The President of the United States of America, according to the Constitution, represents state legislators’ interests and no one else. The office does not represent the people, state legislators do.
The mass disinformation media has chosen Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election. Wrong. The Founding Fathers outsmarted these disgusting, drooling, fraudulent morons a long time ago.
State legislators and governors are representatives of the people, and at the federal level so are the members of the House of Representatives of the United States Congress. (Currently, senators are also representatives of the people, but before the ratification of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution in 1913, they were appointed by state legislators).
For the Founding Fathers, the federal government in Washington should consist of both representatives of the people (congressmen) and representatives of the state leadership – the federal President and senators. This is how the institution of the Electoral College was invented and implemented. The electors are appointed by the state legislatures, and they are the ones who elect the President of the country (not you).
According to the Constitution, the people participate in the direct elections of their legislators, so voting for President is kind of redundant and stupid. It’s really not necessary.
Again, the President is not the representative of the American people. He is the representative of state legislators. From a federalist perspective, the President and the senators from each state are the “overseers” of the federal government. The main job is being responsible for the observance of state rights by the federal government.
So it goes.
Paul Plante says
Point one, if one reads such “anti-Federalists” as Brutus in 1787 who argued that “although the government reported by the convention does not go to a perfect and entire consolidation, yet it approaches so near to it, that it must, if executed, certainly and infallibly terminate in it,” it is made quite clear that the states were rendered as neuter, and weren’t to have any rights the federal government was to observe.
In Brutus I to the Citizens of the State of New-York on October 18, 1787, the author started out the essay thusly:
When the public is called to investigate and decide upon a question in which not only the present members of the community are deeply interested, but upon which the happiness and misery of generations yet unborn is in great measure suspended, the benevolent mind cannot help feeling itself peculiarly interested in the result.
In this situation, I trust the feeble efforts of an individual, to lead the minds of the people to a wise and prudent determination, cannot fail of being acceptable to the candid and dispassionate part of the community.
Encouraged by this consideration, I have been induced to offer my thoughts upon the present important crisis of our public affairs.
Perhaps this country never saw so critical a period in their political concerns.
We have felt the feebleness of the ties by which these United States are held together, and the want of sufficient energy in our present confederation, to manage, in some instances, our general concerns.
Various expedients have been proposed to remedy these evils, but none have succeeded.
At length a Convention of the states has been assembled, they have formed a constitution which will now, probably, be submitted to the people to ratify or reject, who are the fountain of all power, to whom alone it of right belongs to make or unmake constitutions, or forms of government, at their pleasure.
The most important question that was ever proposed to your decision, or to the decision of any people under heaven, is before you, and you are to decide upon it by men of your own election, chosen specially for this purpose.
If the constitution, offered to [your acceptance], be a wise one, calculated to preserve the invaluable blessings of liberty, to secure the inestimable rights of mankind, and promote human happiness, then, if you accept it, you will lay a lasting foundation of happiness for millions yet unborn; generations to come will rise up and call you blessed.
You may rejoice in the prospects of this vast extended continent becoming filled with freemen, who will assert the dignity of human nature.
You may solace yourselves with the idea, that society, in this favored land, will fast advance to the highest point of perfection; the human mind will expand in knowledge and virtue, and the golden age be, in some measure, realized.
But if, on the other hand, this form of government contains principles that will lead to the subversion of liberty — if it tends to establish a despotism, or, what is worse, a tyrannic aristocracy; then, if you adopt it, this only remaining asylum for liberty will be [shut] up, and posterity will execrate your memory. . . .
With these few introductory remarks I shall proceed to a consideration of this constitution:
The first question that presents itself on the subject is, whether a confederated government be the best for the United States or not?
Or in other words, whether the thirteen United States should be reduced to one great republic, governed by one legislature, and under the direction of one executive and judicial; or whether they should continue thirteen confederated republics, under the direction and control of a supreme federal head for certain defined national purposes only?
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We are told that we have a federal government in this country, but that is a fallacy, as we actually have a national government which rules the people of America as a body regardless of what state they might happen to be in at the time, while the states occupy some type of uncertain political territory therein, and the concept of “states rights,” which was a concept including nullification, has been long since dead since the Civil War, or War of Northern Aggression.
