![It all depends on the PLACE. It all depends on WHERE. [courtesy Google Images]](https://m5.paperblog.com/i/105/1056367/protecting-the-states-against-invasion-L-NmTo9d.jpeg "Protecting the “States” against Invasion")
It all depends on the PLACE. It all depends on WHERE.
[courtesy Google Images]
If this hypothesis is true, it’s important because under Article 4, Section 3, Clause 2 of The Constitution of the United States, the Congress has exclusive legislative jurisdiction over the territories. Within a “territory of the United States,” the Congress is the sovereign and can do anything they like. They have unlimited powers in the territories. The people of the territories have virtually no rights that they might be absolutely able to enforce other then those currently allowed by Congress.
Within the States of the Union, the people are sovereign and Congress has only those limited powers described in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution.
So, it makes a big difference whether you are presumed to act and “appear” within the jurisdiction of a territory like “Texas,” “STATE OF TEXAS,” or TX” or if you’re presumed to act and live within the jurisdiction of a State of the Union like “The State of Texas”. In the first instance, you are a subject without any rights that you can count on. In the second instance, you are a sovereign with a multitude of unalienable Rights granted you by the God of the Bible and beyond denial by the government of that State of the Union.
That hypothesis is hard to grasp, hard to believe. It was first advanced by Paul Andrew Mitchell in the late 1990s in his book “The Federal Zone”. I couldn’t understand it at the time. But over time, I’ve come to understand and believe that hypothesis is valid.
I can’t prove it, but I remain convinced that today’s modern “states” are presumed by the government to be “states of the United States” (territories) rather than “States of the Union”–States of The United States of America.
• Here’s another evidence in support of that hypothesis.
Article 4, Section 4, Clause 4 of The Constitution of the United States declares,
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic Violence.”
• First, Article 4.4.4 guarantees to each State of the Union “a Republican Form of Government”.
If there are 50 member-States of the perpetual Union styled “The United States” of America,” there should be 50, separate, State government of the “Republican Form”.
Do we have a “Republican Form of Government” in any modern “state”–or do we have one or more democracies?
The word “democracy” does not appear in our federal Constitution, and yet we’re told that we live in a “democracy”. Why aren’t we told that we live under a “Republican Form of Government”?
We even prosecute wars on foreign nations to impose the purported blessing of “democracy” upon them. If the terms “Republican Form of Government” and “democracy” are synonymous, why don’t we wage wars for the express purpose of imposing a “Republican Form of Government” (as declared in our Constitution)? Why do we wage wars to extend “democracy” when that word is unknown to our Constitution?
I believe the answer is found in the hypothesis that the modern states of “Texas,” “Illinois,” et al are deemed to be “territories” rather than States of the Union.
The obligation imposed by Article 4.4.4 on the federal government to guarantee to each State a “Republican Form of Government” is only extended to the States of the Union. At no point does the Constitution guarantee a “Republican Form of Government” to any territory or to Washington DC. Within the territories of the United States, the federal government can impose any form of law or election it likes. Thus, the democracy that would be unconstitutional within “The State of Texas” is completely constitutional within a territory of the United States.
• Second, Article 4.4.4 obligates the “United States” (federal government) to “protect each of them [States of the Union] against Invasion.” We know that the word “them” refers to the several States of the Union because, when the Constitution was first ratified by the people in A,.D 1788, that’s the only kind of “States” that existed. Again, note that the obligation to protect against invasion is only mandated in relation to the States of the Union–there is no such obligation to protect the territories of the United States or Washington DC against invasions.
In case you haven’t noticed, our nation has already been invaded by somewhere between 11 and 35 million wetbacks (a/k/a “illegal immigrants”). That invasion is ongoing. But our government has not only done almost nothing to prevent that invasion and has, in many instances, openly encouraged it.
How can this be happening?
I suspect that part of legal foundation for failing to protect our “states” from this invasion is the presumption at the highest levels of government that our “states” are now merely territories rather than States of the Union. If “Texas” is deemed to be a territory, the federal government has no constitutional obligation to protect Texas from an invasion by illegal aliens. In fact, within the territory of “Texas,” the Congress might be within its constitutional powers to encourage Mexicans to invade and populate that “territory”.
• Article 4.4.4 also deals with the federal government’s duty to provide military force to protect the States of the Union against “domestic Violence”–internal riots, revolutions, etc.–but only if the legislature of such State of the Union (and/or the Executive Branch, if the legislature is not in session) applies for federal assistance.
For example, as I write this article, we expect that a grand jury will soon declare if the white police officer who shot a black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri was justified in doing so–or if the police officer should be charged and prosecuted for murder or manslaughter. More importantly, we are not only waiting to hear what the grand jury decides, we’re also waiting to see if blacks in the area will riot if the white police officer is exonerated.
If Missouri were a State of the Union, the federal government might have no authority to send federal troops into Missouri to quell the rioting unless the legislature or executive branch of The State of Missouri appealed for that assistance. As long as the government of The State of Missouri said “We got this,” the feds could mind their own business and keep their troops back on the East Coast. Thus, the States of the Union are protected from intrusion by federal troops–unless the legislature or governor of the State ask for assistance.
If the federal government can send troops to Ferguson without the Missouri legislature or governor (if the legislature is not in session) asking for assistance, Missouri is no longer protected from intrusion by federal troops. If that’s true, is “Missouri” still a State of the Union–or is “Missouri” now deemed to be a territory and/or administrative district of the United States?
