become great again and reclaim our lost rights, this is the only way.

Zack Strong,
February 20, 2023

The Cement of the Union

Posted on September 17, 2022 by zeev1776

In his First Inaugural Address, President James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, said that the Constitution is the “the cement of the Union.” This seems like a fairly obvious observation. However, today, many people, and most politicians, act as if the Constitution is an antiquated document, an idea whose day has past, or an optional suggestion instead of the supreme law of the land that connects and welds together all fifty states.

On this September 17, 2022 Constitution Day, we will explore what the Constitution did for America, why it truly is the glue that holds us together as a People, and why it must be upheld and restored to its original purity.

The years between the Treaty of Paris in 1783, which ended the War for Independence, and the framing of the Constitution in 1787, were turbulent. Most teachers brush over them and most people don’t know that the fledgling United States nearly collapsed into total chaos. George Washington, who had retired in December 1783, marveled at the total state of confusion and anarchy that prevailed in the newly independent states under the Articles of Confederation. In late 1786, as Shays’ Rebellion frothed and agitated the nation, he wrote to James Madison:

“Fain would I hope, that the great, & most important of all objects—the foederal governmt.—may be considered with that calm & deliberate attention which the magnitude of it so loudly calls for at this critical moment: Let prejudices, unreasonable jealousies, and local interest yield to reason and liberality. Let us look to our National character, and to things beyond the present period. No morn ever dawned more favourable than ours did—and no day was ever more clouded than the present! Wisdom, & good examples are necessary at this time to rescue the political machine from the impending storm. . . .

“How melancholy is the Reflection, that in so short a space, we should have made such large strides towards fulfilling the prediction of our transatlantic foe! “Leave them to themselves, and their government will soon dissolve.”1 Will not the wise & good strive hard to avert this evil? Or will their supineness suffer ignorance and the arts of self interested designing disaffected & desperate characters, to involve this rising empire in wretchedness & contempt? What stronger evidence can be given of the want of energy in our governments than these disorders? If there exists not a power to check them, what security has a man of life, liberty, or property? To you, I am sure I need not add aught on this subject, the consequences of a lax, or inefficient government, are too obvious to be dwelt on. Thirteen sovereignties pulling against each other, and all tugging at the foederal head will soon bring ruin on the whole; whereas a liberal, and energetic Constitution, well guarded, & closely watched, to prevent incroachments, might restore us to that degree of respectability & consequence, to which we had a fair claim, & the brightest prospect of attaining” (George Washington to James Madison, November 5, 1786).

And, again, as Shays’ Rebellion came to a close in February 1787, Washington wrote to Henry Knox:

“[I]f three years ago, any person had told me that at this day, I should see such a formidable rebellion against the laws & constitutions of our own making as now appears I should have thought him a bedlamite—a fit subject for a mad house” (George Washington to Henry Knox, February 3, 1787).

From George Washington to James Wilson to Alexander Hamilton, our Founding Fathers collectively noticed, and voiced with trepidation in their writings, the anarchy, confusion, and near collapse of the Confederacy. What changed from 1787 when the nation was on the brink of collapse to 1790 when President George Washington delivered his second annual message to Congress, stating:

“In meeting you again I feel much satisfaction in being able to repeat my congratulations on the favorable prospects which continue to distinguish our public affairs. The abundant fruits of another year have blessed our country with plenty and with the means of a flourishing commerce.

“The progress of public credit is witnessed by a considerable rise of American stock abroad as well as at home, and the revenues allotted for this and other national purposes have been productive beyond the calculations by which they were regulated. This latter circumstance is the more pleasing, as it is not only a proof of the fertility of our resources, but as it assures us of a further increase of the national respectability and credit, and, let me add, as it bears an honorable testimony to the patriotism and integrity of the mercantile and marine part of our citizens. The punctuality of the former in discharging their engagements has been exemplary. . . .

“The disturbed situation of Europe, and particularly the critical posture of the great maritime powers, whilst it ought to make us the more thankful for the general peace and security enjoyed by the United States, reminds us at the same time of the circumspection with which it becomes us to preserve these blessings” (George Washington, Second Annual Message to Congress, December 8, 1790).

How did the astonishing 180-degree turn happen? What changed? What made it all possible? Answer: The Constitution.

In 1789, Benjamin Franklin remarked in one of his last ever letters: “Our new Constitution is now established, everything seems to promise it will be durable” (Benjamin Franklin to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, November 13, 1789). Dr. Franklin was prophetic. That Constitution, drafted under the inspiration of God’s Spirit in 1789, has remained in effect to this day, making it the longest-lasting constitution in world history. It has been more than durable; it has unlocked American greatness, ingenuity, creativity, and paved the way for the extension and guarantee of rights to every segment and class of society. It was nothing short of a miracle.

That is precisely what James Madison and others called it. Mr. Madison gratefully observed:

“The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their [Constitution] a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world. Woe to the ambition that would meditate the destruction of either!” (James Madison, September, 1829)

How did this miracle come about? I testify from the depth of my soul, because I know it from the Holy Spirit, that the U.S. Constitution was inspired by Almighty God! It is a true document; rightly called “American scripture.” It is a new covenant for this special land; a Zion-like law that secures Liberty for God’s children.

Our Founding Fathers acknowledged God’s hand in their Revolution and in the establishment of the nation numerous times. For instance, when newly-elected President George Washington delivered his First Inaugural Address he gave us the true key to the Constitution’s success. Said he:

“[I]t would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow- citizens at large less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency; and in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their united government the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities from which the event has resulted can not be compared with the means by which most governments have been established without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government can more auspiciously commence” (George Washington, First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789).

God is America’s benefactor. He is our support. He is the true Father of America. The Constitution is His document. It came by miraculous means to inspired individuals raised up by Him for the purpose of establishing a free nation as a beacon of liberation to the world. The secular record supports the idea that the Founding Fathers based the Constitution on the civil law of Moses revealed to ancient Israel. W. Cleon Skousen’s book The Majesty of God’s Law is the best text available on the subject and I urge you to read it, study it, and begin to apply it.

America’s progress from a darkened, savage continent to a land of light and Liberty is remarkable by any standard. Who can honestly claim God’s hand was not in it? Who can doubt that He didn’t bring humble Christian settlers here to plant His standard in this blessed soil? Who can dispute that the American Revolution didn’t have God’s blessing or deny the many manifestations of divine favor, including mysterious fog and sudden hurricanes? And, finally, who but the most cynical can truly rebuff the idea that the Constitution was a “miracle” bearing the Lord’s divine stamp of approval?

America is a great nation. We were once greater and we have slid backward nearly into the abyss, but we are still great. Our People are largely good-hearted, though gravely misled. We have wandered away from the Gospel law not because we are evil, but because we have not been trained up in the way we should go (Proverbs 22:6) by pastors, teachers, parents, and other authority figures. However, there is an awakening happening. A polarization is happening, too, as those who truly are evil are gathering together and those who still have some feeling of goodness in their hearts are grouping together.

Despite our flaws, and regardless of the fact that a criminal conspiracy has seized control of our government (which is ultimately our fault as a People for allowing it to happen), our national potential is unsurpassed. Our destiny is prophetic. Our future is sure.

God will preserve a righteous remnant to inhabit this special land. He has so decreed it in revelations past and present. One of the earmarks of one who may qualify to be part of this “righteous remnant” is one’s knowledge of and fidelity to the constitutional law of the land, which mirrors God’s Mosaic law. One cannot reject God’s law – even His civil law – and stand approved in God’s sight. Freedom and faith go hand-in-hand.

God and Liberty were once intertwined in the minds of our early American forefathers. To the degree that they have become disconnected, we have fallen as a People. If we want to rise again, we must link the two, protect and secure both, and live according the laws of each.

America is a covenant land foreseen by ancient seers such as Isaiah. It is a heated battlefield precisely because the Adversary understands America’s importance in God’s divine economy. He knows that we are a special People. He knows our awesome potential. He also knows that we are beginning to wake up and shake off the chains of our mind and that we will soon want to shake off our legalistic chains. He is ramping up his tyrannical operations and preparing to launch a dictatorship the likes of which we have never seen in America. However, God is in His end game, too.

Be a part of the revolution for our Faith, Families, and Freedom. Take a stand for Liberty. Stand in the gap. Make your voice known. Plant your own personal standard deep in the soil. Rush to the standard of truth which has been erected and which will never fail. Get close to God and follow His Son, Jesus Christ, who is the proper King and Lawgiver of this land. Until He personally returns, His civil law is the U.S. Constitution and His stamp of approval rests upon it.

Begin your insurgency against tyranny today by rereading the Constitution. Learn it. Live it. Love it. Founding Father James Wilson made a remark that I hope sinks down deep into your soul and animates you to action:

“But law and liberty cannot rationally become the objects of our love, unless they first become the objects of our knowledge. The same course of study, properly directed, will lead us to the knowledge of both. Indeed, neither of them can be known, because neither of them can exist, without the other. Without liberty, law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness. In denominating, therefore, that science, by which the knowledge of both is acquired, it is unnecessary to preserve, in terms, the distinction between them. That science may be named, as it has been named, the science of law.

It is logically impossible to say you love the Constitution if you don’t understand it. If you don’t know the Constitution, how can you truly appreciate it or defend it? You can’t. The study of law – the divine science of Liberty revealed by God and reestablished in America – is the burden and duty of every American.

I repeat: Learn the Constitution, love the Constitution, live the Constitution. There could be no more fitting tribute on this special Constitution Day.

