In January 1861, 158 years ago, a convention of states was called to avoid the inevitable. It was called by the Virginia legislature to avert the Civil War.
According to a 2013 article written by Rob Natelson at the Independence Institute in Denver, Colorado “the idea was that the convention would draft and propose one or more constitutional amendments that, if ratified, would weaken extremists in both the North and the South, and thereby save the Union.”
We might call it Article V Lite, because the proposed amendments went back to Congress, instead of the states. Natelson concludes: “In most other respects, it was a blueprint for how an Article V convention would conduct itself.”
Along with a few states whose tardiness in filing their Article V applications, Congress mucked the procedure up! Natelson states “The convention did its job—proposing a workable compromise—but Congress failed to propose it formally for ratification.” Are any of us really surprised?
Unfortunately, the Civil War ensued for four long tortuous years. About 600,000 Americans died—the biggest American death toll in any war in our history.
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