Today 151 years ago, the 39th congress solidified the foundation of federal overreach and influence we experience today. Together with the war which preceded Reconstruction, we count fifteen violations of the Constitution which laid the foundation for the birth of a new America -- a national form with states, governments and body politics completely foreign to the union of unique peoples which founded her. A form in which rights would be defined no longer at the state level, but where a nationally protected class and a national all encroaching standard of morality would seek to suppress the independence and sovereignty of the states where it deems necessary. A new singular state, created for a singular people, under national rule. A nation of one created by treason against our Constitution. A nation formed not by the consent of the governed but by disenfranchising those governed, narrowing the gate of political participation to those who would declare a new loyalty. A new nation formed by those who would promote, and continue to give aid and comfort under the new terms of participation declared by that original, unlawful conquest.
Our article here, written last year on the 150th anniversary of the first of the four Reconstruction Acts, tells the story of this rebirth in dependence on March 2, 1867. Today we take this story further by revealing the violations against our Constitution perpetrated not only by the congressional Reconstruction Acts, but also by the federal war of aggression which preceded the Acts, also known as the Civil War.
When we add them together, we find that presidential actions, the Civil War and the Reconstruction Acts which followed, resulted in fifteen violations against our dear Constitution. These violations are as follows:
Presidential & Civil War Violations
1. Article 1, Section 9 (also violated by Congress/Reconstruction) of the Constitution states that, “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed". The constitution of every State also expressly forbids bills of attainder. A bill of attainder is an act of a legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them without benefit of a judicial trial. In total violation of this concept, Lincoln declared the people of the southern states to be outlaws, without due process of law, concerning the issue of secession.
2. The 5th Amendment (also violated by Congress/Reconstruction) makes these statements, “No person shall […] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…” The body politics of the states to be protected by the 5th Amendment were deprived of life, liberty, and property as their lands and peoples were ravaged by the very body whose oath was to uphold it.
3. The 6th Amendment says “in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right […] to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor.” Lincoln claimed the right to hang all captured Confederate sailors and soldiers without allowing them Sixth Amendment protections.
4. Article 1, Section 9, Clause 2 - Lincoln suspended the Writ of Habeus Corpus. This was declared unconstitutional in Ex parte Merryman.
5. Article 3, Section 3 (also violated by Congress/Reconstruction) of the Constitution states that “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort…”
Lincoln’s call for troops in April and Lincoln’s call for war on July 4th was clearly the waging of war on southern states. If he recognized the ordinances of secession as legitimate, it would not be treason, it would be an act of aggression against a foreign nation. By saying the ordinances of secession were null and void, concomitant with refusal to participate with the peace commissioners and inability to cite secession as a crime and waging the war without any attempt to have the issue settled judicially, this makes it treason.
6. Article 4, Section 3, Clause 1 (also violated by Congress/Reconstruction) states that “...no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state...” War was waged on the principle that the ordinances of secession were null and void. Therefore, West Virginia entered the Union without the consent of the legislature of Virginia.
7. Article 4 (also violated by Congress/Reconstruction) states, “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion;...” The function of government is to protect each body politic. The body politic of the southern states were not protected. Lincoln was the invader, rather than the protector of those state body politics.
Congressional / Reconstruction Violations
8. Article 1, Section 9 (also violated presidentially) of the Constitution states that, “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed". The constitution of every State also expressly forbids bills of attainder. A bill of attainder is an act of a legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them without benefit of a judicial trial. In total violation of this concept, section 5 of the first Reconstruction Act stated that all who participated in the rebellion were to be disfranchised.
Note of Interest: The war was waged upon the principle that secession was illegal. All legal references on the legality of secession state that the issue was settled by the war. If the legality was settled in 1865, it clearly means it wasn’t settled in 1860, and was therefore not a clear violation of anything. To apply or imply that it was illegal in 1860 would be the enforcement of an ex post facto law.
9. The 5th Amendment (also violated presidentially) makes these statements, “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime....nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law...” The Reconstruction Acts declared an entire body of people to be guilty; not allowing them to have their own form of government unless they first adopted the 14th Amendment. This is a total violation of the due process law that is represented in this 5th Amendment.