Zack Strong,
September 17, 2022

Recommended resources for studying the Constitution:

The Making of America by W. Cleon Skousen
The Majesty of God’s Law by W. Cleon Skousen
The 5,000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen
Elementary Catechism on the Constitution of the United States: For the Use of Schools by Arthur J. Stansbury
Stand Fast By Our Constitution by J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
A View of the Constitution of the United States of America by William Rawle
The Founders’ Key: The Divine and Natural Connection Between the Declaration and the Constitution and What We Risk by Losing It by Larry P. Arnn
Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, and Religion by David Barton
The Ten Commandments and Their Influence on American Law by William J. Federer
The Original 13: A Documentary History of Religion in America’s First Thirteen States by William J. Federer
Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805, two volumes, ed. by Ellis Sandoz
Celebrate Liberty! Famous Patriotic Speeches and Sermons edited by David Barton

I Will NEVER Swear Allegiance to a New Government

Posted on June 5, 2022 by zeev1776

If the U.S. Constitution, by force, fraud, crisis, convention, court ruling, referendum, or vote, is ever dethroned in America, I patently refuse to swear allegiance to whatever government is established in its place. If that will make me an outlaw, rebel, or traitor to the new government, so be it! Such is my reverence for the Constitution, which I consider to be literally inspired by God Almighty, that I take any attack on it personally and count it as an assault on my Faith, Family, and Freedom.

The Constitution has been ignored, trampled, and mutilated for decades by those seeking to overthrow the Liberty of America. In order to reduce us to slavery and serfdom, Republicans and Democrats alike, Progressives and liberals also, and, of course, Fabians and communists, have relentlessly attacked, undermined, and deconstructed the original Constitution. They know what I wish all true patriots understood: That is, that America cannot fall as long as the Constitution stands in the gap (Ezekiel 22:30).

The fact that our national charter still stands – ragged as it may be – after this vicious onslaught is a testament to its strength and genius. It was crafted so brilliantly that it is nearly airtight. The only real flaws are not so much flaws in design as flaws in execution. And even these flaws in execution could have never happened if the American People had paid attention and been properly instructed in the principles of good government, self-rule, and Liberty.

Because of the Constitution’s inherent strength, the socialists and their ilk have had an uphill slog. The Constitution has frustrated them again and again, so they have turned to creating crises, invoking emergency powers, and concocting continuity of government schemes that would turn our Republic into a Bolshevik dictatorship. Yet, even when the socialists manage to capture fresh ground, holding it is sometimes tenuous because it is plain to anyone who spends five minutes studying the Constitution that what they have done is illegal and unconstitutional. As a result, they have turned to brainwashing via the media and schooling to get their way.

Americans have been made so ignorant of the Constitution by their public school teachers that millions believe the Constitution is an outmoded document that should be discarded. After all, wasn’t it written by racists, bigots, genocidal Indian killers, women oppressors, and imperialists? Our foremost heroes – men like George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson – are castigated, lied about, and smeared in order to undermine faith in the principles they espoused and the brilliant forms of limited government they helped establish.

Another astute Founder, James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, said that the Constitution is the “cement of the Union” (James Madison, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1809). Without the Constitution, there is no “United States of America.” Without the constitutional principles of Freedom, America is just another nation in a community of nations. Yet, it is precisely because of our goodness and our fidelity to sound values and constitutional systems that America rose to greatness, surpassing all nations and empires of the past. Only by clinging to the same principles of virtue and Liberty can we regain and maintain greatness.

Despite the centrality of the Constitution to America’s success, even many good conservatives – who ostensibly love the Constitution – are calling for a new constitutional convention. They call it a Convention of States, but don’t be fooled, it is a Constitutional Convention by another name. They are laboring under the delusion that this process would be controlled by them through the states. This is erroneous and nearsighted. Three years ago, I wrote an article titled “Oppose a Convention of States!” which I hope you will take the time to read and digest. It explains why a Convention of States would murder, not restore, the U.S. Constitution.

I don’t care if it is conservatives or liberals who finally get enough states to call an Article V convention – I would oppose the final product which could never measure up to the original. Though there are people living today who understand constitutional principles and Freedom as well as our Founding Fathers, they would never be selected for the task of framing a new government. You would never find men like Scott Bradley, Joel Skousen, Michael Badnarik, Arthur R. Thompson, Larry P. Arnn, or Chuck Baldwin called upon to render their expertise. No, instead you would have Establishment lackeys and mainstream Republicans and Democrats drafting a new government behind closed doors, with no oversight, and with total disregard for the will of the American People.

We must not allow the Constitution to be mutilated any further and we must never allow it to be exiled completely. No government has ever secured to as many people as much Freedom. Nothing Europe has ever produced has come close, to say nothing of the other parts of the darkened world. The only light still shining is here in America. This light shines from the hearts of patriots who understand, love, and defend the Constitution and all just and holy principles that make men free and accountable before God.

In a past article honoring the Constitution, I wrote:

“Only a moral, virtuous, just, upright, truth-loving People are capable of Freedom and ordered society. America was once good and so America was once great. We are still the greatest nation on earth, but we are have noticeably fallen from our lofty position. We need to return to our moral, Christian roots if we are to regain our unique American stature.

“At the end of the day, the Constitution is not for the United States alone. Its principles are eternal and sacred. They belong to every nation. It was the Lord who raised up America’s Founding Fathers, who preserved us through the War for Independence, and who inspired the Constitution. He intended the ideas that fired the American soul to fire the world and lead to a new era of Freedom, peace, and prosperity. It is our duty as Americans to be the missionaries of this unsurpassed Freedom system. . . .

“Americanism is the greatest system in history. This system is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution – the most incredible political document in the world. I repeat that it was inspired by Almighty God and that Americans are the custodians of these superlative principles.”

Those of us who still revere the Constitution and understand its ennobling principles have a God-given duty to stand in the gap and defend the Constitution so that its glorious principles and system of Freedom may bless mankind. Who will stand up for the Constitution? Will you? Or will you go along with a scheme to rewrite or do away with our national charter? Will you abandon the Constitution and the tradition of the men who established it or will you hold the line like a Spartan at Thermopylae? I can’t answer for you, but I can answer for me before the world and before God: I stand with the Constitution now and forever!

To close, I fearlessly echo the affirmation made by the Father of our Country, George Washington: “[T]he Constitution is the guide which I never can abandon” (George Washington to the Boston Selectmen, July 28, 1795). You make your choice; I have made mine.

Zack Strong,
June 5, 2022

Rebellion to Tyrants – The American Tradition

Posted on September 17, 2021 by zeev1776

During the War for Independence, the British oppressors called the American patriots “rebels.” George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Samuel Adams, James Madison, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin – these eminent men were “rebels.” Just what does “rebel” mean? The handy website etymonline.com tells us that the term “rebel” comes “directly from Latin rebellis “insurgent, rebellious,” from rebellare “to rebel, revolt,” from re– “opposite, against,” or perhaps “again” (see re-) + bellare “wage war,” from bellum “war”.”

A U.S. battle flag during the War for Independence

Drawing from Webster’s 1828 dictionary, we further learn that a “rebel” is:

“One who revolts from the government to which he owes allegiance, either by openly renouncing the authority of that government, or by taking arms and openly opposing it.”

And the act of rebelling means:

“To revolt; to renounce the authority of the laws and government to which one owes allegiance. Subjects may rebel by an open renunciation of the authority of the government, without taking arms; but ordinarily, rebellion is accompanied by resistance in arms.”

To rebel, then, is to make war against one’s own government or to renounce its authority. Usually, a rebellion requires the “rebels” to take up arms and extricate themselves from their government by force. Using these definitions, our Founding Fathers absolutely were “rebels” because they took up their rifles and made war against British tyranny. In so doing, these patriots won Liberty for America and helped establish the greatest nation in human history.

Would any true American be so foolish as to suggest that the American Founding Fathers were villains for taking up arms and freeing our People from British oppression? Would any dyed-in-the-wool American be so treasonous as to say that the American Rebellion was wrong, that it was evil, or that it was not clearly justified beyond any reasonable doubt?

There has never been a more just and holier war than the American Revolution – that great armed rebellion we celebrate every Independence Day. Don’t shy away from the term “rebellion.” It was a rebellion. Society has become indoctrinated to think of any act of rebellion as bad, wrong, or unjustified. We’ve been conditioned to see everyone labeled an “insurgent” or “rebel” as unpatriotic or a traitor. This is simply preposterous.

The biggest rebels in U.S. history are also our biggest national heroes – the Founding Fathers, the Sons of Liberty, and their fellow Freedom Fighters. But they’d be a mere footnote in history had they not rebelled. If Thomas Jefferson hadn’t written the Declaration of Independence, would you even know he had existed? If George Washington hadn’t led a rag-tag team of militiamen and soldiers against his government’s professional army, would he be a household name today? Let’s be honest – the only reason our Founding Fathers are known, beloved, and venerated today is because they had the courage to rebel against their oppressive, corrupt, unworthy government.

The personal motto of both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, was “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.” Thomas Jefferson designed a striking seal to display this powerful phrase. The duo even proposed that the maxim become the national motto. Separate and apart from Franklin and Jefferson, “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God” was a common thought at the time. Pastors taught that it was man’s duty to defend his God-given rights even if it meant taking up arms. Local militias stood up against the military when the latter came to town demanding: “Lay down your arms, you damned rebels, and disperse.” Americans high and low understood that servitude is Satanic and Liberty is godly.

Armed with this knowledge and with a sense of duty towards their Faith, Families, and Freedom, thousands of patriots felt no qualms about taking up arms and rebelling. Sometimes we seem to imagine that these early Americans had their own country and were simply defending themselves against the British. Instead, we should remember that the King of England and British Parliament were the government. Knowing this makes our forefathers’ rebellion all the more impressive and consequential. It gave us the example that rebellion against government is not only allowed, but noble and right in the correct circumstances.

