MECKLER: Convention of States is for anyone who loves the Constitution

The left-wing media in America — which hardly cares about the U.S. Constitution anyway — is bound and determined to parrot the line that Convention of States is a threat to our Constitution, seeking to rewrite that blessed document. Similarly, our politicians in Washington, who forwent following the supreme law of the land decades ago, love (ironically) to accuse everyday people like you and me of wanting to throw it all away.

In truth, the people who make up the COS grassroots army love our founding document more than anyone I know. We’re the kind of people who carry pocket Constitutions everywhere we go (at last year’s Reclaiming Liberty Summit, Lt. Col. Allen West urged us to always carry the Constitution; “when you leave out of your house, you need to have your weapon,” he said, holding up a copy) and plaster the words “We the People” on just about anything we can. We’re the kind of people who revere the Framers and host Constitution Day parties. We host nationwide Constitution classes inspired by George Mason’s reminder that “No free government, or the blessings of liberty can be preserved to any people, but by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.” We take these words very seriously.

In short, I am convinced that there is not a soul in COS who wouldn’t leave in a heartbeat if he or she became convinced our movement was, in any way, a threat to that 236-year-old parchment we hold so dear. We all love it too much. Ask any one of us why we’re fighting, and you’ll probably hear something about wanting to preserve the Constitution. Not rewrite it. Not dismantle it. Preserve it, save it.

But this raises an obvious question—If we all love the Constitution so much, why are we trying to amend it?

“I sincerely esteem it a system, which, without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such diversity of interests,” observed Alexander Hamilton. Benjamin Franklin believed the Constitutional Convention had been “divinely inspired.” George Washington called it “little short of a miracle.” If we agree with them (and most of us do), why would we dare tamper with what they wrote?

First, we must note that the Founders, despite being admirers of the Constitution, also knew it was imperfect. In the same letter in which he called the final product “little short of a miracle,” Washington also admitted it was “tinctured with some real though not radical defects.” “If in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates," he wrote in his Farewell Address. Men like Washington wanted future generations to amend their work. That’s part of why they gave us Article V.

To be clear, this does not mean they viewed the Constitution as a “living” document with versatile meanings. (They would have wholeheartedly disagreed with Woodrow Wilson who claimed that “The Constitution of the United States was not made to fit us like a straitjacket. In its elasticity lies its chief greatness.”) Nevertheless, simply amending the Constitution for the sake of perfecting their original vision would not have been anathema to them. In fact, they encouraged it.

They also gave us Article V knowing that even generally good systems of government can be corrupted by bad men. American minister Theodore Parker once opined, in words later refined by Martin Luther King Jr., that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Sadly, the Founders knew, the arc of human government is the exact opposite—it bends toward injustice. It bends toward tyranny.

“Col: [George] MASON,” wrote James Madison, “thought the plan of amending the Constitution [prior to the addition of an Article V convention] exceptionable & dangerous. As the proposing of amendments is in both the modes to depend… ultimately, on Congress, no amendments of the proper kind would ever be obtained by the people, if the Government should become oppressive, as he verily believed would be the case.” Heeding Mason’s warning, the Convention adopted the second clause of Article V “nem: con,” unanimously.

In his final Federalist Paper—his final pitch to the American people to support the new Constitution—“Publius” (in this instance, Alexander Hamilton) addressed concerns that “the persons delegated to the administration of the national government will always be disinclined to yield up any portion of the authority of which they were once possessed.”

Of course, this is true. As Ronald Reagan put it, “No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size.” However, Hamilton was unconcerned. Why?

“[T]here is… a… consideration,” he said, “which proves beyond the possibility of a doubt, that the observation is futile. It is this that the national rulers, whenever [two-thirds] States concur, will have no option upon the subject. By the fifth article of the plan, the Congress will be obliged ‘on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the States… to call a convention for proposing amendments, which shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as part of the Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the States, or by conventions in three fourths thereof.’' The words of this article are peremptory. The Congress ‘shall call a convention.’ Nothing in this particular is left to the discretion of that body. And of consequence, all the declamation about the disinclination to a change vanishes in air…. We may safely rely on the disposition of the State legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority.”

In other words, Hamilton knew the federal government could never “become oppressive”—that is, if the American people regularly utilized Article V. Seeing that we haven’t, we cannot, therefore, be surprised if our government has become exactly the “corrupt, tyrannical aristocracy” George Mason predicted it would.

You see, calling an Article V convention—although it has never been done before—is deeply rooted in constitutional history. It’s deeply rooted in a love for the Constitution. Since the very beginning—since before the Constitution was even ratified—Article V has always been about safeguarding the document’s original meaning.

And here at Convention of States, that’s our mission. We’re uninterested in amending that precious work simply for the sake of amending it. We’re certainly opposed to rewriting it. In fact, the thought of rewriting the Constitution is more offensive to us than our detractors in the media and government. No, we’re doing this because we love what the Founders wrote, and we wish to protect it for generations to come. As Mark Levin, the author of the book that propelled Convention of States to fame, described, we “undertook this project, not because [we] believe the Constitution, as originally structured, is outdated and outmoded, thereby requiring modernization through amendments, but because of the opposite–that is, the necessity and urgency of restoring constitutional republicanism and preserving the civil society from the growing authoritarianism of a federal Leviathan.”

That’s what Convention of States is all about, and today, as we celebrate Constitution Week, we invite you to sign the petition and join the movement.