I was very glad to be getting acquainted with a brother in the movement today, who brought up a point, versions of which I hear often, and want to address. That is the idea that our Constitution is somehow no longer in force, having been supplanted by some act in 1871 that altered our form of governance to corporate or admiralty law.

I certainly agree that our Constitution is not being followed today as it should be. But the consequences of believing that that is the result of some legal event, is problematic. In some it leads to despair, in others to the idea that violence is the only solution and in others to elaborate processes for re-constituting State governments, or making cryptic assertions about our individual status and citizenship.

Despair certainly we must refuse. God put us here for a reason. We have constructive work to do, including the hardest work of figuring out the precise actions we must take.

“He who lives by the sword dies by the sword” is a pretty good saying. The sword, or violence in some form, unfortunately does have a legitimate place in public life (see the article below titled, “Three Legs”), BUT it must always be a last resort and must only be used in clear support of law and justice. And we DO have a solid framework of good law, enforcement of which will solve most of today’s large-scale troubles. “Bad guy–deserves to die” is too blunt an instrument.

Elaborate processes of political reconstruction will IMO never achieve the widely-perceived legitimacy and public support they would need to succeed. What is more important is such processes are NOT authorized in our Constitution, while the written framework of our government is largely undamaged. Our problem is merely that our officials do not follow it.

But the first question we should ask is, precisely what act took place that allegedly altered our form of government? This is not a rhetorical question, if any reader can cite it, I am all ears. Some refer to “The Organic Act of 1871”, but if you actually read it, it is clear that it refers only to the governance of the ten-mile-square District of Columbia AKA Washington, D.C.

And the next question is, “If the text did somehow alter our form of government (which it did not), was that act the exercise of a lawful power under our original Constitution?”
Remember, any supposed “law” that is repugnant to the Constitution is VOID, it is not law, is cannot lawfully be enforced. Any government employee or all of them can say, “Firearms may not be owned” or “Pigs must fly”. But neither statement is the expression of a power that we-the-people granted to our employees in government. Changing our Constitution is not among the powers that we-the-people gave to the Congress.

So, until some one corrects me, I will say that admiralty law, 1871, corporate persons, etc., etc. are all fictional and unnecessary distractions from the necessary and effective work, of enforcing on our servants in governments the Constitutional requirements of their jobs.

This web-site, and TC, are about the details of that effective process.