There are few persons in U.S. leadership the last 50 years more committed to the New World Order (world government) than Joe Biden. So committed that on April 23, 1992, then Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s European Affairs Subcommittee, published in the Wall Street Journal, “How I Learned to Love the New World Order.” In it he expressed a need for a “permanent commitment of forces for use by the Security Council”—a U.N. standing army adding, “Why not breathe life into the U.N. Charter?” His plans would destroy national sovereignty and establish world government over all nations under the United Nations.
Of course a standing army empowers the UN beyond the ability of any participating state to resist, including the United States. Its failure to have a standing army and the Constitution, forbidding a government over it, are the reasons we are not already ruled by a world government. It is the one thing left prohibiting such.. Without an army it cannot enforce its will; with one it can. To advance its causes it must depend upon persuasion of a majority of nations, rather than brute force. That is the breath of life Biden was referencing.
For America such would nullify the Constitution, which Biden has many times sworn to uphold, particularly the Declaration of Independence. Few Americans want world government. America would be subject to the whims of the majority of nations of which very few endow their people with any specific rights of FREEDOM FROM THE GOVERNMENT, as does ours. Liberty would evaporate from the planet.
This was no fluke position. In a speech as Vice President to the Export-Import Bank conference in Washington, D.C. April 5, 2013, he reiterated that theme. “The affirmative task we have now is to, um, create a new world order, because the global order is changing again.” The next year he told graduating cadets of the U.S. Air Force Academy Class of 2014. “You, your class has an incredible window of opportunity to lead in shaping a new world order for the 21st century.” In Davos 2017 he doubled down on the the same theme to billionaires gathered at the World Economic Forum. The theme showed up again in the Council on Foreign Relations January-February 2018 issue of Foreign Affairs co-authored with Michael Carpenter (“Pushing the Great Reset, William F. Jasper, The New American, March 22, 2021). If Biden is committed to anything, whether cognitively failing or not, it is world government.
The latest terminology used to advance world government now is the Great Reset endorsed by the world’s billionaires notably George Soros, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and articulated best by World Economic Forum (WEF) founder Klaus Schwab in his book “COVID-19: The Great Reset.” To the question when things might return to normal he responded. “The short response is: never. Nothing will ever return to the ‘broken’ sense of normalcy that prevailed prior to the crisis because the coronavirus pandemic marks a fundamental inflection point in our global trajectory” (Ibid. p. 13). Global trajectory is code for world government. Schwab was thus admitting that COVID was being used to advance rational for world government. LibertyUnderFire has published extensively on the use of climate change to advance the same objective. Both world health (pandemics) and world climate (disasters) need world government solutions, they falsely argue.
But it’s not just Biden who seeks to upend our constitutional republic with world government, his administration is brimming with those equally committed to the same; 32 thus far holding the highest offices in the executive branch (“Biden CFR-TC-BG Appointees,” The New American, March 22, 2021). It is the most world government (globalist) devoted administration in US history as measured by membership in the CFR, Bilderberg, and Trilateral Commission.
Donald Trump only had seven such members making him the least world government influenced president in 100 years. Because Trump performed the miracle of the century—getting elect—defeating “shoe-in” globalist favorite Hillary Clinton, every globalist on the planet crawled out of the collectivist sewer to destroy him.
But the world government threat cannot end without identifying the center of the secret combination to take over the globe—the Council on Foreign Relations. Their 100 year dominance of both major political parties, Republican and Democrat, stems from their infiltration of both, the media, and more recently the Internet (“Who Ran America Before Donald Trump,” LibertyUnderFire.com).
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) headquartered in New York city acknowledges its level of influence as “the nearest thing we have to a ruling establishment in the United States.” John J. McCloy, chairman of the CFR from 1953 to 1970 noted how his organization filled the positions of power in both parties with CFR members. “Whenever we needed a man we thumbed through the roll of the Council members and put through a call to New York.” Presumably McCloy filled the ranks of nine U.S. presidents in this manner.
That a similar process was in place when Barack Obama came to power in 2008 was verified by a October 6, 2008 WiikiLeaks email from CFR senior fellow Michael Froman to “Barack” providing him with a list of their selections “for senior level jobs in a potential Administration.” Not surprising ,“The cabinet list ended up being almost entirely on the money” (“Biden’s Non-diverse ‘Diversity’ Cabinet,” William F. Jasper, The New American). The same is almost certain for Biden as well.