The Declaration of Independence makes this abundantly clear. In words that should echo in our ears, Jefferson wrote and the Continental Congress ratified:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, 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 shewn, 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.”

Read that again if you must, but let it sink in. Rebellion for rebellion’s sake is not advisable or desirable. However, when government perpetrates “a long train of abuses and usurpations,” and when government’s course is one of tyranny and centralization of power, it is not only just and good to rebel, but it is a solemn “duty” to “throw off such Government.” To reiterate, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish” their government whenever government fails to protect the rights of the People.

The current oath of office sworn by members of Congress reads:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

This oath has been amended slightly over the years, but what has changed but little is the first crucial line: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States.” The president swears the same. This is the key! If we want to know whether our elected representatives are faithful or whether they are traitors, we need simply observe and consider whether they support and defend the Constitution. If they do, then rebellion is off the table, inappropriate, and destructive. If they don’t uphold and obey the Constitution, and the normal recourse of elections and trials can’t remedy the situation, then rebellion is not only justified, but a sacred duty!

Thomas Jefferson often wrote of the necessity of rebellion:

“I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccesful rebellions indeed generally establish the incroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medecine necessary for the sound health of government” (Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, January 30, 1787).

More famously, after Shay’s Rebellion, Jefferson exclaimed:

“God forbid we should ever be 20. years without such a rebellion. The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independant 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure” (Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, November 13, 1787).

Compare these enlightened sentiments with those of the current regime and media talking heads who refer to the American patriots who rallied at the Capitol Building on January 6 as “domestic terrorists” and “insurrectionists.” They were nothing of the sort and to say so is dishonest, divisive, and deeply asinine.

Let me express a feeling I had on January 6. When I saw the minor breach at the Capitol (allowed and encouraged by police in order to frame conservative America) on January 6, I was ecstatic. I thought, maybe, just maybe, the American People were waking up and were finally prepared to stand up for their rights. Instead, it turned out, that the People were content to wave flags and talk the talk, but not actually walk to the walk and force their tyrannical overlords in Washington to fulfill their oaths to the Constitution.

So many otherwise decent people on our side almost boast that we aren’t the ones who rebel. My question is – why not? Why no revolution? Why no rebellion? Have we lost our courage? Have we lost our sense? Have we lost the spirit of Liberty that animated our forefathers to rebel against their corrupt government? The crimes committed by our government today and over the past hundred plus years dwarf in scale and savagery anything committed by the British against early Americans. The comparison isn’t even close. Yet, we’re too afraid to do our duty and alter or abolish the usurpers who tyrannize us. We’re afraid to be revolutionary.

Many people think, contrary to what their forefathers believed in 1776, that rebellion is “unbecoming” and that we owe blind obedience to government no matter what. Christians twist Romans 13, for instance, to support the unsupportable idea that all governments get their authority from God and that every act of government is legitimate. Many people of my own faith also misquote a canonical statement saying that “sedition and rebellion are unbecoming every citizen.” If they were honest, they’d read the entire context and find that the statement falls in line with the spirit of the Declaration of Independence. It notes:

“We believe that all men are bound to sustain and uphold the respective governments in which they reside, while protected in their inherent and inalienable rights by the laws of such governments; and that sedition and rebellion are unbecoming every citizen thus protected, and should be punished accordingly; and that all governments have a right to enact such laws as in their own judgments are best calculated to secure the public interest; at the same time, however, holding sacred the freedom of conscience” (The Doctrine and Covenants 134:5).

Did you catch that? My Church believes, and so do I, that rebellion is wrong in times when everyone enjoys their rights and has proper recourse under the law. However, when “inherent and inalienable rights” are not protected, all bets are off. Only those duly protected by law are prohibited from rebelling; and those not “thus protected” actually have a duty to rebel.

In his momentous Farewell Address, President George Washington stated:

“This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.”

Recall that this comes from the man who led the Rebellion against his government in 1776! General Washington knew full well that rebellion was proper and just on certain occasions. On July 2, 1776, this great man who was a defender of duly-constituted government and rule of law, issued this order to his troops:

“The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army—Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; this is all we can expect—We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die: Our own Country’s Honor, all call upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world—Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the Cause, and the aid of the supreme Being, in whose hands Victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble Actions—The Eyes of all our Countrymen are now upon us, and we shall have their blessings, and praises, if happily we are the instruments of saving them from the Tyranny meditated against them. Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and shew the whole world, that a Freeman contending for Liberty on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.”

To General Washington, there was “no choice” but to rebel against the tyrannical government and carve out Freedom by force. No one fought harder for Liberty than Washington. No one was a bigger “rebel” than the Father of our Country.

Ultimately, the sunshine patriots aren’t the ones who will decide the matter. Rather, it will be the seasoned soldiers of sanity who will step forward to secure their sacred rights. Samuel Adams warned: “If ever the Time should come, when vain & aspiring Men shall possess the highest Seats in Government, our Country will stand in Need of its experienced Patriots to prevent its Ruin” (Samuel Adams to James Warren, October 24, 1780).

Are you one of those “experienced patriots” who will step forward? If you’re not prepared to step forward and be counted at this crucial juncture, stop calling yourself a patriot. If you’re not prepared to act – to rebel if need be – you’re not a patriot; you’re a coward and a traitor. If you’re too scared to rebel in any way necessary against one of the most wicked cabals ever to oppress a free nation, then Samuel Adams was speaking directly to you when he exclaimed:

“Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, What should be the reward of such sacrifices? Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plow, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude than the animating contest of freedom—go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!” (Samuel Adams, Speech, August 1, 1776).

In 1776, our forefathers declared Independence and rebelled against their vile government. They fought for Freedom. They secured it at the price of blood and treasure. They then wisely safeguarded it by establishing the rule of law via a written Constitution.

Today, we don’t need Independence; we have it on paper, legally, and by right. What we don’t have is a government that honors its commitments, fulfills its oaths, and protects our legitimate, God-given agency. Instead, we have a criminal clique that has hijacked our government and retains its illicit power through mass media manipulation and outright election fraud. They are the occupiers. They are the usurpers. They are the ones who owe allegiance to us. This clique has ruled for decades from the shadows, but now it openly flaunts its lordship over us and dares us to do something about it.

No, we don’t need Independence from these banker-backed, Marxist-minded, internationalist occupiers; what we need is to oust them from power over us. When a robber breaks into your house, you don’t concede defeat and leave to find a new place to live. Instead, you fight back and reclaim what’s yours. Dear American, what’s yours? What is your birthright? Is Freedom your heritage? Isn’t a republican, representative government of limited scale promised to you in Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution?

Earlier, you read the oath that our elected representatives in Congress swear. Are they fulfilling that oath? Are they safeguarding the Constitution like they swore to do? Of course not! They’re perpetual liars who trample the Constitution at every turn. And this goes for Republicans as well Democrats. From Mitt Romney to Nancy Pelosi and from Chuck Schumer to Mitch McConnell, the Congress is infested with traitors and oath-breakers, conmen and enemy abettors.

The Constitution is not defunct or broken; the men who conduct our national affairs are corrupt and treasonous. As one colorful figure of the nineteenth century stated: “I love the government and the constitution of the United States, but I do not love the damned rascals who administer the government.” Again, I repeat, that our constitutional system is not at fault – the fault lies with the men who break their oaths and the apathetic citizenry which allows them to get away with it.

What we need is to revive the Constitution. We need a Constitution Revolution. We need a rebellion against the tyrants who have usurped power over us. We need invoke our natural rights and wage war against traitors in the spirit of 1776. The traitors are easy to identify. Look at who promotes free will and constitutional protections on individual Liberty and who proposes policies that restrict free will and suggest coercion and you’ll know which side to stand on.

I call for a Constitution Revolution. We need a revolution in our minds and hearts. We need to revolutionize our understanding of the Constitution. Founding Father James Wilson said:

To restate Wilson’s words, you can’t be an effective patriot if you don’t know our nation’s charter of Liberty – the Constitution. You cannot love what you do not comprehend. That goes for God, the law, a spouse, ad infinitum. We need a revolution in our understanding of the Constitution and of the law of Liberty. Unless we first acquire this fundamental understanding, any other type of revolution will fail.

After we come to understand the Constitution, we’ll know how we’ve been deceived, tricked, and abused. We’ll comprehend how our elected representatives broke their oaths and sold out our Freedom for thirty pieces of silver. And we’ll realize the wisdom in Jefferson’s words:

“[W]hen 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.”

As Constitution Day dawns, I call for revolution and rebellion – a revolution in our principles and understanding of our national documents and a relentless rebellion against the tyrants who have illicitly usurped power over us. Resist peacefully, if you must; but resist. Freedom is never granted or given – it is won at the price of self-sacrifice, blood, treasure, tears, and toil. Are we prepared to do what must be done? Are we prepared to fight for the Constitution? Are we prepared to live the American tradition and rebel against tyrants?

George Washington said that “the constitution is the guide, which I never will abandon” (George Washington the Boston Selectmen, July 28, 1795). I second his pledge. I echo the voices of those fifty-six good men who signed their names to the Declaration of Independence, those who fought against their countrymen for Liberty, and those who crafted the Constitution. They won Freedom and it’s our task to restore it by reviving the Constitution and making it our gold standard once more.