Brutus then proceeds as follows with his analysis, to wit:
This government is to possess absolute and uncontrollable power, legislative, executive and judicial, with respect to every object to which it extends, for by the last clause of section 8th, article 1st, it is declared “that the Congress shall have power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution, in the government of the United States; or in any department or office thereof.”
And by the 6th article, it is declared “that this constitution, and the laws of the United States, which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and the treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution, or law of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.”
It appears from these articles that there is no need of any intervention of the state governments, between the Congress and the people, to execute any one power vested in the general government, and that the constitution and laws of every state are nullified and declared void, so far as they are or shall be inconsistent with this constitution, or the laws made in pursuance of it, or with treaties made under the authority of the United States.
The government then, so far as it extends, is a complete one, and not a confederation.
It is as much one complete government as that of New-York or Massachusetts, has as absolute and perfect powers to make and execute all laws, to appoint officers, institute courts, declare offences, and annex penalties, with respect to every object to which it extends, as any other in the world.
So far therefore as its powers reach, all ideas of confederation are given up and lost.
It is true this government is limited to certain objects, or to speak more properly, some small degree of power is still left to the states, but a little attention to the powers vested in the general government, will convince every candid man, that if it is capable of being executed, all that is reserved for the individual states must very soon be annihilated, except so far as they are barely necessary to the organization of the general government.
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That would have been difficult to argue against back in 1787, and today, it would seem he was dead on the money with his analysis of where we were heading when this Constitution was ratified and this national government in Washington, D.C. created.
Getting back to Brutus, he continues as follows:
The powers of the general legislature extend to every case that is of the least importance — there is nothing valuable to human nature, nothing dear to freemen, but what is within its power.
It has authority to make laws which will affect the lives, the liberty, and property of every man in the United States; nor can the constitution or laws of any state, in any way prevent or impede the full and complete execution of every power given.
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Thus, clearly, there are no such things as “state’s rights” for a U.S. president to defend, which takes us back to Brutus, as follows:
The judicial power of the United States is to be vested in a supreme court, and in such inferior courts as Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.
The powers of these courts are very extensive; their jurisdiction comprehends all civil causes, except such as arise between citizens of the same state; and it extends to all cases in law and equity arising under the constitution.
One inferior court must be established, I presume, in each state at least, with the necessary executive officers appendant thereto.
It is easy to see, that in the common course of things, these courts will eclipse the dignity, and take away from the respectability, of the state courts.
These courts will be, in themselves, totally independent of the states, deriving their authority from the United States, and receiving from them fixed salaries; and in the course of human events it is to be expected, that they will swallow up all the powers of the courts in the respective states.
How far the clause in the 8th section of the 1st article may operate to do away all idea of confederated states, and to effect an entire consolidation of the whole into one general government, it is impossible to say.
The powers given by this article are very general and comprehensive, and it may receive a construction to justify the passing almost any law.
A power to make all laws, which shall be necessary and proper, for carrying into execution, all powers vested by the constitution in the government of the United States, or any department or officer thereof, is a power very comprehensive and definite, and may, for ought I know, be exercised in a such manner as entirely to abolish the state legislatures.
It is not meant, by stating this case, to insinuate that the constitution would warrant a law of this kind; or unnecessarily to alarm the fears of the people, by suggesting, that the federal legislature would be more likely to pass the limits assigned them by the constitution, than that of an individual state, further than they are less responsible to the people.
But what is meant is, that the legislature of the United States are vested with the great and uncontrollable powers, of laying and collecting taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; of regulating trade, raising and supporting armies, organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, instituting courts, and other general powers.
And are by this clause invested with the power of making all laws, proper and necessary, for carrying all these into execution; and they may so exercise this power as entirely to annihilate all the state governments, and reduce this country to one single government.
And if they may do it, it is pretty certain they will; for it will be found that the power retained by individual states, small as it is, will be a clog upon the wheels of the government of the United States; the latter therefore will be naturally inclined to remove it out of the way.
Besides, it is a truth confirmed by the unerring experience of ages, that every man, and every body of men, invested with power, are ever disposed to increase it, and to acquire a superiority over every thing that stands in their way.