Prior to Trump no one got to the top without their assistance. In 2020, through the most controversial presidential election in U.S. history, fraught with fraud foreign and domestic, the globalists have entrenched themselves once again with a man who loves the New World Order.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
America in 2015, before the movement that brought Donald J. Trump to power, felt deceived and betrayed in virtually every election by what was called the establishment. No matter how they voted, or who they sent to Washington, the parties seemed more the same than different and little actually changed. Most felt something was wrong but few could articulate what that exactly was, but it was something. Some hidden force played a role.
For the first time in U.S. History the establishment was toxic to voters in the 2016 presidential election. It demonstrated itself most clearly in the Iowa Caucus when non-establishment Republican candidates totaled 68% of the vote (Ted Cruz 28%, Donald Trump 24%, Ben Carson 9%, Rand Paul 5% and Carli Fiorina 2%). Establishment candidate Jeb Bush spent more money than the others combined but could never get traction. Fifty percent of Democrats flocked to Bernie Sanders from long-term establishment candidate Hillary Clinton. Both parties were rejecting the Establishment.
So what is the establishment? It is the moneyed elite capable of supplying candidates the millions of dollars they need to win elections. They exist in both major political parties, own the major media outlets, and the Internet as well. Therefore their influence over presidential candidates for over a hundred years is never really covered by their presses, thus they remain largely unknown to the public, but all candidates know of their influence and power. Before Trump no candidate for president got to office without their approval. Their influence brings to the top of each party a candidate acceptable to them and they allow voters to pick which of THEIR people, Democrat or Republican, they wish to lead. They never lose an election. The public face of this mostly secret combination is the Council on Foreign Relations which since 2016 has come to be known as the Deep State—the shadow government. It is the nation’s major proponent of The New World Order.
The “Real” White House for 100 years, CFR headquarters New York City
All presidents from Herbert Hoover on until Trump have either been members of, or had a close relationship with, the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City (CFR). This is the semi-secret establishment. When a president is not a member himself, his vice president almost always is. The then president Barack Obama, although supported by the CFR, wasn’t on their published membership list, but he and Joe Biden were noted globalists. Since the late 1920’s virtually all of our secretaries of state, United Nations ambassadors, and ambassadors to Russia and China have been members of this Wall Street special interest group. Moreover, CFR members largely filled the majority of presidential cabinets.
No special interest group, the last 100 years, has had more impact than the CFR over foreign policy leading many to question if we had but one political party in the United States with two arms. Indeed, until 2017 many saw no significant difference in foreign policy between George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Nor was there between George Bush and Bill Clinton. The CFR supported Barack Obama, probably the most anti-war candidate in a couple of decades, and so condemnatory of his predecessor in this area, but as president not only continued the Bush wars but added Libya and central Africa to the list while sponsoring drone killings (acts of war) in Pakistan, Syria, and Somali. History will view him as having been pro-war.
Until 2017 there existed little difference in foreign policy between parties. Neither had an America first foreign policy. Both got their advisors from the same Wall Street special interest group the CFR. Both supported extensive foreign aid, policing the world with over 900 military bases in other lands, and continual wars without declaration or pre-established end. They supported international trade agreements that mostly benefited their wealthy members and exported jobs formerly held by Americans. All, excepting Ronald Reagan, enhanced the power of the United Nations.. Both parties placated China on virtually every issue. The term “establishment” came to represent this sameness.
On domestic policy both parties supported the bank bailouts and their management of the money supply through the bankers private Federal Reserve Bank. Neither talked about returning a third of the United States (sometimes called government land) to the states from which it was taken. Neither problem solved with the Constitution as first consideration or followed it as written. Neither valued limited government or federalism. Both supported problem solving on the federal or international level rather than the state level.
Notable political scientist Lester Milbraith observed in his work Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy, p. 247, that “the influence of the CFR throughout government is so pervasive that it is difficult to distinguish the CFR from government programs.” Prominent political scientist Thomas R. Dye in his textbook Who’s Running America? The Bush Restoration, p. 188, wrote, “The history of CFR policy accomplishments is dazzling,” then traced in detail their dominating role in foreign policy accomplishment from the 1920’s through the George Bush Administration from their own boasts of success in Council on Foreign Relations Annual Reports.
What is wrong with this mostly “secret society?” In 1954, The Reece Congressional Committee noted that its productions “are not objective but are directed overwhelmingly at promoting the globalism concept”—world government How powerful was it by the time Congress first discovered its influence? It had come, they wrote, “to be in essence an agency of the United States government, no doubt carrying its internationalist bias with it” (Pp. 176-177).
