In a recent blog post, the Convention of States (COS) organization’s president, Mark Meckler, claimed that anyone who “loves the Constitution” will support the Convention of States.
“In truth, the people who make up the COS grassroots army love our founding document more than anyone I know. We’re the kind of people who carry pocket Constitutions everywhere we go,” Meckler declared.
Carrying a pocket Constitution is hardly the most mature and meaningful way to show love for that document. I’m reminded of the observation and warning provided by the Savior when He said:
This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. (Matthew 15:8, KJV)
Toting a copy of the Constitution is something anyone can do, but to return this union of states back to the principles upon which it was founded is much more difficult.
As James Harrington wrote in his eminently influential Commonwealth of Oceana (paraphrasing Machiavelli’s similar observation in his own Discourses on Livy):
If a republic were so happy as to be provided with young men that, when the republic is swerving from her principles, should return her to her founding principles, that republic would be immortal.
In other words, people carrying a copy of the Constitution, even being able to quote the entire document, is not capable of returning a republic to her founding principles if the people are ignorant of those fundamental principles.
Ignorance and liberty are incompatible. At least, they can’t coexist for long. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
To his credit, Meckler mentions this return to basic principles as a necessity for maintaining free government. He quotes George Mason, who wrote, “No free government, or the blessings of liberty can be preserved to any people, but by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.”
While Meckler goes on to say that “We take these words very seriously,” there isn’t a single syllable in the rest of the lengthy article identifying any of those “fundamental principles.”
In fact, and to his discredit, Meckler simply envelops the rest of his pitch for an Article V convention in a shiny wrapping of pro-COS rhetoric. As such, most of the rest of the article is undeserving of an educated deconstruction, but a few of Meckler’s claims need to be addressed, if for no other reason than to prevent otherwise well-meaning Americans from supporting the very cause that would prove the destruction of the document they truly love.
Meckler insists that the Founders believed that Article V was included in the Constitution for the purpose of preventing the Constitution from being “corrupted by bad men.” If that’s true, Mr. Meckler, then Article V — the entire foundation of your organization and the process you promote for restoring liberty — simply failed in accomplishing its purpose.
Article V has neither prevented “bad men” from being elected (or, allegedly elected), nor kept those men from corrupting the Constitution.
There is no disputing that. Meckler won’t like the use of logic against his demagoguery (which, as is true of all such schemes, is self-serving), but his feelings are irrelevant in the face of the fact that he specifically (and COS generally) fuels his funding efforts by calling out the tyrants in D.C. for their betrayal of the Constitution.
If Article V was, as Meckler expressly claims, included in the Constitution to prevent this, then COS needs to look elsewhere for the means of “preserving the Constitution,” because there are bad men (and women) in every branch and every bureaucracy of the federal government.
Finally, Meckler quotes Ronald Reagan, who said, “No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size.” Then, Meckler contrasts Reagan’s statement by quoting Alexander Hamilton thusly:
[T]here is… a… consideration … which proves beyond the possibility of a doubt, that the observation is futile. It is this that the national rulers, whenever [two-thirds] States concur, will have no option upon the subject.
I feel a bit uneasy having to say this, but there isn’t a single day in the last 100 years of congressional behavior that convinces me to put any stock at all in Hamilton’s guarantee that Congress would allow a convention of states to force it back inside its constitutional cage.
In fact, I believe any person of even modest appreciation of recent American history would agree with my assertion that, should a convention of states be held, and should that convention somehow simply produce a limited slate of suggested amendments, Congress would simply stand down and surrender their power. No.
There would be no end of Supreme Court challenges to the process and the product thereof. There would be limitless congressional hearings on the same subjects. The president — regardless of party — would declare his allegiance to the process and promise to protect the Constitution. This promise would be about as reliable as the oath he swore at his inauguration to do that same thing.
I know from first-hand experience testifying before scores of state senate committees and state assemblies that there are some very well-intentioned, patriotic Americans supporting the COS scheme. I’m hopeful that those people will read this article and the numerous other articles I’ve written exposing the latent and patent dangers of an Article V convention, and that they will turn their time, talents, and treasure to the education of Americans on the “fundamental principles” upon which the Constitution was founded. Understanding those principles is our last and greatest hope for the restoration of liberty to this union of states and her people.