• We may have seen the first conflict between what were believed to be States of the Union and the federal government’s presumption that these “States” were really territories in A.D. 1963, when Governor George Wallace stood in the doorway of the University of Alabama to resist federal troops’ determination to integrate white schools in Alabama with black students. Wallace was generally condemned and explained away as a racist–and those condemnations may have been true.
But it’s also true that Wallace was a proponent of “States’ Rights”–a concept which, at the time, was also vilified and treated to a big dose of contempt.
In the end, Wallace’s resistance was overcome by 100 members of the National Guard acting on orders of President John F. Kennedy. There was no appeal by the Governor of Alabama (Wallace) nor by the legislature of Alabama to the federal government to send troops to help quell “domestic Violence” in The State of Alabama. President Kennedy apparently acted unilaterally to deploy federal-troops/national-guard into Alabama without appeal by the government of the”state” of “Alabama”.
Did the conflict in Alabama signal that “States [of the Union] Rights” were being ignored and openly violated by the federal government? Or did the federal government’s unilateral deployment of troops signal that “Alabama” was no longer deemed to be a State of the Union but was, instead, presumed to be a territory or administrative district of the United States?
I won’t argue that Wallace’s attempt to maintain segregation was justified, but I wonder if the significance of the correlative loss of “States’ Rights” was fully appreciated or even imagined at that time.
If “States’ Rights” (as in “States of the Union”) are gone, you are presumed to be a subject (rather than an individual sovereign), and Congress is presumed to be an aristocracy in charge of ruling this nation’s people as if we were all a bunch of animals, peons, or even slaves.
• My purpose in for this articles is to illustrate how important it is to think in terms of the venue, plane or jurisdiction that provide the context for our statements and claims. It’s not enough to claim that a particular law, court decision or governmental act are “unconstitutional”. You must also specify where you claim that law, decision or act are “unconstitutional” because a law that’s completely unconstitutional within the borders of a State of the Union (a State of The United States of America) could be absolutely constitutional within the boundaries of a territory of administrative district of the United States.
For example, you might scream that a new gun-control law is “unconstitutional” because it clearly violates the terms of the Second Amendment.
But if you did your research and read the “Preamble to the Bill of Rights,” you might see that the fundamental intent behind what became the “Bill of Rights” was to protect the States of the Union–but not the territories, administrative districts or Washington DC–against intrusion by the federal government.
Thus, it’s not enough for you to scream that some legislation or court decision is “unconstitutional!” You must also scream where it’s “unconstitutional!” In what venue, plane or jurisdiction is the particular act “unconstitutional”? If you won’t specify the jurisdictional context, your claim of “unconstitutionality” will be ignored because, under the Constitution, Congress has unlimited powers in the territories but only limited powers within the States of the Union.
Thus, every law Congress enacts is “constitutional” in at least some jurisdictions–the territories. Why? Because Congress has unlimited powers in the territories. Within the territories, Congress is the only sovereign. Within the territories, anything goes.
Some laws that Congress enacts might be “constitutional” in both the territories and the States of the Union. Why? Because Congress has limited powers within the States of the Union. If Congress enacts a law that’s “constitutional” within the jurisdictions of the States of the Union, that law is probably also constitutional within the territories.
But some laws that are quite constitutional within the territories are absolutely unconstitutional within the States of the Union. For example, I strongly suspect that virtually all of Congress’ gun control laws (and probably income tax laws) are constitutional within the territories, but are absolutely unconstitutional within the States of the Union.
So, when people simply scream that a new gun control (or income tax) law is “unconstitutional”–they’re wrong. They’re making a general statement that might be true in some jurisdictions (States of the Union), but is not true in others (territories). Therefore, their claims of general “unconstitutionality” will be properly dismissed because these people are screaming generalities rather than making precise statements.
Law is all about linguistic precision–“Mother may I?” and “Simon sez” to the nth degree.
If you’re going to complain that a particular gun control law is unconstitutional, I believe you’ll have to:
1) specify where you think it’s constitutional (within the States of the Union); and then,
2) prove that your keeping and bearing of an “arm” relevant to the case at hand took place exclusively within a State of the Union.
You may have to concede that the gun-control law is constitutional within a territory of the United States. But if you assert that it’s still unconstitutional within States of the Union and if you can successfully prove that all of your activities in relationship to the “arm” took place within a State of the Union, you’ll have a chance of winning your case.
It won’t be easy.
Congress can enact the most idiotic, tyrannical law concerning gun control and, no matter how absurd it will seem, that law will be “constitutional”–within the jurisdiction of territories and/or administrative districts of the United States and Washington DC.
But, if you don’t grasp the idea that every law is only effective or constitutional in some jurisdictions, but not in all, you won’t stand a chance of winning an argument based on the 2nd Amendment.
Same thing is true with the 4th, 5th, 6th Amendments that are being constantly whittled away. Those Amendments were only intended to protect the States of the Union–not the territories. If you allow the courts to presume that your relevant conduct took place in a territory, you won’t have standing to make claims under the Bill of Rights.
On the other hand, if you can establish that your venue, plane and jurisdiction is within a State of the Union, you may be able to give the gov-co a real run for its money.
If you want to run that race, you’ve got to learn to expressly associate the constitutionality of every law with the particular venue, plane or jurisdiction where it is effective. You’ve got to learn to associate every law with the word “where“.