Who ran America before Donald Trump?—The Council on Foreign Relations. The movement against the establishment preceded Trump but they welcomed his America First policies and he, for four years, stopped the globalists drive for a New World Order. Patriots loved him but every globalist slithered out of the pit of Hell to destroy him and the patriot movement that preceded him.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
To my white Democrat friends and in sincere kindness I must ask. Why do you belong to a party that defines you as racist and thus society’s enemy? Even more amazing, why are most of those defining you as racist because you are white, also white, as for example Joe Biden. If race is systemic isn’t he also racist because he is white? There is some evidence for this, over his nearly fifty year political career he has certainly made many racists statements and supported racist policies like forced busing. Kamala Harris exposed this in the 2020 presidential primary debate. Both Biden and Hillary Clinton characterized KKK clansman Senator Robert Byrd as their emulating model.
Most of the anchors that talk of systemic white racism are also white. So again I ask, why do you belong to a party that defines you as societies leading enemy which can only be eradicated by mostly white politicians mandating, and white teachers teaching, critical race theory which teaches racism? Are you racist? Of course not, so why do you not speak out against them and cease voting for and funding them?
As Senator Tim Scott, himself black, said in his rebuttal to Joe Biden’s first state of the Union Address, “America is not a racist country.” So a white man, who has never experience racism, says that we are a racist country and a black man, who has experienced racism, says that as a country we are not. He might have added, if so Barack Obama would not have served two elected terms as president and today Kamala Harris would not be Biden’s Vice President. In America race baiting to perpetuate racism is a vastly bigger problem than actual racism. Blacks are only 13% of the population. You do not get to the White House without the white vote.
If the majority were racists slavery might still exist in the South because the white “racist” Northerners would have believed the “negro to be already in his place.” Remember it was almost entirely the whites of the north, 360,222 of them, that gave their lives to free the slaves and thousands more lost limbs. It was whites that established and maintained the Underground Railroad at considerable risk to themselves and it was white author Harriet Beecher Stowe in her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, who brought attention to the moral issue of slavery. And it was the whites that ended any possibility of the return to slavery in the South by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution ending it, the 14th extending to them due process and equal protection of the laws, and the 15th the right to vote—all opposed at the time by the Democrat Party. Today blacks have the same rights as any other race, no less nor more, because whites recognized injustice and worked to end it.
Notice also that Antifa members who incite violence on the street supposedly for black causes are overwhelmingly white as are the journalists who promote this lie. Antifa certainly makes no effort to be inclusive or divers, therefore they too must be racist. Those attending Black Lives Matter marches are at least half white. But BLM never talk about, or publicly oppose, black on black crime all around them, as in Chicago where a person is shot every two hours,—only the rare instances of white police “violence” on black “victims.”
Yet another crazy oxymoron to consider; if all whites are systemically racist (it is in their genes) and most blacks in todays society have some proportion of white blood in them, aren’t they in that proportion also systemically racist? In other words, Barack Obama whose mother was white, and he therefore half white, thus half systemically racist? So his followers should hate, and he also, the half of him that is white. Absurd. Systemic racism does not exist, if present it sadly was learned, but one has to look for it.
Noticing racism everywhere, isn’t that racist? Since the Democrats are the ones that believe everyone else, excepting themselves, is racist and since they believe whites especially genetically so, isn’t this the very definition of racism? And if racism is everywhere, why isn’t it widely known and acclaimed outside their political party and media? As they define and apply racism the Democrat Party is the party of racism?
If most Democrats are white and therefore the enemy, who are they the enemy to? Themselves? There may be something to the old adage, “The enemy is us.” Chicago’s Democrat Mayor Lori Lightfoot recently announced that she would permit interviews to only black or brown journalists. Even the white journalists pushing the critical race theory nonsense are now excluded from interviews with the mayor on the basis of their skin color. There exist nothing more racist than this. Years ago I observed that those who saw racism in everything were themselves the most racist. The Democrat Party seems intent on purging the stain of whiteness from itself. So why do any whites remain members?
Unless the Democrat Party turns from such absurdities the day will come when no-one will admit once having been a Democrat. They will destroy their own party. But it is even worse than this, they are promoting violence on the basis of race and therefore are race baiting.