Yes, I side with the “rebels”! The rebels were on the right side of history in 1776. Rebellion to tyrants is always right. Nothing is more American than “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.” I’m prepared to renounce peace and make war against anyone and anything I need to – including my government which has been hijacked by criminals – in defense of my Faith, Family, and Freedom. What could be a nobler cause to rebel over than Freedom?

Zack Strong,
September 16, 2021

The Constitution Now and Forever!

Posted on September 17, 2020 by zeev1776

Never has there been a time in our nation’s history when the values and principles our great Republic was founded upon have been more neglected, assaulted, and on verge of overthrow as today. Communists openly parade in our streets and call for the ousting of the president. Marxist terror organizations like Antifa and Black Lives Matter rampage in the cities, looting, destroying, and burning everything to ash. Worse still, our culture had been perverted and de-Christianized beyond recognition. The very idea of America as a shining city on a hill – a refuge for those seeking to protect and enjoy their Faith, Families, and Freedom – is under withering attack. And the compact that holds together the American People as a united force, the U.S. Constitution, is dangling by a single thread.

I have not been shy about stating my unshakable belief that the Constitution of the United States was and is inspired by Almighty God. Nothing matching its brilliance has ever been devised by the minds of men because the Constitution did not originate in mortal minds, but in the mind of the Creator. The American Founding Fathers acknowledged their reliance upon, and faith in, the Lord in The Declaration of Independence. They staked everything on the idea that rights come from God, that Freedom is our birthright, and that the purpose of civil society was to defend and secure individual rights while punishing those who would violate them.

After nominally securing their Independence from tyrannical Great Britain after the Revolution, the American states existed in a loose confederacy. Their governing charter, the Articles of Confederation, was weak and inefficient. It was not strong or wise enough to keep thirteen free and independent states united together under one umbrella of principles and purpose. Just a few short years into Independence, the confederacy was about to collapse into economic ruin, anarchy, and civil war.

Take the time to read the correspondence between America’s early leaders in the period between 1783 and 1787 and you discover that they felt their country tottered on the precipice of cataclysm. The currency was worthless. Congress was powerless to enforce its laws or to extract funds to operate. States began taxing one another and their peoples were on the verge of civil war. Mobs gathered and rioted. And Europe sat licking its lips, waiting to pounce and gobble up the divided fragments of America. The confederated states needed a miracle to survive.

Heaven knew the situation and sent a miracle. The People’s representatives, led by George Washington, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, George Wythe, Roger Sherman, Alexander Hamilton, my own relative Caleb Strong, and other illustrious statesmen, met in Philadelphia to revise the defunct Articles of Confederation. At one point during their deliberations, Benjamin Franklin delivered a stirring plea. He remarked:

“[H]ow has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the Contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection.–Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a Superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance?

“I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth–that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human Wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.

“I therefore beg leave to move–that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that service.”

Due to a lack of funds, a chaplain’s services were never employed. But the spirit of these humble sentiments rested upon the Convention the remainder of the summer as the Constitution gradually fell into place.

The Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787. On that day, George Washington penned a letter to the president of Congress, in which he observed:

“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.”

The creation of a strong and free Union was one of the crowning achievements of the Constitution. Before the Constitution, the people of America were Virginians, New Yorkers, South Carolinians, and so forth. After the Constitution, they became Americans first and above all else. The authority of the Constitution is in fact embodied in the Preamble’s phrase: “We the People.”

The Preamble beautifully spelled out the purpose of the Constitution; indeed, the purpose of the American People:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

James Madison called the Constitution the “cement of the Union” (James Madison, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1809). More than any other thing, this ingenious charter of Freedom pulled Americans of all persuasions together and set them on the course to greatness.

As one united People, and under the guidance of the Constitution, Americans did just what they set out to do – they estsblished a Republic that became the freest, most powerful, most prosperous state in the world. Peace prevailed, law and order were upheld, happiness was general, goodness was common, and the blessings of Liberty were enjoyed more widely and by a larger group of people than ever before in recorded history. And it was all due to the People’s native virtue and their careful obedience to the enlightened precepts of the Constitution.

Every American owes a debt to the Constitution and to the men who sacrificed to institute and maintain it. The core idea of America – the revolutionary idea that men can and should govern themselves and that they have rights and a stewardship for which they are accountable to God alone – still exists today, albeit in a bloodied and battered state, because of the Constitution. The Constitution had been attacked on every side since its inception, yet, because of its genius and its sacred origin, it still stands. Millions of Americans would still fight and die to maintain our beloved Constitution.

In his Farewell Address of 1796, President George Washington warned of the very problems facing us in 2020. He warned of factional strife, changes to sound principles, the danger of foreign influence, the scourge of foreign war, and the machinations of a minority combined against the Liberty enshrined in the Constitution. He stated:

“To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable . . . This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.

The old General may as well have been speaking of the Progressive Congressional Caucus whose members infest Congress, governors who defy the Constitution and oppress their peoples, Black Lives Matter, the ADL, and SPLC, which sow racial division and hate, Antifa and the Communist Party which stir up violence and rebellion, the “defund the police” movement which is paving the way for increased thuggery, the destruction of lives and property, and full-scale insurrection, and any number of acts of presidents, the courts, and legislatures which have divided our People, weakened the rule of law, and made us less free. The remedy prescribed by the Father of our Country is obedience to the Constitution, adherence to its pristine principles, and resistance to the “organized factions” trying to “subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.”

America’s #1 enemy, apart from her own unrighteousness, apathy, and ignorance, is the communist conspiracy. Most were fooled into complacency when the Soviets faked their “collapse,” believing that the communists’ threat to our society had ended. In truth, the cabal has worked at breakneck speed the past thirty years to bring America to a tipping point. The current crisis engulfing our nation is their doing. Those of us who warned of this conspiracy are gratified to see people waking up in droves, but lament that it took a national crisis, the loss of so much Liberty, and the shattering of peace to shake them from their slumber.

By returning to the original principles of the Constitution, enforcing them in every state and community for the protection of our inalienable rights, harshly punishing oath-breakers and criminals, and forcefully crushing the illegal and treasonous communist movement and all of its front groups – Black Lives Matter, Antifa, Open Society Foundations, ActBlue, Code Pink, Socialist Party USA, etc. – we can save our special nation from a horrific crisis. The enemy is so entrenched that it will almost certainly require blood to restore our Republic. Blood is always the price of Freedom. By acting swiftly now, however, we can mitigate the quantity of blood and ensure that it is communist, not patriot blood, that refreshes the tree of Liberty.

The American People, united behind the correct set of principles, rallied by the memory of their God, families, and country, and roused by their burning love of Freedom, are unstoppable! We may slip and lose ground temporarily in the coming clash, but don’t lose hope and don’t be afraid; our side will triumph. Freedom will prevail. Americanism will defeat communism. And the Constitution will stand supreme once again.

Long ago, our beloved George Washington affirmed: “The Constitution is the guide which I never can abandon” (George Washington to Boston Selectmen, July 28, 1795). Let that be our pledge as American Sons of Liberty. Let’s follow our General’s lead once more as we surge into battle against our ravenous enemies. Let our bright banner read: “The Constitution Now and Forever!”

Zack Strong,

September 17, 2020

The Sad Death of the Electoral College

Posted on July 11, 2020 by zeev1776

On July 6, 2020, the Electoral College suffered a potentially lethal blow. It is not dead yet, but it’s on its knees, gasping for air. In a damning opinion, the Supreme Court went rogue, yet again, taking a swipe at our Constitution by telling states they can force their electors, under threat of punishment, to side with their people’s popular vote. As will be clear by the end of this article, this move neuters and nullifies the Electoral College and is a blatant usurpation of authority by the Supreme Court.

On Monday, the Court gave their opinion that states have the authority to punish what is referred to as “faithless electors.” That is, according to the Court, states may punish and fine electors who cast their vote for someone other than the winner of the popular vote in their state. CNN gave a surprisingly accurate rendition of what the Supreme Court’s opinion did. They explained:

“In an effort to avoid [election chaos], the Supreme Court set out to determine whether presidential electors — a slate of individuals in each state, whose number is determined by Congressional representation, designated to cast their state’s electoral votes for president and vice president — are free agents or not. On Monday, justices unanimously decided in Chiafalo v. Washington that states have the power to bind electors — meaning we could see the end of so-called “faithless electors,” or electors who choose to vote for someone other than their party’s nominees.”

That’s where CNN’s objectivity ended, however. The article went on to advocate even more restrictive measures to formally bind electors to the popular vote and thus scrap the constitutionally-appointed method of electing the president:

“With this decision, states should move quickly to adopt the Uniform Faithful Presidential Electors Act to categorically end the prospect of faithless electors.

“I have long argued that we should eliminate elector discretion. . . .

“In delivering the opinion Monday, Justice Elena Kagan indicated that the Constitution is “bare bones about electors.” While true, when the architects of various amendments dealing with the Electoral College had a chance, they never chose to eliminate the discretion of electors. . . .

“. . . We can expect that states may put additional conditions on the appointment of electors to try to exert greater control. For instance, a state could require an elector to only vote for a candidate who has visited their state in the past 60 days or only for a candidate who has released their tax returns.”

It is actually not true that the Constitution gives states authority to bind electors, as Justice Kagan claims (we’ll get to that a little later). This was unthinkable to the Founders who created the system precisely to give electors the maximum discretion and free agency. As a line just quoted states, the “architects” of the Constitution “never chose to eliminate discretion of electors” – a fact which invalidates Justice Kagan’s and the Supreme Court’s entire argument.

