Principles of Freedom – Constitutional Conventions

Issue 23.15

As we have cataloged the Bill of Rights over the last few weeks, it should become very clear how wise and forward thinking our founders were. They based our Constitution on principles instead of politics. When principles are used to make decisions instead of reaction or over-reaction to a current problem or threat, our legislators make good decisions. When making decisions in the heat of the moment without considering the long term effects or the principles of truth and the concepts our founders used to formulate our system of government, we suffer the consequences of short term thinking.

Of the 55 men who actually attended the original Convention that created our  Constitution, many were among the most educated and wisest men of the period. A significant number of participants were not legislators. Each state sent who they thought would be the best educated, the most thoughtful and the wisest. Politics had very little to do with the choices simply because there were no parties of any consequence, only patriots that hoped to create a nation that could withstand change, foreign interference and internal divisions.

The Constitution of the United States is the briefest in words and longest lasting of any current form of representative government. It has proven the wisdom and clear thinking of those who wrote and agreed to it. There were many compromises, some of which were necessary at the time but were not what the founders really wanted. Most of those onerous compromises involved slavery and voting rights and have long since been corrected by the Amendments that sought to remedy such things.

This brings us to our current situation. The great wisdom and facility the Constitution has shown in creating freedom, prosperity and happiness among our people has been eroded by the growth of government interference in our lives by burgeoning bureaucracies and legislative and judicial over-reach. Especially troubling has been the recent actions by a number of presidents issuing Executive Orders that exceed the authority granted the President by our Constitution. We have borrowed so much money as a nation to feed this expanding giant that we have no reasonable way to balance the budget and pay what we owe – most of it to our own citizens.

These problems have encouraged a number of people to call for an Article Five Convention to offer new Amendments or rewrite the Constitution. Article Five does give permission for a new Constitutional Convention to be created upon the request of two thirds of the state legislatures.  The proponents of this idea have failed to consider one very clear reason to reject this approach to solving our problems. That reason is the politicization of our nation and the rise of lobbyists and special interest groups as the power behind those that run the country.

There is no way to control who is chosen to be the representatives at such a Convention, making sure they are wise people whose only goal is a better, more peaceful and wiser nation. In fact, it is most likely that the people who would be sent would be the same people that got us into the problem. How can they create new Constitutional controls over laws to balance the budget, pay our debts, remove the negative influence of lobbyists and special interests when they are the very people who are supported and connected to these negative influences.  How much easier would it be for our elected officials to just decide to reduce the size and cost of government  than it would be to get those same people to create something better that they also had no intention of following when the decisions became difficult.

We have the answers and the vehicle to solve our problems. We just need to quit ignoring the principles that the existing Constitution organizes and presents. An Article Five Constitutional Convention would be very unlikely to improve upon what we already have. It is much more likely that it would sound the death knell to many of the protections and freedoms we have enjoyed for the last 230 years and replace them with what a bunch of politicians think would be best – whether that means best for them or for the rest of us can be determined by watching how they treat the rest of us and the privileges and special treatment they require for themselves. I encourage you to tell your state legislators to vote “NO” when asked about a Constitutional Convention.

Lynn West is a thinker, a teacher and a patriot. You can reach him through email atforgingthefuture2021@gmail.com or through this newspaper. Liberty is a state of being which must be continually created. These articles can help all of us discover the ways we can contribute to that outcome.