The Constitution Party

[stonewalljackson]

Constitution Party
http://www.constitutionparty.com/


“Every step we take towards making the State the Care taker of our lives,by that much we move toward making the State our Master.”
-Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority.It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern.They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."
--Daniel Webster
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"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"
-Declaration of Independence


Philosophy

The overall philosophy of the party is to get back to Americas original constitutional republic form of government under a limited federal government, held in check by the Constitution. They wish to regain the liberty Americans once had under the Constitution, the declaration of Independence, and the bill of rights and the belief that all are created and seen as equal under the law.


"We affirm the principles of inherent individual rights upon which these United States of America were founded:
-That each individual is endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are the rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness;
-That the freedom to own, use, exchange, control, protect, and freely dispose of property is a natural, necessary and inseparable extension of the individual’s unalienable rights;
-That the legitimate function of government is to secure these rights through the preservation of domestic tranquility, the maintenance of a strong national defense, and the promotion of equal justice for all;
-That history makes clear that left unchecked, it is the nature of government to usurp the liberty of its citizens and eventually become a major violator of the people’s rights; and
-That, therefore, it is essential to bind government with the chains of the Constitution and carefully divide and jealously limit government powers to those assigned by the consent of the governed.


"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."
-Thomas Jefferson

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.”
-James Madison Federalist Papers #45

Local Government

“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.”
-10th Amendment


The party wishes to restore the ignored [By Democrats and Republicans for increase in their own power] 10th amendment, to again act like it is part of the constitution. To return to Americas original republic of self governing states and peoples. A move away from today's increasing centralized federal government, not only stepping over its bounds of the Constitution, but controlling the states as well. It has become a centralized dictatorship in Washington. The party prefers local control, self government and diversity of governments rather than conformity by Washington forced on the American people.


"The capital and leading object of the Constitution was to leave with the states all authorities which respected their own citizens only, and to transfer to the United States those which respected citizens of foreign or other states….Can any good be effected by taking from the states the moral rule of their citizens and subordinating it to the general [federal] authority?...Such an intention was impossible and...[would] break up the foundations of the Union…. I believe the states can best govern our home concerns, and the general [federal]government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore…never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold as at market”
-Thomas Jefferson


[T]hose who proposed the Constitution conceived [i.e., believed]… (and those who ratified the Constitution conceived) that this is not an indefinite[unrestricted] government…but a limited government tied down to the specified powers[Constitution]….It was never…supposed or suspected that the old Congress could give away the money of the states to bounties to encourage agriculture, or for any other purpose they pleased."
-James Madison


Why I love Local Control

I love the original republics constitution that had the states self govern. A local government is more accountable to the people, and more in line with the local people. This also allows diversity in government that a federal government cannot offer. If one state wishes to provide universal health care, socialist tax code it can. If the state next door wishes to have a libertarian society and a fair tax code, it can. The people can decide for themselves.This would also stop so much fighting between separate groups [conservative liberal etc]. Because neither could force themselves on the other as we do today in our modern democracy. If Massachusetts wants to be liberal it can, if Alabama wishes to be conservative it can.

This also would allow multiple ways of dealing with a certain problem be tried and tested. We could have a dozen separate ways states do education, we could than test the results. The states that “failed” in their way could adopt another more successful way of another state, if they wanted to, they would have the liberty to chose. But If the federal government does education a certain way, and it fails, than everyone suffers. Since there are so many different opinions on how to better the education system in America, all could have it their own way instead of being forced by a central dictatorship in Washington.


Republic Or Democracy?

"The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government"
-Article 4 section 4 US Constitution


Despite what we are told in schools, we are not a democracy and were not so intended by the founders who hated democracy.In many ways it comes down to this. Do we "progress" to a pure democracy [That leads to socialism and totalitarianism]. Or do we return to the original constitutional republic as intended by the founders.


“We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. There is nothing progressive about being pig-headed and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world it's pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistake. We're on the wrong road. And if that is so we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on”
-C.S Lewis



Founders opinions of Democracy

"A simple democracy . . . is one of the greatest of evils."
- Benjamin Rush

"In democracy . . . there are commonly tumults and disorders. . . . Therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical government on earth."
- Noah Webster

[T]he experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived."
- John Quincy Adams

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide"
-John Adams

"[D]emocracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths"
-James Madison


"A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way."

"The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness [excessive license] which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty"
- Fisher Ames


"We have seen the tumult of democracy terminate . . . as [it has] everywhere terminated, in despotism. . . . Democracy! savage and wild. Thou who wouldst bring down the virtuous and wise to thy level of folly and guilt"
-Gouverneur Morris

"It may generally be remarked that the more a government resembles a pure democracy the more they abound with disorder and confusion."
- Zephaniah Swift


"Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state, it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage."
-John Witherspoon


A warning

“If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the “general welfare,”and are the sole and supreme judges of the “general welfare,”[then Congress might] take the care of religion into their own hands;they may appoint teachers in every state, county, and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision for the poor;they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than [the]post-roads; in short, everything from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police would be thrown under the power of [the federal] Congress”
-James Madison


"[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy; such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit, and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable [abominable] cruelty of one or a very few."
- John Adams


"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end,for they do so with the approval of their consciences."
--C. S. Lewis


"It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth... Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
Patrick Henry give me liberty or give me death speech