Most Americans already know this racial propaganda to be untrue. But it is also very dangerous. If blacks succumb to this Democrat lie and come to believe that armed resistance against the white systemic race is necessary for their survival, or to make things right, who do you think will win? Certainly not 13% of the population; the democratic left and Party are promoting racial violence. That this violence, so long promoted by the left, is still rare, not universal nor common, itself attests that America is not a racist country.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
What follows is an open letter to America warning that “our nation is in deep peril,” signed by 317 retired generals and admirals. How serious, “We are in a fight for our survival as a Constitutional Republic like no other time since our founding in 1776.” Who are the combatants? “The conflict is between supporters of Socialism and Marxism vs. supporters of Constitutional freedom and liberty,” each defining the other as domestic terrorists. In this war of information this message will be censored or undermined by the largely socialist press thus not available to most Americans.
Senior military leaders are in consensus that the 2020 election was the most important election since our country was founded. “With the Democrat Party welcoming Socialists and Marxists, our historic way of life is at stake.” The letter follows:
“Without fair and honest elections that accurately reflect the ‘will of the people’ our Constitutional Republic is lost. Election integrity demands insuring there is one legal vote cast and counted per citizen. Legal votes are identified by State Legislature’s approved controls using government IDs, verified signatures, etc. Today, many are calling such commonsense controls ‘racist’.… Using racial terms to suppress proof of eligibility is itself a tyrannical intimidation tactic…The FBI and Supreme Court must act swiftly when election irregularities are surfaced and not ignore them as was done in 2020. Finally, H.R.1 & S.1, (if passed), would destroy election fairness and allow Democrats to forever remain in power violating our Constitution and ending our Representative Republic….
“The Current Administration has launched a full-blown assault on our Constitutional rights in a dictatorial manner, bypassing the Congress, with more than 50 Executive Orders quickly signed, many reversing the previous Administration’s effective policies and regulations. Moreover, population control actions such as excessive lockdowns, school and business closures, and most alarming, censorship of written and verbal expression are all direct assaults on our fundamental Rights. We must support and hold accountable politicians who will act to counter Socialism, Marxism and Progressivism, support our Constitutional Republic, and insist on fiscally responsible governing….”
The military identified eight actions that must change very soon to preserve liberty.
“•Open borders jeopardize national security by increasing human trafficking, drug cartels, terrorist sentry, health/CV19 dangers, and humanitarian crises. Illegals are flooding our Country bringing high economic costs, crime, lowering wages, and illegal voting in some states. We must reestablish border controls and continue building the wall while supporting our dedicated border control personnel. Sovereign nations must have controlled borders.
“•China is the greatest external threat to America. Establishing cooperative relations with the Chinese Communist Party emboldens them to continue progress toward world domination, militarily, economically, politically and technologically….
“•The free flow of information is critical to the security of our Republic, as illustrated by freedom of speech and the press being in the 1st Amendment of our Constitution. Censoring speech and expression, distorting speech, spreading disinformation by government officials, private entities, and the media is a method to suppress the free flow of information, a tyrannical technique used in closed societies. We must counter this on all fronts beginning with removing Section 230 protection from big tech.
“•Re-engaging in the flawed Iran Nuclear Deal would result in Iran acquiring nuclear weapons along with the means to deliver them, thereby upsetting Mideast peace initiatives and aiding a terrorist nation whose slogans and goals include ‘death to America’ and ‘death to Israel’….
“•Stopping the Keystone Pipeline eliminates our recently established energy independence and causes us to be energy dependent on nations not friendly to us, while eliminating valuable US jobs. We must open the Keystone Pipeline and regain our energy independence for national security and economic reasons.
“•Using the U.S. military as political pawns with thousands of troops deployed around the U.S. Capitol Building, patrolling fences guarding against a non-existent threat, along with forcing Politically Correct policies like the divisive critical race theory into the military at the expense of the War Fighting Mission, seriously degrades readiness to fight and win our Nation’s wars, creating a major national security issue….
“•The “Rule of Law” is fundamental to our Republic and security. Anarchy as seen in certain cities cannot be tolerated. We must support our law enforcement personnel and insist that DAs, our courts, and the DOJ enforce the law equally, fairly, and consistently toward all.
“•The mental and physical condition of the Commander in Chief cannot be ignored. He must be able to quickly make accurate national security decisions involving life and limb anywhere, day or night. Recent Democrat leadership’s inquiries about nuclear code procedures sends a dangerous national security signal to nuclear armed adversaries, raising the question about who is in charge….
