Mike Gravel
Christa Slayton.
Christa Slayton
In regards to a question that you posed about why we don’t know the history and why do we, we don’t know some of the debates, and also in regards to the questions about the amendment process, and do we need to amend the constitution, and is this really appropriate interpretation of Article V? One of the things that I think we need to keep in mind is that when the deligates met at the constitutional convention in 1787, they were there to amend the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation said to amend it, you have to have all 13 states approve of the amendment. They changed that process in the document, but then when they went about the ratification process, they didn’t say all 13 states have to ratify. They went with a smaller number. And so they changed the rules of the game in midstream. And so the reality of it is, the Constitution was implemented before all 13 states ratified that constitution. And that already sets a precedent for using an amendment process that’s different than what is established in the pre-existing constitution.
Mike Gravel
Is it fair, hang on to the mic, is it fair to say that what they devised in Philadelphia was a methodology, now they put their thoughts on paper, but they devised a methodology to go around the existing governments because they had no faith that the existing governments would buy the product of their deliberations. Is that a fair assessment? And how if you, and you can elaborate on that.
Christa Slayton
I think that’s a fair assessment, but I’d also add something else to it. I would add that they got away with it because the people allowed them to get away with it. If you get 50 million people signing on to this, what’s to stop this process from being effective the same way ratifying the Constitution was effective? But this time it comes from the people themselves standing up and saying, “This is what we want.” And you get 50 million people saying that, what alternative do they have?
Unidentified Male
We do have, of course, Article V that talks about the Congress and you know … but the amendments to the Constitution that were passed at the same time, and I refer specifically to the nineth amendment, if you would read it or people would be distributed here, it says, “All powers not expressly reserved, are reserved to the people.” Just as the tenth amendment to this constitution at the time reserved all power that was not reserved to the federal government was reserved to the state. Now the states contested that for, what, 200 years? Obviously we haven’t really contested the nineth amendment which reserves it to the people. It would be legal to change it.