At first glance, it may appear that the Supreme Court’s opinion is a win for “states’ rights” and the American People. After all, didn’t they decide that states could control their electors and punish “rogue” ones? Isn’t this a clear win for the Tenth Amendment? No, it’s not. It’s a win for whoever is able to swing the majority of the population. It’s a win for those who favor pure democracy – a system our Founding Fathers despised and which our Constitution explicitly rejects by guaranteeing to the states a “Republican Form of Government” (Article 4, Section 4) and only trusting the People with the direct election of members of the House of Representatives.

What exactly does the Constitution say about the Electoral College? The most relevant portion regarding the Electoral College, Article 2, Section1, Clause 2, mandates:

“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress.”

Justice Kagan and her comrades on the Court interpreted “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof my direct” as carte blanche state control over electors – including over the candidate electors vote for. Said differently, they interpret this wording as implying state control over electors’ votes. As we see, the “implied powers” strike again.

The notion of “implied powers” has haunted this nation for generations. Power-hungry bureaucrats love to read between the lines and imply authority that is not explicitly contained in the Constitution. In our present case, for example, the Constitution does not say that states have carte blanche over electors’ votes. Nowhere does it say that they may force electors to vote for a specific candidate, punish them if they vote their conscience, or otherwise limit their free will in the matter. It simply says that state legislatures may determine how electors are appointed.

A federal government website gives readers a basic understanding of the Electoral College that the members of the Supreme Court seem to not have. It explains the process and obligations simply:

“Each state gets as many electors as it has members of Congress (House and Senate). Including Washington, D.C.’s three electors, there are currently 538 electors in all. . . .

“Each state’s political parties choose their own slate of potential electors. Who is chosen to be an elector, how, and when varies by state.

“After you cast your ballot for president, your vote goes to a statewide tally. In 48 states and Washington, D.C., the winner gets all the electoral votes for that state. Maine and Nebraska assign their electors using a proportional system.

“A candidate needs the vote of at least 270 electors—more than half of all electors—to win the presidential election.

“In most cases, a projected winner is announced on election night in November after you vote. But the actual Electoral College vote takes place in mid-December when the electors meet in their states.

“The Constitution doesn’t require electors to follow their state’s popular vote, but it’s rare for one not to.”

Finally, a graphic accompanying the text reads: “When people cast their vote, they are actually voting for a group of people called electors.”

This information is simple and straightforward. We learn that the People do not vote for the president directly, but for the electors who select the president. And there’s no confusion about whether the Constitution requires these electors to choose their winner of their state’s popular vote. Yet, the Supreme Court apparently thinks states have authority to penalize electors for voting their conscience even though there is no constitutional requirement for them to do so!

Some claim that the Founding Fathers themselves were divided on the issue and therefore varying interpretations of how the system should work are valid. I fail to see how anyone conversant with the literature of the times can draw this conclusion. Far from being divided on the issue of an Electoral College, the Founders were united in approving the system. During the Constitutional Convention, they debated numerous other modes of electing the president. They discarded them all and finally agreed upon the Electoral College as the best possible way of electing the highest officer in the land. In Federalist No. 68, Alexander Hamilton noted:

“The mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. The most plausible of these, who has appeared in print, has even deigned to admit that the election of the President is pretty well guarded. I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent. It unites in an eminent degree all the advantages, the union of which was to be wished for.”

Contrary to what political commentators today say, the Founders heartily approved the Electoral College – and none more so than Alexander Hamilton. He went out of his way to say that the Electoral College is “the only part” of the novel governmental plan that had “escaped without severe censure” by critics. Pay careful attention to some of Hamilton’s reasons for supporting the Electoral College so vociferously:

“It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.

“It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.

“It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.

“Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors. Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias. Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it. The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well as means. Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives, which though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duty.”

Interesting, is it not, that the Founding Fathers sought to prevent chaos by empowering the Electoral College, whereas the Supreme Court Monday decided to prevent chaos by neutering the Electoral College. Who was right – the Founding Fathers or today’s Supreme Court? Who understood the system better, Alexander Hamilton who helped create it or Elena Kagan who has helped dismantle it through her activism? Anyone with a shred of honesty and common sense knows the answer to those two questions.

According to Hamilton, the Electoral College system would prevent secret “combinations” of corruption, negate the influence of foreign powers in our national elections, and thwart attempts to steal elections through bribery or conspiracy. As much as the Democrats falsely allege that Russia interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of Donald Trump, you’d think that they would be the biggest supporters of the Electoral College. Instead, they’re the greatest enemies of the system, for reasons we will discuss later.

Founding Father John Jay, who was also present at the Constitutional Convention, gave his support to the Electoral College and explained how it could prevent the People from being duped by charlatans promising “hope and change.” He said:

“The convention . . . have directed the President to be chosen by select bodies of electors, to be deputed by the people for that express purpose; and they have committed the appointment of senators to the State legislatures. This mode has, in such cases, vastly the advantage of elections by the people in their collective capacity, where the activity of party zeal, taking the advantage of the supineness, the ignorance, and the hopes and fears of the unwary and interested, often places men in office by the votes of a small proportion of the electors.

“As the select assemblies for choosing the President, as well as the State legislatures who appoint the senators, will in general be composed of the most enlightened and respectable citizens, there is reason to presume that their attention and their votes will be directed to those men only who have become the most distinguished by their abilities and virtue, and in whom the people perceive just grounds for confidence. The Constitution manifests very particular attention to this object. By excluding men under thirty-five from the first office [i.e. the presidency], and those under thirty from the second [i.e. the Senate], it confines the electors to men of whom the people have had time to form a judgment, and with respect to whom they will not be liable to be deceived by those brilliant appearances of genius and patriotism, which, like transient meteors, sometimes mislead as well as dazzle. If the observation be well founded, that wise kings will always be served by able ministers, it is fair to argue, that as an assembly of select electors possess, in a greater degree than kings, the means of extensive and accurate information relative to men and characters, so will their appointments bear at least equal marks of discretion and discernment. The inference which naturally results from these considerations is this, that the President and senators so chosen will always be of the number of those who best understand our national interests, whether considered in relation to the several States or to foreign nations, who are best able to promote those interests, and whose reputation for integrity inspires and merits confidence.”

Jay believed that electors would epitomize the wisdom of the People – that they would be the cream of the crop. They would convene once every four years, pool their wisdom, and, with the trust of the People, select the president. Generally, of course, the electors would choose the person the People wanted. But more importantly, they were left free as to their “discretion and discernment” to select the person who would “best understand our national interests.”

During the Constitutional Convention, George Mason similarly argued against a popular vote to elect the president in these colorful terms:

“[I]t would be as unnatural to refer the choice of a proper character for chief Magistrate to the people, as it would, to refer the trial of colours to a blind man. The extent of the Country renders it impossible that the people can have the requisite capacity to judge of the representative pretentions of the Candidates” (Electing the President, Committee of the Judiciary, Ninety-First Congress, 456).

Like Mason, Elbridge Gerry argued that the People should not be given the opportunity to directly select the president because of their chance of being deceived. During the Founders’ debates, he said:

“A popular election in this case is radically vicious. The ignorance of the people would put it in the power of some one set of men dispersed through the Union, and acting in concert, to delude them into any appointment” (W. Cleon Skousen, The Making of America: The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution, 524).

Electors were to be brought in for one purpose – to ratify the People’s selection if they had shown good judgment and to rebuff them by selecting an alternative candidate if they had shown poor judgment. If the People had allowed themselves to be deceived, the electors, who would usually be people routinely involved in politics and presumably more knowledgeable than the average person, would override the popular vote.

James Madison liked this system in part because “as the electors would be chosen for the occasion, would meet at once, & proceed immediately to an appointment, there would be very little opportunity for cabal, or corruption” (Gaillard Hunt, ed., The Writings of James Madison, Vol. 4, 62). It’s easy to hoodwink large groups with emotional speeches and promises, especially in our day of mass media manipulation, but it’s theoretically more difficult to fool a small group of dedicated individuals whose sole purpose is to put the best person into the White House. Hence the creation of the Electoral College.

Some have made the argument that the Electoral College perhaps served a valuable function in a time when people did not have widespread access to information or education, but that today when nearly all people receive formal schooling and have access to a vast array of information, the system is archaic and unfair. This is easily refuted when we realize how poorly educated the average person is today compared to his ancestors in early America!

In early America, the average person might not have had much formal schooling, but he thoroughly understood the Constitution, actively participated in self-government, belonged to a militia, was involved in his community, participated on juries, knew his representatives in person, and so forth. Today, the average American probably doesn’t even know who the vice-president is, let alone who his local community representatives are. Then, Americans learned multiple languages in grade school and had a rigorous curriculum that baffles most people in our generation. Today, we stumble through remedial English and have horrendous school curricula that focus on feelings rather than facts. Simply, we are intellectually inferior in nearly every way to our ancestors – especially in the divine science of government.

Apart from preventing a conspiratorial takeover of our nation and guarding against mass ignorance, the Founding Fathers had other benefits in mind when they crafted the Electoral College system. In an excellent article written in the aftermath of the 2016 election, the reader is given a long list of benefits accrued from the Electoral College, including the following:

“The system forces candidates to address people across the country. If polling were nationwide a candidate could theoretically sweep regions with large populations and win the nation-wide vote. This would basically leave rural America at risk of being ignored.

“The marginal balance shifts to smaller states. In a national wide system a candidate could win heavily in a few heavily populated states and in the process ignore voters in less populated states. . . .

“The College Provides A Safety Valve. There are 21 states at the moment where Electors can break from the popular will. Almost never do Electors vote as anything other than a proxy for the results of the electorate. But maybe, there will be a day when we will thank ourselves that possibility of Electors overriding the electorate exists.”