10. The 6th Amendment (also violated presidentially) says “in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right […] to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor.” The 39th Congress did not allow this right to the citizens disenfranchised in Section 5 of the Reconstruction Acts.
11. Article 3, Section 3 (also violated presidentially) of the Constitution states that “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort...”
The 39th Congress’ defiance of the original object of the War was in fact a new war upon the States, our founding principles and the Constitution. Reconstruction and its maintenance, therefore is nothing less than statutized treason.
12. Article 3, Section 3, Clause 2 says “Congress shall have the power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the person attained.” Congress justified the right for Reconstruction be based upon the principle of conquest over a treasonous people. Corruption of blood means that the punishment for treason cannot extend down the bloodlines to family members of the person committing treason. The Reconstruction Acts were clearly intended to punish the posterity of those participating in the war by depriving, in perpetuity, their right as a legitimate body politic.
13. Article 4, Section 3, Clause 1 (also violated presidentially) states that “...no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state...” A new state called North Carolina was erected within the same jurisdiction as the old state, while the original body politic was still lawfully operating. This applied to every other reconstructed state.
14. Article 4 (also violated presidentially) states, “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion;...” When Congress changed the body politic, putting the new state in place, this was NOT guaranteeing a republican form of government to the community of free citizens of the original state. Reconstruction was the redeployment of the military — ie. invasion. The first sentence of the first Reconstruction Act “Whereas no legal state governments exist in…” is a legislative fiat (decree) — annulling a state they’re supposed to protect.
15. Article 5 of the Constitution states, “The Congress,...shall propose amendments to this Constitution,...provided that ...no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.” In contradiction to Article 5, the original state called North-Carolina was not allowed to vote in the U.S. Senate during the proposal of the 14th Amendment.
This violation is charged again, a second time, as the reconstructed state of North Carolina was also not a state at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was proposed. The first Reconstruction Act, Section 5 says that a state would not be entitled to representation in Congress (which is what makes it a state), unless that state first adopted the 14th Amendment. This begs the question, if the reconstructed state of North-Carolina was not a state until it passed an amendment, then where was its legal authority to amend the Constitution to begin with? Furthermore, where lies Congress’ authority to send proposed amendments to bodies not considered to be states?
This legislative coercing of the votes for the amending the Constitution is, on its face, and on multiple counts, clearly in violation of the Constitution’s prescribed methods for amending it.
"The proposed government cannot be deemed a national one..."
-Federalist 39
Today, we take a step back and view modern America and our dependence upon a burgeoning national regime. We compare this to times which preceded these violations, and we can see, clearly, the change which occurred to turn what was once a federation of sovereign states into a restrictive nation of one people. Where there would have been a federal servant serving many independent states, there is now a nationally supreme power -- a single predominant state over 320 million national citizens. Sovereignty of the states, if it can even be said to exist at all, is a privilege granted by national supremacy. Of course, a privilege granted by permission is not a right. And permission granted is not sovereignty at all.
All out nationalism was never the intent of the founders. They believed in smaller representative scale within a federation of sovereign states. Federalist 39 shows the way:
"Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a federal, and not a national constitution."
"The idea of a national government involves in it, not only an authority over the individual citizens, but an indefinite supremacy over all persons and things [...] Among a people consolidated into one nation, this supremacy is completely vested in the national legislature. [...] In this relation, then, the proposed government cannot be deemed a national one; since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only."
The story doesn't have to end here. However, its conclusion rests squarely on the people. As the posterity of the authors of that violated Constitution, it remains today our duty and sole responsibility to restore its original intent and remedy these violations. This is what defines America's Remedy. Our namesake is, simply put, a remedy of law. And so, this is the continued mission of our team, to aim not at the branches of society's corruption and demise, but at the roots. It begins with a base of re-education on founding principles, liberty, personal responsibility, and self-government. And it continues with a long term, counter-revolutionary movement to re-establish our lawful states, as they were, in a federation with a limited federal government to serve them. As the now national government today looms overhead, with ever-increasing power and control, the importance of our mission has never been clearer. It's time to re-establish the states.