“Under a Democrat Congress and the Current Administration, our Country has taken a hard left turn toward Socialism and a Marxist form of tyrannical government which must be countered now by electing congressional and presidential candidates who will always act to defend our Constitutional Republic. The survival of our Nation and its cherished freedoms, liberty, and historic values are at stake….”
The reason the military express such strong feelings on this subject is because they died on foreign soil defeating Socialist and Communists and are now forced to oppose them again on their own soil—America.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Safety is probably the natural right most easily explained and is based primarily on the presumption that people have the right to exist and will naturally first flee from danger, then, if unsuccessful, will arm themselves regardless of what the law may or may not say or permit. Natures’ law will never allow gun confiscation to be fully implemented in a free America.
I learned this lesson my first year teaching college in California many years ago. A Mexican gang led by a black attacked two white students in the college quad because they were white. As the nearest faculty member available, I intervened only to have the students flee and I alone faced perhaps a dozen thugs I had never seen before who hated me only for the color of my skin. On the ground, unable to comprehend what was happening to me, I took a boot every time I raised my head. Another faculty member came into the quad and being white also was attacked. Half the group left me to attack him. Eventually we were able to escape behind a nearby classroom door. When police arrived the leader of the gang threatened to kill me if I identified him. A day later a student highway patrolman secretly gave me a can of maze, at the time illegal. “This will take care of 20,” he told me. I carried it for years. Giving it to me would have cost his job and mine. Neither cared—safety was the issue.
Thousands fled socialist countries as it enveloped their countries. Hundreds risked their lives going over the Berlin Wall once socialism was imbedded in Eastern Germany and hundreds of thousands fled to the south in Korea and Vietnam or on boats away from Cuba to America. The same is so from Venezuela in our day. It was once said that communism would end tomorrow in China if everyone were issued a hand gun tonight. You might miss the shooting the next day if you slept in. Certainly the more than a million Uyghurs in slave labor camps would take their religious freedom back and their genocide end in China.
Thousands are escaping socialist-leaning states of California, Oregon, Washington, Michigan, New York and New Jersey under excessive, even tyrannical rule by their Democrat governors exceeding that of the tyranny of King George III. Here political refugees are finding freedom from excessive government in Florida, Texas, Idaho,Utah and South Dakota; Republican led states who refused to lock down their citizens.
Residents feel unsafe when society or government appeared unstable as in 2020, when Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots were staged in most major cities in America, even near the White House, especially in Democratic controlled cities. This was especially so when nowhere condemned by Democrat Party leadership or their media. When statues were torn down, inner city buildings and automobiles set afire, Molotov cocktails thrown at police, and thugs occupied downtown Seattle and Portland, people did not feel safe. When George Soros’ financed district attorneys in Chicago, Los Angeles and St. Louis were setting criminals free as fast as they were arrested, it resulted in concern for normal people. When a senior citizen couple living in a private gated community in St. Louis, Missouri threatened to use firearms to protect themselves and their property from a mob of thugs who broke down the gate, were themselves arrested—instead of the thugs—all Americans felt unsafe. This could happen to me. If government won’t protect me, I must.
The Democrats solution to runaway crime has become the following: to allow convicts to vote, to release inmates back on the streets during the Wuhan, China virus, to same-day release arsonists, looters, and Molotov cocktail throwers in our cities during the social unrest of 2020, to deny potential victims the means of protecting themselves through confiscatory gun laws, to open our borders to every thug in the world and, most insane of all, to defund, disarm, cancel and victimize law enforcement—those willing to risk their lives in the defense of others to maintain a civil society.
Those who spoke out against these dangerous practices, like Tucker Carlson, could expect a mob of thugs to do property damage to their homes or threaten bodily harm to his wife and children who had to hide in a closet for protection. My point!! The more these practices become common, and anarchy and lawlessness reigns, the more the victims and innocent seek a gun to protect themselves—natural law—whether it is legal or not.
When cities like Chicago, where a person is shot every two hours, have the toughest gun laws, but the most gun violence, it is obvious that what Democrats, because they are the government in most of these cities of chaos, propose does not, has not, and will not work because their measures violate natural law. Yet they want to spread their chaos to the whole nation and leave the weak and innocent perpetual victims. Natural law postulates, When cities defund police and people do not feel protected they will flee first; then arm themselves for protection whether legal or not.