The article then opined about the third benefit on our list – the fact that the Electoral College serves as a safety valve to save the Republic if the People become deceived by a charlatan:

“Make no mistake here the possibility of national elections being hijacked is just as real if not more in the 21st century as it was in the 18th century. We live in an age where sound bytes matter far more than serious reflection. We live in an age where masses of people can be swayed by an increasingly powerful media able to propagate ideas and spin them virally in a few clicks.

“The crowd has a life of its own and the crowd is far more connected to each other than ever before. One day the crowd will turn into a stampede. When this happens, it will be really comforting to know there exists the possibility for one last bastion of sanity, a few souls, a few Electors in a few states who are brave enough and courageous enough to put forward their conscience and change the balance before it is too late.”

The Founding Fathers were legitimately worried that the American People could be deceived and a smooth-talking tyrant could come to power. The Electoral College was the ultimate check on the passions of the crowd. If it functioned as designed, the Electoral College would nullify the public’s vote if the public selected a wolf in sheep’s clothing to lead them. In other words, the Electoral College would figuratively slap the poisoned chalice out of the king’s hand before he could drink it.

A couple examples might be helpful. If the Electoral College had functioned as designed, the nation would have been spared the dreadful presidencies of socialists FDR and Woodrow Wilson. Instead of allowing FDR to take the reins and foist his horrid New Deal socialism on the nation, the Electoral College could have selected someone with fiscally sound policies who could have pulled our nation out of the Great Depression. Instead, the Electoral College overwhelmingly supported FDR, leading to four terms of de facto communism, the New Deal, Japanese Internment Camps, the theft of the nation’s gold, America’s unnecessary entrance into World War II, and the rescue of the Soviet Union from the jaws of defeat.

Similarly, if the Electoral College had done their job, they would have prevented Woodrow Wilson from ascending to the presidency. This would have saved America from entering World War I and, perhaps even more importantly, would have derailed, or at least delayed, the Federal Reserve scheme. Without Wilson in the Oval Office, a different president may have vetoed the egregious Federal Reserve Act, saving our People from bondage to a largely foreign-controlled private banking cartel, preventing the decline of the U.S. economy, and staving off the Great Depression that later brought FDR to power.

Unfortunately, the Electoral College has not worked exactly as designed. Yet, it has remained largely intact and has facilitated the peaceful transfer of power from one group to the next for over two centuries. It’s very existence, however, is now being challenged. A coordinated effort – not unlike those it was designed to thwart – is underway to eliminate the Electoral College completely.

In a New York Times op-ed on Monday’s opinion, Jesse Wegman said that “the Supreme Court clearly got it right,” but complained: “The justices did not address the much bigger problem, which is the existence of the Electoral College itself.” Wegman called the electoral system “bizarre” and “anti-democratic.” He alleged that the people in the “battleground” states have their voices heard while people elsewhere do not. He advocated, without using this term, for the total abolition of the Electoral College.

Wegman was absolutely correct – the Electoral College is “anti-democratic” by design. Whether you like it or not, it is part of our republican Constitution. In his Farewell Address, George Washington said:

“Respect for [government’s] authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.”

Until the Constitution is formally changed by the People, via the amendment process, it is “sacredly obligatory” upon us. This means that until we amend the Constitution to change or get rid of the Electoral College, it is our system and we must sustain it. Yet, in what can only be considered a usurpation of authority, the Supreme court took it upon themselves to grant states power to punish electors who do the job appointed to them by the Constitution! By issuing their bogus opinion and putting the matter in to the states’ hands instead of upholding the Constitution’s plain commitment to elector free agency, the Supreme Court opened the door to rendering the Electoral college totally irrelevant.

What the Court’s opinion really does is make the Electoral College a rubber stamp for the popular vote. In other words, it converts the Electoral College into a rubber stamp for pure democracy – that very thing our Founding Fathers feared. This allows the Elite social engineers who manipulate public opinion through the mass media to almost ensure that their preferred candidates come to power each election. If this system had been in place in 2016, Hillary Clinton, who won the popular vote, would very likely have become president because it’s doubtful that electors would have risked official punishment to vote their conscience.

The agenda behind this is obvious. By dismantling the Constitution’s elaborate system of checks and balances and placing things directly in the hands of the People, whom they manipulate through indoctrination, the Establishment is setting itself up to bypass the hated Constitution and claim total power. The system our Founding Fathers set in place allowed Donald Trump to become president, against the wishes of the Establishment. They never want that to happen again, so they must once and for all destroy the Electoral College and put the ball in the People’s court – a move which historically leads to civil war and the rise of totalitarian regimes.

In his article “Destruction of the Electoral College Remains a Leftist Goal,” Charles Phipps explained a little about the fiendish agenda to sideswipe the Electoral College:

“It is either ignorance of or contempt for the Constitution that fuels the anti-Electoral College movement. Whether it is ignorance or contempt depends on which leftist we’re talking about. I’ve never met a Democrat yet who didn’t believe the Electoral College should be eliminated. Not surprising since two of the last five presidential elections had the Republican losing the popular vote but winning the Electoral College, making Democrats absolutely apoplectic. If the roles were reversed and it was the Democrat who won the Electoral College, you can be sure that they would be staunch defenders of it. But, they hate it. . . .

“The contempt that leftists have for the Electoral College is elevated by their losses when winning the popular vote, but the core of their disdain lies in their love of a huge, powerful, central government. That states have rights is irrelevant to them. The Electoral College was designed to rest the power to elect the president in the States, not the people. Under federalism, states have a sovereign role in our political system and it is that role that leftists seek to eliminate.”

A 2016 article featured on the Tenth Amendment Center’s website also warned of the impending danger to the Electoral College:

“A campaign to eliminate the Electoral College and “let the people elect the president,” is gaining steam. A group called “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact,” started in 2006, has won commitments from eleven states to award their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote. . . .

“As usual, it’s easy to get people to join this cause – yet another sound bite based on emotion rather than knowledge or logic. “Let the people decide.” “It’s the American way.” “It’s Democracy at work.” Yep, that’s why America was never set up as a democracy. Here’s another sound bite for you – “Democracy is a lynch mob.” Here’s another one – “Democracy is three wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.” Majority rule violates the rights of minorities. It’s not a good thing. Get the picture?

“Our Founding Fathers went to a lot of trouble to give us a government that was fair, representing all the people in every state – to protect a minority of one against the will of a mob which isn’t too concerned about the rights of someone standing in their way. Hence the Electoral College.

“The abolishment of the Electoral College would, in fact, establish an election tyranny giving control of the government to the massive population centers of the nation’s Northeastern sector, along with the area around Los Angeles. If these sections of the nation were to control the election of our nation’s leaders, the voice of the ranchers and farmers of the Mid and Far West would be lost, along with the values and virtues of the South. It would also mean the end of the Tenth Amendment and state sovereignty.”

Did you know that doing away with the Electoral College would not only cancel out part of the Constitution, as explained earlier, but would silence the voices of the majority of Americans in the majority of states? This is not fear-mongering – it’s reality. Let’s give a stark example of how the Electoral College actually preserves the voice of the People and makes elections more fair.

In the 2016 election between rabid socialist Hillary Clinton and blundering Donald Trump, Clinton won the national popular vote by 2.8 million votes, but Trump became president because the Electoral College favored him 304 to 227. To someone with a kindergartner’s IQ in constitutionalism, this may seem like a grave injustice. How can the candidate with 48.18% of the national vote lose to the contender with 46.09% of the vote, they moan? To put these raw numbers into perspective, consider a few other facts.

There are 3,141 counties in the United States. Though Hillary Clinton did in fact win the popular vote, Donald Trump won 2,654 counties! In case you thought that was a typo, let’s clarify: Donald Trump won 2,654 of 3,141 counties – 84.5% of all counties in the nation. Hillary Clinton won a measly 487. That’s no small margin of victory for the man who allegedly “stole” the election!

One study showed that far from barely winning in these 2,654 counties, Donald Trump often won by a large percentage. In addition to winning 85% of counties, Donald Trump won 30 states whereas Hillary Clinton only won 20. The voice of the overwhelming majority of American communities, therefore, wanted Donald Trump as their president. Yet the Democrats complain about how “unfair” the Electoral College system is!

In truth, a system that elected the president based on the popular vote alone would be unmistakably unfair because it would allow a clear minority – only 15% of counties and only 20 of 50 states – to select the president while disenfranchising the overwhelming majority of communities in America. Yet, the Democrats want the 85% to bow to them. Because they control several large population centers – Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, and a few others – they can almost force the rest of us in non-Democrat occupied America under their yoke. They will accomplish their ghastly goal if we allow the Electoral College to be destroyed. A national popular vote would drown out the voices of those of us in the smaller states – the states where some sanity still resides.

If you look at a red and blue county map of the 2016 presidential election, you find most of the red concentrated in five basic areas – southern California and a strip along the Californian coast, New Mexico, southern Texas, Seattle, and New York. Of course there are a handful of others, but these are the largest concentrations. Do we want these few areas speaking for the rest of the nation and determining our leaders for the foreseeable future? Do those of us in heartland America want to be controlled by a few elitist cities on the coasts? This is exactly what will have if we allow the Electoral College to be terminated.

World Net Daily has reported:

“The Electoral College was set up to assure that a handful of population centers across the country cannot in perpetuity control the presidency. That’s well illustrated by the 2016 results, where Trump won vast swaths of America, but still came up short in the popular vote because of the results, essentially, in one state, California. . . .

“The 2016 results really reveal that America has become two different nations: far left metropolitan and urban areas and much more conservative regions of small cities, towns and rural areas.”