This disposition, which is implanted in human nature, will operate in the federal legislature to lessen and ultimately to subvert the state authority, and having such advantages, will most certainly succeed, if the federal government succeeds at all.
It must be very evident then, that what this constitution wants of being a complete consolidation of the several parts of the union into one complete government, possessed of perfect legislative, judicial, and executive powers, to all intents and purposes, it will necessarily acquire in its exercise and operation.
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As I say, hard to argue against then, and even harder to argue against today – the states do exist, but they don’t exist as much, and I have not seen a president in my lifetime who has stood up for what are called “state’s rights.”
Paul Plante says
As to the election of the president, this farcical system we have in place today is far removed from what Alexander Hamilton told us we would have in FEDERALIST No. 68, The Mode of Electing the President, from the New York Packet to the People of the State of New York on Friday, March 14, 1788, where Hamilton started out the essay as follows:
THE mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents.
The most plausible of these, who has appeared in print, has even deigned to admit that the election of the President is pretty well guarded.
I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent.
It unites in an eminent degree all the advantages, the union of which was to be wished for.
It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided.
This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
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Now, there is an important statement by Hamilton – that those electors were to be chosen by the people, which is no longer the case today where the choosing each State’s electors is now a two-part process, and where first, the political parties in each State choose slates of potential electors sometime before the general election, and second, during the general election, the voters in each State select their State’s electors by casting their ballots.
Except we are choosing who the political parties have given us to choose, which is not really a choice at all, which defeats the purpose of the electoral college as envisioned by Hamilton, to wit:
It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice.
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And that is gone right out the window now, especially today where the electors have to take an oath to stay true to that party’s choice, so that the immediate election is no longer made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice.
Their choice is governed by the political parties, not the people, which is why we now have been dished up an apparently senile geriatric specimen who raves like a maniac and who mid-sentence forgets what it was he was saying in the first half of the sentence.
Getting back to Hamilton, he goes on as follows:
A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.
It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder.
This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States.
But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief.
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Except under this party system we are stuck with now, largely out of ignorance by the American people who are merely sheep to be sheared anymore, they don’t, which takes us back to Hamilton as follows:
The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes.
And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.
Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption.
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Yeah, right, Al!
In the original scheme of things, it might have been that nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption, but that has gone out the window, as well, so that cabal, intrigue and corruption in the selection of the president is now the order of the day.
Getting back to Hamilton:
These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.
How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?
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And here I have to laugh out loud reading that as I think of the Chinese and Iranians and maybe the Russians and Ukrainians all patting themselves on the back for raising their creature “Corn Pop” Biden to the chief magistracy of OUR Unionm, which again takes us back to Hamilton, to wit:
But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention.
They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment.
And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office.
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And more laughing out loud at that because the appointment of the President today depends on a preexisting body of men and women who have been tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes, or they wouldn’t be picked as party electors in the first place.
Hamilton continues from there as follows:
No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors.
Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias.
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HA HA HA HA HA HAH!
If they are free from bias, they won’t be picked as electors, plain and simple.
Back to Hamilton:
Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it.
The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well as means.
Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives, which though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duty.
Another and no less important desideratum was, that the Executive should be independent for his continuance in office on all but the people themselves.
He might otherwise be tempted to sacrifice his duty to his complaisance for those whose favor was necessary to the duration of his official consequence.
This advantage will also be secured, by making his re-election to depend on a special body of representatives, deputed by the society for the single purpose of making the important choice.
All these advantages will happily combine in the plan devised by the convention; which is, that the people of each State shall choose a number of persons as electors, equal to the number of senators and representatives of such State in the national government, who shall assemble within the State, and vote for some fit person as President.
Their votes, thus given, are to be transmitted to the seat of the national government, and the person who may happen to have a majority of the whole number of votes will be the President.
But as a majority of the votes might not always happen to centre in one man, and as it might be unsafe to permit less than a majority to be conclusive, it is provided that, in such a contingency, the House of Representatives shall select out of the candidates who shall have the five highest number of votes, the man who in their opinion may be best qualified for the office.
The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.
Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States.
It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue.
And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution, by those who are able to estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration.
Though we cannot acquiesce in the political heresy of the poet who says: “For forms of government let fools contest That which is best administered is best,” yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.