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Health & Fitness

Constitution Day

Today is the day we celebrate the ratification of the Constitution of The United States of America.  The day that took a struggling country that was broke, falling apart and had no future to a world power. 

The American people had won their independence from Britain and they were finding their way as a new nation.   The American people have many hurdles in their path to glory.  The first attempt at a government gave us the document, Articles of Confederation.  It was a weak federal government and independent states were loosely united.  For ten years this loose form of government ruled the land.  America was on the brink of going into history as a failed attempt at self governance.  The world’s powers at that time were hoping the American experiment would fail and it would show that people needed a King or a big government controlling their everyday lives. 

The founders of the American Revolution saw that a new revolution or a new war with Britain could break out at any time.  They came together to strengthen the Articles of Confederation.  James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and many others in the Constitutional Convention believed that the best way to save the concept of self governance was to come up with a new foundation of government.  George Washington, being the President of the Convention, could have put a stop to it.  But he did not.  He let it play out because he believed the best form of freedom was to allow people to govern themselves. 

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Behind the closed doors of this Convention a new revolution was taking place between the Federalists and the Anti Federalists.  Through the fighting somehow the Divine Providence prevails and a Republic was born.  It is governed by the Constitution of the United States of America.

The Constitution is a simple document that is broken up into Articles.  It describes how the government will be governed.  Two years later, the Bill of Rights was ratified.  I would like to take a few minutes to look at this document and show you how simple our founders made self governance. 

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The Preamble of the Constitution reads: We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” 

 The first thing we should understand is, We the People, means all the people that were born into the family and those who are now adopted into the body of the free American people.  It does not say one group or a specific class of people.  The preamble means we the people control the government with the leaders we put into office to write and enforce the laws.  This was the first time that a document was setting up a nation to be governed by the people and not by a few leaders.  This is one of the reasons America is an exceptional place to live.  We should stand with the framers of The Constitution to protect the ideals of a free people and the nation they live in. 

 The Constitution’s main body describes how the federal government will work.   The first Article is about the Legislative branch.  This Article is about the House of Representative and the Senate.  The first Article has ten sections ranging from how many Legislatures will be in each house and their terms, to their responsibilities.  The second Article is about the Executive branch.  That is the President and Vice President and the people that work for them.  The second Article only has four sections talking about the power and their duties as the President and Vice President.   The Third Article is about the Judicial branch.  That is the court and the law.  The third Article only has 3 sections regarding how they are to act and judge the laws that are set by the Legislative branch.  Article four is about how the states will work under the Constitution.  Article five is about how to amend the Constitution.  Article six talks about the debt before the adoption of the Constitution, the authority of the Constitution and the laws there in.  Plus there will be no religious test required to hold office.  The last Article, Article seven, is about the ratification of the Constitution.  This document, which some have said gives the government the power to control life and death is far from the truth.  The only thing Article six states is that the government will not control how you worship God or what denomination you belong to in order to hold a seat.  The rest of it is how the government works and governs it’s self.

 The Constitution was ratified on September 17, 1787 and the Bill of Rights (the first ten) was ratified on December 15, 1791, that is 2 years and 4 months apart. 

 The Bill of Rights is the rights of the people and it is what protects the people from a tyrannical government.  The Bill of Rights does not tell us what we can’t do; it tells us what the government can’t do to us or a State.  We have to remember the writers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights had just defeated a tyrannical government and a King that believed they had a right to control the lives, beliefs and the money and land of the people that they ruled.  So with Divine guidance they put guidelines in place for the people of America to keep a person with evil intent from being able to change the purpose of the Republic.  If the people stood their ground and understood their God given rights they would not have to worry about someone stealing their freedoms. 

 The first Amendment is one of the most misunderstood and misquoted amendments.  It reads as follows. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”  The amendment most of the time is misrepresented by people who twist the meaning about how it reads about the press, speech and religion.  The truth as you can read it, says that government will not pass a law to control or make a denomination.  It also does not allow the government to control your belief in God and how you worship him by righting laws restricting you from praying or speaking the words of God anywhere.  The next two areas are speech and press.  The founders understood that without God and free speech we could not have a free press or people able to discern when the press and the government was telling us the truth.  The first amendment then says that people have the right to peaceably assemble and the ability to petition the government when they don’t like what our leaders are doing.

 The Second Amendment reads: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”  The understanding is that a person or government cannot enslave people if they have arms to protect oneself from the evil of one or many. 

 The Third Amendment reads: “No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.”  The writers saw what happens when a government sees its control slipping way and how they take God’s given rights way from people.

 The next five Amendments are about the government having to prove that you are a threat before taking all that you have and putting you in jail.  These Amendments also talk about trial by jury, your sentencing and how much the court can set your bail.

 The Fourth Amendment reads: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” 

 The Fifth Amendment reads: “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

 The Six Amendment reads: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.”

 The Seventh Amendment it reads: “In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”

 The Eighth Amendment reads: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

 The Ninth Amendment reads: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”  We should understand the meaning of Enumeration.  From the Webster’s Dictionary ~ E`nu`mer`a´tion 1. The act of enumerating, making separate mention, or recounting. 2. A detailed account, in which each thing is specially noticed. Though the writers did not describe more God given rights, the government does not have the rights to take them away.  We the people have to understand the difference between a want and a need.  We need to have freedoms to succeed or fail in life.  That is how we grow.  A cell phone, public transportation or anything else that you did not work for is not a right, it is a want and the government and the taxpayers of this nation do not have to pay for it.  We have the opportunity to get an education and to get a job.  We do not have a right to tell an employer what salary we demand.  You do have a right to negotiate your salary.  In the past few decades we have lost the meaning of want and need and by doing so have seen our God given rights slip through our hands.  The more the God given rights slip away the more the chains of big government hold us back.  We need to break away from our childish ways and start looking to ourselves and God for our needs and wants and not a government.

 The Tenth Amendment it reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. “   This simply means the States have rights to make laws and govern themselves if it does not go against the Constitution.  It is a great way to see if a state and the people there in can succeed or fail in their own ideals.  It is also competition between the states for people’s talents that helps make this nation grow.

 The Constitution is just one of many Divine writings that our forefathers imparted as a guide post to understand our God given right and freedoms.  We need to read and understand them for ourselves.  This will allow us to continue to be exceptional in self governance and to be the beacon of freedom that every human is worthy of.

 Documents I recommend for review to obtain further knowledge:

 Holy Bible

 The Mayflower Compact

 A summary view of the rights of British America

 The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

 The Virginia Bill of Rights

 The Massachusetts Bill of Rights of 1780

 The Declaration of Independence

 The Articles of Confederation

 The Federalist Papers

 The Constitution of the United States 

A website of interest might be:   www.thefederalistpapers.org   You can review many documents from our founders and ancestors.  We cannot protect what our forefathers fought and died for without knowing the reasons why they did it and their intent.  It is up to each of us to understand it and pass it on to the next generation of Americans.  We also have to make sure that the people who come to our shores understand our history and laws.  Our freedoms where freely given by God and we have to guard them because they are easily stolen.  Without knowing the truth or willingly giving our freedoms away, we will not have security.

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