I’ve been doing some reading tonight. Very interesting reading. In my search for truth, I have been reading the Federalist papers, particularly the writings of James Madison in #43, in which he addresses the Constitution’s designation and purpose of our nation’s capital.
It causes a great sigh tinged with a little amazement to realize that his words show us just how far we’ve moved away from the original intentions for this country in a mere 220 years. How the original, inherent independence of authority (government) has eroded into an entitlement mentality; how we have regressed from being freedom fighters to mere slaves in chains and dependent upon the good will of a drunken master.
For shame, America. For shame.
I do not believe that our Constitution is a “flawed” document. Indeed, it contains far more wisdom than those running around Washington sporting smurks of Ivy League superiority could ever hope to grasp during three of their greedy lifetimes. The current resurrection of debate over allowing the people who live in the District of Columbia voting representation in Congress is a good example of the distortions – for personal gain – that now run amock with giddiness through the corridors of Congress.
On this matter, however, I believe our Founding Fathers were quite clear. And, unlike Big Daddy O’Hopey-Changey, their answer was “no”. Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the U.S. Constitution states:
[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.
This is how a real father, a Founding Father of the United States, and the Father of the Constitution, James Madison, describes it:
“The indispensable necessity of complete authority at the seat of government, carries its own evidence with it. It is a power exercised by every legislature of the Union, I might say of the world, by virtue of its general supremacy.
“…as it is to be appropriated to this use with the consent of the State ceding it; as the State will no doubt provide in the compact for the rights and the consent of the citizens inhabiting it; as the inhabitants will find sufficient inducements of interest to become willing parties to the cession; as they will have had their voice in the election of the government which is to exercise authority over them; as a municipal legislature for local purposes, derived from their own suffrages, will of course be allowed them; and as the authority of the legislature of the State, and of the inhabitants of the ceded part of it, to concur in the cession, will be derived from the whole people of the State in their adoption of the Constitution, every imaginable objection seems to be obviated.
“The necessity of a like authority over forts, magazines, etc. , established by the general government, is not less evident. The public money expended on such places, and the public property deposited in them, requires that they should be exempt from the authority of the particular State. Nor would it be proper for the places on which the security of the entire Union may depend, to be in any degree dependent on a particular member of it.”
This is an early admonishment against what we, today, call a conflict of interest. One made for all the same, right – very right – reasons.
Dare I point out that the District of Columbia has NEVER voted for a Republican presidential candidate? Dare I point out that to then allow this obvious bias a voting seat in Congress will only add to a current majority that is already gleefully doing everything in their power to wrest away our individual rights and freedoms under the soothing lullaby guise of “hope and change”?
I have nothing against Democrats, per se, mind you. What I do dislike and will fight against as long as I live is the deliberate creation of inequality. If that means defending the Constitution, then so be it. If that means being called “conservative”, then so be it. I’m not afraid to type it out loud:
To give the District of Columbia voting rights is a clear – and dangerous – conflict of interest.
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