Two Americas indeed! We are a nation divided between two ideologies – Americanism and communism. The Electoral College helps preserve Americanism whereas the popular vote will inevitably drag us toward communism.

The title of an article in The Hill tells us the whole story: “The 10 counties that will decide the 2020 election.” Though the piece perpetuates the lie that the last presidential election was decided by a slim 77,000 votes, and though it’s clearly wrong in which ten counties it thinks will determine the outcome of the election, it nevertheless shows the imbalance that would exist if we nullified the Electoral College and allowed the popular vote to determine national elections. We cannot allow it to happen.

In his sound article “No, Don’t Abolish the Electoral College,” Zachary Yost explained how doing away with the system would actually disenfranchise large swaths of the public rather than empowering them as anti-Electoral College elements claim:

“While our states aren’t as natural as the family, they serve a similar purpose in defending their citizens from abuse and protecting their interests. This was the logic behind the establishment of our decentralized federalist system of government, where seats of power are balanced against each other in an attempt to limit potential abuses of power.

“If states are important (as a “mediating institution” of sorts) for protecting their citizens from abuse by the central government, then the Electoral College is vital to ensure that every state maintains some relevance and the ability to influence the federal government. When necessary, the Electoral College might even serve as a useful tool the states could use to rein in the federal government by directly appointing electors to ensure the president is answerable to them and doesn’t ignore their interests. If presidential candidates were forced to kowtow to state governments, rather than trying to bribe the shortsighted masses, we’d see a very different incentive structure driving the national debate in which decentralization would be sure to follow.

“It’s understandable why some people think eliminating institutions like the Electoral College will result in more freedom and direct control for the average person. But further centralizing our political system by eliminating federalist institutions like the Electoral College will inevitably lead to a more powerful federal government and leave individuals with fewer options if that power is abused.”

Another writer painted a bleak scenario of what it would be like to live in middle America without the Electoral College:

“Without either [the Senate or the Electoral College], or with a Senate converted into a proportional representation body, as some have suggested, rural states are effectively political serfs for the larger urban centers.

“The Electoral College and the Senate allow rural states to have a voice in how the country is run, rather than being totally ruled over by people in urban centers who don’t own guns, can’t grow food, and have never met their neighbors.

“It’s not a coincidence that Electoral College abolition is a particular ax ground by the left. The abolition of the Electoral College would allow for sweeping changes in American public policy championed by those currently on the leftward edge of the political spectrum. Do you want to live in a country where, for example, the voters of smaller states like Nevada, New Hampshire and Montana are drowned out by a handful of cities on the coasts? What of medium-sized states with a number of post-industrial cities with their own concerns, just as valid as those of rural America, but entirely separate from the centers of financial, cultural and academic power?”

In a similar, though more foreboding vein, a third writer presented this thought:

“[A]bsent the electoral college system, presidential elections would be almost entirely determined by a handful of cities including New York City, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. And while the left would prefer to ignore the opinions of those in the “fly-over” states, we would suggest that their representation in the electoral college is a vital underpinning of American democracy . . . without such representation we’re not sure why the fly-over states would choose to remain a part of a union where they had no say.”

Despite warnings from well-informed patriots like these, a withering barrage has been initiated against the Constitution – a barrage which was aided by the Supreme Court’s democracy-promoting false opinion this past Monday. When you realize who has been advocating for the destruction of the Electoral College, the issue comes into brighter focus. For generations, radical socialists of all stripes have advocated to abolish this ingenious instrument – an instrument, as we’ve seen, that the Founders put in place to prevent the type of corruption and conspiracy that characterizes socialism. We now showcase a few of the notable figures who are actively fighting to kill the Electoral College.

Elizabeth Warren, the fake Indian lunatic, is on record calling for the abolition of the Electoral College. Before she was forced to bow out of the presidential race, she had vowed to be the last person elected by the Electoral College. By 2024, she claimed, it would be a relic of history. Among other comments, Chief Warren said:

“I want to get rid of [the Electoral College]. So here’s my goal: my goal is to get elected and then to be the last American president elected by the Electoral College. I want the second term to be that I got elected by direct vote. I just think this is how a democracy should work. Call me old-fashioned, but I think the person who gets the most votes should win.”

If we were a democracy, she’s be right. But we’re not a democracy. For 233 years, the United States has rejected the democratic system and voted in the unique republican format described earlier. Of course, Warren, who doesn’t even know her own lineage, thinks she knows more than the Founding Fathers and the combined experience of the American People.

Taking a leaf from Warren’s “we’re a democracy” book, Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley opined on CNN that the Electoral College “diminishes the legitimacy of our president.” He suggested that we “embrace the notion that whoever wins an election with the most support or the most citizens, should be the person who takes the office. That’s the fundamental nature of democracy.” While it’s certainly true that in a democracy 51% of the people can dominate and utterly control the 49%, that’s never been the case in the United States. Our republican Constitution provides as system that allows the most number of people, in the greatest number of locations throughout the Union, to have their voices heard by selecting the upstanding men who select the president on their behalf.

Democrat Stacey Abrams, who claims she lost her election in Georgia due to “racism” rather than because of her own idiocy and unsound principles, has unsurprisingly screeched: “The Electoral College is racist and classist . . . Both of those things should be flung to the far reaches of history and the Electoral College needs to go.”

The failed, homosexual Democratic presidential candidate, Pete Buttigieg, has also advocated for the abolition of the Electoral College: “We can’t say it’s much of a democracy when twice in my lifetime the Electoral College has overruled the American people. Why should our vote in Indiana only count once or twice in a century? Or your vote in Wyoming or New York?” No, we can’t say it’s a democracy since it’s not. To say that we are a democracy is the height of ignorance.

I’m also unsure how Indiana’s vote supposedly only counted “once or twice” in a century, but I do know that smaller states would have dramatically less of a voice if the Electoral College was eliminated and larger states were allowed to dominate the voting process. Yet, Buttigieg says: “The electoral college needs to go because it’s made our society less and less democratic.” Either he’s totally ignorant or totally malicious. Either way, he’s a danger to the Republic.

Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who, similar to Warren’s Indian schizophrenia, can’t decide whether he’s white or Latino, said flatly: “Let’s abolish the Electoral college.” Why should we abolish this system that has worked for more than two centuries? Racism and democracy, of course:

“This is one of those bad compromises we made at day one in this country. There are many others we can think of and they are all connected, including the value of some people based on the color of their skin. . . .

“In this conversation about how we repair the damage, how we make things right, and how we keep from committing the same injustice going forward is squarely connected to the reason that we are all convened here today and that is fixing our democracy. So yes, if we get rid of the Electoral College, we get a little bit closer to one person, one vote in the United States of America.”

Echoing many of the same flawed arguments, Eric Holder, Obama’s scandal-ridden attorney general, complained:

“We’ve got to do away with the Electoral College. We’ve got a system now that was—it’s a defect in our democracy. We have had in the last five elections two presidents who were not—win the popular vote.”

He has also Tweeted:

“Time to make Electoral College a vestige of the past. It’s undemocratic, forces candidates to ignore majority of the voters and campaign in a small number of states. The presidency is our one national office and should be decided – directly – by the voters.”

Surely Holder and the others aren’t so intellectually stunted that they can’t see how getting rid of the Electoral College would do precisely what they claim to decry; namely, having a small number of states dominate all the others. Anyone who takes five minutes to honestly understand the Electoral College understands that it gives a larger number of people in a larger number of areas a voice whereas a popular vote would allow large states like California to totally control the election process – the small states be damned.

One Democrat who does appear to be intellectually stunted, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has absurdly claimed:

“The Electoral College has a racial injustice breakdown. Due to severe racial disparities in certain states, the electoral college effectively weighs white voters over voters of color.”

Tom Perez, head of the Democratic National Committee is also either ignorant of the Constitution or a pathological liar. He has actually said: “The Electoral College is not a creation of the Constitution.” Because he doesn’t believe that the Electoral College isn’t in the Constitution, even though it plainly sits right there in Article 2, Section 1, he doesn’t believe Donald Trump won the 2016 election, but that Hillary Clinton rightfully should be president. It goes without saying that Hillary Clinton also detests the Electoral College and has alternatively blamed it as well as Russia, Trump, sexism, and a long list of other things, for her pathetic defeat.

Other leftists including Michael Moore, Jay Inslee, Cory Booker and Steve Cohen also hate the Electoral College and have called for its abolition. The Democratic Party in general supports doing away with the system. An Associated Press article aptly titled “2020 Democrats’ new litmus test: Abolish Electoral College” noted:

“It’s the latest push by White House hopefuls to embrace a procedural tactic to rally the Democratic base, following similar calls to scrap the filibuster and increase the size of the Supreme Court. The 2020 candidates are tapping into Democratic anger after Donald Trump became the second Republican in five presidential elections to win the presidency through the Electoral College while losing the popular vote. . . .

“Several Democratic-controlled states are pushing for a national popular vote. But rather than pass a constitutional amendment, these legislatures are joining the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, a group of states that pledge to give their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.

“The compact only goes into effect when it includes states representing 270 electoral votes, the majority needed to win the White House.”

Yes, Democrats are pushing hard to ditch the Electoral College. But let’s not forget about other radicals such as those in the Communist Party USA. What would a list of anti-Constitution agitators be without them? In an article from just two months ago, the Communist Party railed:

“Take a look at how we “elect” the president of the United States. The people don’t elect the president. Rather, the Electoral College selects the president—using the total number of representatives and senators from each state and at times the perverted legal logic of the U.S. Supreme Court. Clinton received 3 million more votes than Trump in 2016, but Trump is “elected” under a system designed to give slaveholders more power when the Constitution was ratified in 1789.”

