Staying Power:

Tuesday – March 1, 2011

Staying Power:

On this date, in 1781, The Articles of Confederation were adopted by Congress.
The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was the first constitution of the United States and specified how the Federal government was to operate, including adoption of an official name for the new nation, United States of America. The Second Continental Congress appointed a committee to draft the Articles in June 1776 and sent the draft to the states for ratification in November 1777. In practice, the Articles were in use beginning in 1777. The ratification process was completed on March 1, 1781. Under the Articles, the states retained sovereignty over all governmental functions not specifically relinquished to the national government.

In practice, the final draft of the Articles served as the de facto system of government used by the Congress ("the United States in Congress assembled") until it became de jure by final ratification on March 1, 1781; at which point Congress became the Congress of the Confederation. The Articles set the rules for operations of the United States government. It was capable of making war, negotiating diplomatic agreements, and resolving issues regarding the western territories. Article XIII stipulated that "their provisions shall be inviolably observed by every state" and "the Union shall be perpetual".

The Articles were created by the representatives of the states in the Second Continental Congress out of a perceived need to have "a plan of confederacy for securing the freedom, sovereignty, and independence of the United States." Nationalists felt that the Articles lacked the necessary requirements for an effective government. There was no tax base, no executive agencies or judiciary. The absence of tax base meant that there was no way to pay off state and national debts from the war years. In 1788, with the approval of Congress, the Articles were replaced by the United States Constitution and our new government began operations in 1789.
The Articles, as they were known then, had staying power in that they were drafted as a framework for perpetual union. The idea was to create a perpetual Union, because the elements of greatness in the original document laid out the rules that were designed to not only give liberty, but to guarantee liberty to our posterity.

The Governors of the States had great power over their individual citizens. The individual powers of the States were not to be overshadowed by the Federal Government. I wrote about original thoughts yesterday and it was these thoughts by our forefathers that guaranteed our liberty and freedom from a Federal Government.

If you review the Constitution and the Founding Documents, you will not read the word democracy, you will, however find the word republic.

The constitutional reallocation of powers created a new form of government, unprecedented under the sun. Every previous national authority either had been centralized or else had been a confederation of sovereign states. The new American system was neither one nor the other; it was a mixture of both.

When approached, after leaving the close of the Federal Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked a question. This is the conversation, as it was recorded.
The lady asked "Well, Doctor, what have we got a Republic or a Monarchy?"
Franklin replied “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

This is the issue we face today. We have lost the meaning of what our freedom and liberty was to be guaranteed under. It was a republic that our forefathers intended us to maintain. Our pledge of Allegiance doesn’t contain the word democracy. It contains the word republic. The “Battle Hymn of the Republic” is just that. It is not the battle hymn for the democracy.

For example, our original documents do not guarantee the rights for union workers as being exclusive to them. Our original documents do not guarantee the rights of one person over another. Our original documents guaranteed the rights of all the nation’s citizens in a perpetual union. When our perpetual union is threatened by those who will destroy our republic under the names of democracy, freedom, equal rights, minority rights, American rights, children rights, gay rights, animal rights; the list goes on. I think that, if our forefathers could see just how many rights that we want to guarantee to every group under the sun, they might say why not just say its enough that we all have the same rights that are guaranteed in the constitution and that the constitution was designed to place limits on what government can do to us. When government is in the business to pick winners and losers or in the business of deciding what rights certain individuals have over certain other groups, then we fail to be the republic that we started out to be.

At the governor’s national meeting, the President said in response to a question about the protest over various State Unions retaining there ability to collective bargain. He said, “Everybody needs to make sacrifices.” - “It doesn’t do any good when public employees are denigrated, vilified or their rights are infringed upon.” In many of these demonstrations it is the union workers who are infringing upon the rights of common everyday citizens. It is the common everyday citizen that our Constitution was designed to protect. It was not the Unions or the union members that our forefathers wanted to exclusively protect. They wanted to protect the citizen from the forces that would infringe on their right to retain the perpetual union.

I wrote yesterday that we have two classes in this country today. One class is the class that says, “I want to keep what I earn for my own benefit.” And the other class says that “I would like to also keep what I earn, but I should be able to take a part of what you earn for my own benefit.” This is exactly what Dr. Franklin was referring to. Maybe Dr. Franklin was right in saying: “A republic, if we can keep it.”

It is staying power that we must insist upon. It is staying power by today’s governors who have the original ideas that are needed today to preserve the republic. It is the staying power of the citizens who are out peacefully protesting the union workers who will take away the republic for their gain. It is the staying power of our history that makes us want to stay on the front lines. It is the staying power of that great republic that we praise in words and song it is these staying powers that we must remember to discuss. This goes for the president as well.

Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives

A footnote: A perpetual union was a model for the world in 1781. The union the forefathers envisioned was not the union that the President refers to when he supports union rights.