On the Permanence of the Union – William Rawles

May 31, 2012

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – Check out today’s transcript where Mike shares a passage from William Rawles Book “A View of the Constitution”, specifically Chapter XXXII entitled “Of the Permanence of the Union”, where Rawles discusses how the states were VOLUNTARILY part of the Union and had the same rights as any other country because they were sovereign.

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike: When we hear about presidents assassinating or calling for the assassination of American citizens in other countries, when we hear about presidents having secret kill lists and what have you, when we hear about drones flying hither and yon, when we hear about trillions of dollars of money being spent that we don’t owe and conscripting our children into debt slavery because they’re the ones that are going to have to pay it back, some people may actually turn to the age-old method of fixing a government like this that’s out of control, by abolishing it.

I said it. [mocking] “Mike, you’re not supposed to say that. Don’t you listen to the Patriot Channel the rest of the day. That’s illegal. Lincoln settled that.” Lincoln was a tyrant. Lincoln never read the Constitution, and if he did, he certainly did not read how it was formed, who wrote it and what “they” said that it meant. No, instead he inserted his own will and a hefty bit of religiosity into it and American nationalism was born. Now we all suffer mightily under its toil, but I digress.

In chapter 22 of Rawles’s book On the Permanence of the Union, I’m just going to share three paragraphs with you. You can read the entire chapter online. It’s on our front page. In this chapter here, Rawles expounds upon what I was talking about earlier, that from 1776 until around 1830 or so, it was a foregone conclusion that states were states, meaning states were little countries. They had the same rights that France had. They had the same rights that Spain had. Their membership in the union of states was voluntary because they were sovereign.

Any understanding other than that would then make this not a free country or a free government. You have to understand this. Either it is or it isn’t. Either the people have the will to choose their own form of government or they don’t. If you’re going to sit there and tell me that I can’t choose or a state, a group of people, cannot choose their own form of government, then tell me, what exactly is free about that? Again, I digress. Here’s what Rawles writes in point:

[reading]

The Union is an association of the people of republics; its preservation is calculated to depend on the preservation of those republics. The people of each pledge themselves to preserve that form of government in all. Thus each becomes responsible to the rest, that no other form of government shall prevail in it, and all are bound to preserve it in every one.
But the mere compact, without the power to enforce it, would be of little value. Now this power can be no where so properly lodged, as in the Union itself. Hence, the term guarantee, indicates that the United States are authorized to oppose, and if possible, prevent every state in the Union from relinquishing the republican form of government, and as auxiliary means, they are expressly authorized and required to employ their force on the application of the constituted authorities of each state, “to repress domestic violence.” If a faction should attempt to subvert the government of a state for the purpose of destroying its republican form, the paternal power of the Union could thus be called forth to subdue it.

[end reading]

Mike: Meaning it could thus, meaning a state could say, “We’re under attack here by these Sandinista cats and they want to take over Florida, or these Cubanista cats need to take over Florida. You guys need to get your asses down here and help us ward this off. They’re trying to turn us into a little dictatorship.” In other words, Florida would ask. Gee, that’s a novel concept. The sovereign State of Florida would ask for help in suppressing a rebellion, a far cry from some nitwit tyrant in the executive branch or some congress saying, “We think you guys are under duress. We’re going to come in there and we’re going to put down those un-republican forms of government,” even though they are republican. Don’t say that. I’m making sure everybody is up to speed with me here.

[reading]

Yet it is not to be understood, that its interposition would be justifiable, if the people of a state should determine to retire from the Union, whether they adopted another or retained the same form of government, or if they should, with the, express intention of seceding, expunge the representative system from their code, and thereby incapacitate themselves from concurring according to the mode now prescribed, in the choice of certain public officers of the United States.

[end reading]

Mike: Remember last week, AG, on Friday or so, when I said if you really want to stop dealing with the federal government — I think I was talking about Georgia on Thursday’s show. If Georgia is really sick and tired of the feds and they don’t want to put up with them anymore, don’t hold elections. You’re under no compulsion to hold an election for members of Congress. Just don’t hold elections. Screw it. Just say, “No, we’re not playing your game anymore. We’re not sending any representatives to your silly little Congress in there so they can spend money that we don’t have. We’re quite capable, six million of us here, of governing ourselves and spending our own money. Thank you very much.”

In other words, you don’t have to have Congressional elections; you volunteer to have them. You don’t have to have elections for the United States Senate. You do not have to elect a president. You are under no oath of affirmation or blood writ or whatever to have those elections. That’s what Mr. Rawles is writing about. Ladies and gentlemen, this guy was a Pennsylvanian. He wasn’t a Georgian or a Virginian, he was a Pennsylvanian. He was nominated and served as the U.S. attorney for the State of Pennsylvania by President Washington.

We’re not talking about some Johnny-come-lately, rabble-rousing radical. This book that he wrote, all the way up until the time of Lincoln, was the textbook that was used by many who wanted to teach the Constitution in school. As I said, there was devout and almost universal agreement on what the Constitution was, what it did, what its powers were, and what was reserved to the state.

End Mike Church Show Transcript