Here are some other natural laws relating to guns. When guns are outlawed only outlaws have them. It takes a gun to stop gun violence and police can’t get there in time. Good people will acquire firearms in proportion to their threat of danger. Violence begets violence; if a gun is not available a knife, bat, or perhaps poison is. Mass shootings almost always occur in gun free zones like schools, theaters, super markets, because would be shooters know they are not likely to be confronted with someone who can shoot back. Finally, there has never been a gun in the history of the world found to have, by itself, killed anyone. Gun confiscation and individual liberty are oxymorons.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
The Democratic led House of Representative just voted 216-208, along party lines, to make Washington D. C. the 51st state in the Union. The bill now goes to the Senate. But there are two serious problems. The District of Columbia already has more House and Senate members living within it than any state in the Union, thus is the most represented city in the nation, and the Constitution forbids making the capitol a state without 3/4th of the states’ approval.
Democrats say that the District of Columbia is under represented but what they fail to mention is that D.C. is the only city in the nation governed by the whole House of Representatives. Moreover, few commute daily from their districts thus live in close proximity to the Capitol. Technically they are D. C. residents, eating, working, socializing and sleeping in that city many times more than in their residence’s in Florida, Maine, California, Hawaii or Alaska. They regularly frequent the city’s gyms, restaurants, clothing shops, beauty salons and barber shops. They care about its streets and utilities because they use them. They socialize with other representatives about the needs and environment of the city as much or more than any city in their districts. Name another city as represented as it? No city gets more attention from people with power than Washington D.C.
Now to the Constitutional concerns. “The Congress shall have Power … to exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the government of the United States” (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17). Again, Congress is specifically charged to govern the city thus it is the most represented city in America and the only city with direct access to the federal budget.
One may need to be reminded of why the District of Columbia was created. The cities of Boston, Philadelphia and New York served their purpose very well in the birth of the Republic but they were cities within existing governments. What the Founders had to have was a place separate from and not subject to the influence of a host state. The two governments, the states and the new federal government created by the Constitution, that would run America must be independent of the other. This would be the home of the federal government, it would operate on its own property not within another that could influence it or, in reverse, be dominated or favored by it.
This property must never be a state and must be too small to be thought possible that it should be; presently it is 1/20th the size of Rhode Island, America’s smallest state. The perception of a small and limited federal government was important and carefully preserved by the wordage “not exceeding ten Miles square.”
Another constitutional concern involves Virginia and Maryland, who donated the ten square mile block of land to the federal government for a specific purpose, a space for a federal government, that would not have been given for any other purpose—definitely not to be made into another competing state. Certainly Maryland’s claim on it, if not used for the purpose given in the contract (Constitution), is much stronger than its claim to statehood. It could be argued that the only other “right” use of this land would be to return it to Maryland since Virginia’s portion was ceded back in 1846 with dubious constitutional authority. Then, and today with Maryland, any change in the Constitution (contract) requires an amendment.
If not used as a part of the District of Columbia it should be returned to Maryland, then a bid for statehood would violate Article IV, Section 3. “No new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State….without the consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”
If made into a state then there is the necessity of repealing Amendment 23 of the Constitution, ratified in 1961, giving the District of Columbia three Electoral College votes because it wasn’t a state and now cant’t have six. Repeal requires 3/4th of the states. In the present climate of no bipartisanship this would require one side or the other to give up three Electoral College votes. Since Washington D.C. has been and will remain Democrat Party territory for decades the new state, “Washington, Douglass Commonwealth,” would get three Electoral College votes in perpetuity thus Democrats logically should forgo the three Electoral College votes still given to D.C. in Amendment 23 in addition to that given as a state—but will they?
Making the District of Columbia a city state would make this city, already the most represented city in the nation and probably even more so than any state as well, even more powerful. It also is unconstitutional because D.C. was specifically designed to not be a state. This cannot be changed by statue. This bill damages or alters two articles and one amendment of the U.S. Constitution, thus could require two new amendments and one amendment repeal in the Constitution. Each demand the use of Article V which requires a proposing process of two-thirds of both Houses of Congress or the application of the legislatures of two thirds of several states followed by a ratification process of 3/4th of the several states.
Everyone knows the Democrat bid to make the District of Columbia a new state is equivalent to “packing the Senate” which would vanish if they, in doing so, were establishing two new Republican Senators in perpetuity. It’s clearly a power grab akin to packing the Supreme Court and can not be rewarded.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
