A
Decentralized Road to a Decentralized Destination
Our
desired destination is clear: a Confederation of Anglo-American Patriot
States, under the Articles
of Confederation (America’s first constitution that was unadvisedly and
illegally abandoned). This was how the
USA formed in the first place back in the 1770s. It was a decentralized nation
where supreme authority resided in the sovereign States which made up the
nation. The States retained “their
sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction and
right, which” was “not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United
States, in Congress assembled.” The national government was limited in
scope and authority, the scope being the States’ “common defence, the security of
their Liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to
assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or
any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence whatever.” Taxation was left at the State
level, so that the national government was forced to depend upon money from the
States. To protect each State from
losing power to the national government or other States, no amendment could be
made to the Articles without first consent of Congress and then without
unanimous ratification of the States. There was no powerful executive branch or
tenured, unaccountable judicial branch in the national government. Much was purposefully done to preserve
States’ Rights and to prevent centralization of power.
It
is not an accident that this decentralized destination was reached via a
decentralized road: Anglo-American
patriots
in the various States organized State
Committees of Correspondence in their own State and locality. When these State Committees were sufficiently
organized in a number of States, these State Committees eventually sent
delegates to a Continental Congress, and in the Continental Congress the State
delegates reached joint decisions with respect to their relation to the central
British government and their common defense.
The road was decentralized, so the destination likewise was
decentralized. It was not a centrally
controlled enterprise. A centrally
controlled process of formation would have been unlikely to yield decentralized
fruit.
The
Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/ReturnToArticlesOfConfederation/
and its associated websites are simply designed to encourage and assist Anglo-American patriots
in the various States to organize State Committees of Correspondence in their
own State towards the end of restoring a confederated USA of Anglo-American Patriot
States, under the Articles
of Confederation. If there is an insufficient number willing to do this,
then the cause will not get off the ground.
It would contradict the very objective of the project if the project is
centrally controlled and executed.
Index
of Articles related to this Cause: https://www.puritans.net/articles/indexarticlesconfederation.htm
.