There’s no need to point out how closely the earlier Democrats echoed their Red brothers in the Communist Party USA. In a second piece from, the CPUSA stated more candidly why they want to tear down the Electoral College:

“Here in the United States, our two-party electoral system is dominated by two corporate parties, the Democrats and Republicans, and the presidential results are often unfairly determined by the Electoral College. In other words, the candidate with the most votes is not necessarily the winner. No matter how flawed this system is, it is the system we must work within if we are to dismantle it, expand democracy, and lay the foundations for socialism.”

By derailing the Electoral College and promoting democracy (i.e. mobocracy), the communists know socialism can be easily established. Establishing democracy is essential to the communist plan to dupe societies and overthrow free nations. It was Karl Marx, after all, who wrote in The Communist Manifesto that “the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.” In other words, in order for communism to dominate, democracy must exist; and in the United States, democracy can only truly exist when the Electoral College is destroyed.

In the end, you have to make a choice which side you will stand on and with whom you will side. Will you support the system that has sustained our election process for over two centuries or will you throw it under the bus and allow America to become like other democratic nations with all their turbulence and factional strife? Will you side with the Founding Fathers who crafted the Constitution which gave birth to the United States or with the communists, socialists, and traitors in the Democratic Party who want to overthrow the Constitution? Will you stand with George Washington, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, James Wilson, Alexander Hamilton, and other Founders or with the inglorious cast of detractors that includes Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Eric Holder, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, and Beto O’Rourke?

For me, the Constitution – in full and in total – is a clear line in the sand that must not be crossed. I will fight to defend that Heaven-sent document if need be. It is the glue that binds our People together as one. With the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution is our national standard. It must be upheld.

The Electoral College is part of the Constitution. It helps preserve our republican institutions. It gives middle America a voice. It maintains a balance of power so that the nation cannot be dominated by socialist California and New York. God help We the People to see the error of our ways and reject the seductive voices calling for more democracy! Lord help us, while we still can, to compel our state and national representatives to overturn the venomous Supreme Court opinion which essentially binds our electors to the popular vote and erases the fail-safe put in place by our wise Founding Fathers to prevent corruption and civil war! And may the Constitution stand now and forever!

Zack Strong,

July 11, 2020

What Government Can and Can’t Do

Posted on May 11, 2020 by zeev1776

Government is not all-powerful. I know that’s a surprise to government bureaucrats and people in blue states (and too many in red ones). This article will cut through the fog of lies and lay out, in a very concise format, what government legitimately can and can’t do – which powers it actually has and doesn’t have.

We need to start by asking and answering some basic questions: Where does government get its power from? From whom is its authority derived? And what is the purpose of government? The Declaration of Independence answers these questions. The Founding Fathers etched the following truths in stone:

From this statement, we learn that government exists for the express purpose of securing the individual’s God-given rights, such as life, Liberty, property, speech, self-defense, and so on. We learn that governments don’t spring up out of the ground but are created by people. They create them, as noted, to safeguard their rights. Governments are subservient to the people who create them. They may be abolished by the People at any given time – and especially when the government oversteps its obligation to secure people’s rights.

To reiterate, government gets 100% of its authority from you. As James Madison put it, “the people are the only legitimate fountain of power” (Federalist No. 49, February 5, 1788). Thomas Jefferson, concurring, affirmed: “I consider the people who constitute a society or nation as the source of all authority in that nation” (Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on the Treaties with France, April 28, 1793). Therefore, if you want to know what a government can and cannot do, simply determine what you justly can and cannot do. If you do not possess a certain power or authority, neither does government. It’s categorically impossible for government to rightly claim prerogatives and powers that its creator does not have.

Additionally, people acting together in groups does not magically endow the group, or government, with extra privileges and powers. Joint action adds zero authority to anything! Acting with your neighbor doesn’t suddenly grant you privileges you lacked as an individual acting alone. Society cannot justly do a single thing individuals are forbidden from doing. If it is wrong for an individual, it is wrong for the group and for the government.

To make this clearer, let’s consult some basic examples.

Do you have a right to kill another human being for no reason? No. Therefore, government does not possess the authority to take a life without justification.

Do you have a right to kill someone in self-defense? Yes. Therefore, government has the authorization to kill in self-defense; that is, to defend its people against foreign invasion and to secure the rights of citizens, with lethal force when necessary, against criminals.

Do you have a right to seize and imprison someone without cause? No. Therefore, neither does government have that right.

Do you have a right to take money from your neighbor? No. Therefore, neither does government have a right to take money. The obvious exception to this is taxation. In the case of taxation, however, the People collectively consent to giving up a small portion of their income to help the government fulfill its purpose of securing their rights. When it exceeds this purpose, it becomes common theft.

Do you have a right to take money from someone and give it to someone else? No. Therefore, neither does government have a right to take your money and divvy it out to someone else in the community – even for allegedly “charitable” purposes.

Do you have a right to take someone’s property? No. Therefore, neither does government have a just authority to confiscate property. A possible exception is when someone uses their property in such a manner as to infringe upon the rights of other people. For instance, a person cannot acquire property at the head of a river and dam it off so that other people down river suddenly are deprived of their equal share of the water usage. And so forth.

Do you have a right to tell another person what they can and cannot say? No. Therefore, neither does government have that authority. As in the last case, there are exceptions. Slander and libel laws prevent people from lying and intentionally harming the reputation of another individual. You have no right to lie about people. Liars are essentially murderers – murderers of truth, killers of reputations, and destroyers of lives. Just laws protect people against this type of abuse. Similarly, public decency laws protect people against profane language, threats, and so forth.

Do you have a right to control another person’s body? No. Therefore, government doesn’t have authority over another’s body.

Do you have a right to tell your neighbor what they can and cannot put in their body? No. Therefore, government doesn’t possess any such authority. That being said, certain substances, such as alcohol, impair the individual’s judgment and frequently lead them to mindlessly harm, maim, and kill innocent people. Alcohol is one of the leading causes of death, disease, and violence in our nation. Inasmuch as it is a legitimate threat to individual safety, to say nothing of its danger to society by subverting families and morality, government has a legitimate power to protect the rights of its people. You cannot, however, make a similar argument for everything that someone might deem a “threat,” such as fatty foods or guns.

Do you have a right to tell others who they can and cannot marry? No. Therefore, government has no right to dictate in this matter either. The only exception is to prohibit that which is not only unnatural and morally reprehensible, but which demonstrably undermines the stability of the nation and its innocent children. Homosexuality and same-sex marriage is one such example. Lest you protest, remember that the Declaration of Independence referenced “the laws of Nature” and “Nature’s God” as the foundation of our entire civilization. To institutionalize violations of the laws of nature is to throw out the entire Declaration of Independence and the very concept of America.

Do you have the right to tell someone what they can and cannot build, do, or grow on their property? No. Therefore, government cannot tell people what they can and cannot do on their property – excepting, of course, criminal activities that violate other people’s rights.

Do you have a right to dictate what other people can and cannot wear? No. Therefore, neither can the government claim authority to dictate in this aspect. Public decency laws apply, however.

Do you have a right to deprive your neighbor of his means of self-defense? No. Therefore, government cannot justly take away a peaceable individual’s means of personal protection. To acknowledge, as the Declaration of Independence does, that our rights come from God is to simultaneously acknowledge that we have an equal right to defend them. You cannot take away this right without jeopardizing all other rights.

Do you have a right to force your neighbor’s children to go to a public institution to study? No. Therefore, neither does government possess authority to separate children from their parents and force them to study in a public school.

Do you have a right to force another person to inject substances into his body? No. Therefore, government has no such power.

Finally, do you have a right to force your neighbor to stay in his home, wear a face mask, or close his business? No. Therefore, government has no right to force peaceable citizens to stay in the homes, wear masks over their faces, or close their businesses and cut off their livelihoods.

Our list of examples could go on almost indefinitely. You can clearly see the picture, however. The key point is that government is only authorized to do what you, the individual, can do. Nothing more. If you have no authority to do something, then neither does government!

The U.S. Constitution has actually simplified this concept by including a short list of enumerated powers. These powers – about 18 in number, depending on how you want to break up the list – are the only things Congress is authorized to do. They are specific, not broad. They cover individual items, not entire classifications of things. They define what Congress can do, and, by implication, dictates they cannot do anything more.

For instance, We the People have delegated to Congress the authority to “provide and maintain a Navy,” to “establish Post Offices and post Roads,” to “coin Money,” and so on. Beyond these rigid bounds, the Congress cannot legitimately go. The same goes for the other branches of government and their limited, specified powers.

It is crucial for us as free individuals to know where our public representatives derive their authority. It is indispensable to comprehend what government can and can’t do. When we understand that government does not inherently possess any authority except that which the individuals in society give it, then we can more easily recognize and prevent abuses of that authority. When we understand this cardinal point, we’ll also understand that we are the true source of power and that our nation’s destiny is in our hands. All political power springs from We the People. Never forget it.

I close by quoting once more from the Declaration of Independence. Internalize the words. Really believe them. Reclaim your rights. Exercise your sovereignty. Know that government is accountable to you, not you to the government. And God give you the courage to rise in defense of Freedom like our forefathers before us!

“. . . 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 . . . 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.”

Zack Strong,

May 11, 2020

The American Citadel

Defending our Faith, Families, and Freedom.

Tag Archives: Constitution

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I Will NEVER Swear Allegiance to a New Government

Rebellion to Tyrants – The American Tradition

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The Sad Death of the Electoral College

What Government Can and Can’t Do