Are We Citizens Of Our States?

As an associate member of one of Virginia’s largest and most active Sons of Confederate Veterans camps, the “Fincastle Rifles” of Roanoke and Salem, I attended a recent Monday night gathering that featured, as guest speaker, a prominent member of the John Birch Society. Over the course of his speech he posed the question of why our children are not exposed to the principles of government expressed in our original State Constitution, in the government schools. I thought it was a good question. Are there not protections enumerated there that were intended to shield us from any encroaching usurpations of our God-ordained inalienable rights listed in the Federal Constitution? Can the Bill of Rights, as we are witnessing, be reduced to an irrelevancy by the latest “interpretations” from a gaggle of federal lawyers and judges that have no regard for “original intent and understanding? I thought God-ordained natural rights, as opposed to man-made “civil rights” that can be altered, expanded, or taken away, meant that they were beyond the purview of man.

On the heels of what I heard at the recent SCV meeting, I received a 32-page treatise on State citizenship written by a Mr. T. Collins. Its introduction declares that it should be used as the basis of our own research into this subject. As it is not copyrighted, we are invited to copy or pass on any or all portions of it. I would be happy to send it to anyone that would like to read it for themselves. The treatise is centered on the unknowing surrender of our State citizenship and what that means for us. His argument, which he supports with an abundance of case law and historical precedent, is that “the government recognizes two distinct classes of citizens: a state Citizen and a federal citizen. Each has different rights and responsibilities. State Citizens created the states who created the federal government who created federal citizens”. There was no such thing as a citizen of the United States when this country was formed. We were all citizens of our respective States, which were recognized and treated as separate sovereignties and Republics except in cases where specific powers were delegated to the common government.

“Most people are born state Citizens and become federal citizens without their knowledge sometime after birth”, Collins says. He goes on to point out that the few who actually discover their true legal status still have the option of reclaiming their state citizenship if they go through the necessary steps. How long this option will remain open remains to be seen.

In order to begin to grasp the significance of the change that has taken place in this country, it is necessary to once again look back in time from whence we came. The government calling itself the United States of America began as the world’s first constitutional republic. Before our successful secession from Great Britain, the King of England owned all the land in his colonies and the people were his subjects. The Treaty of Paris, which officially recognized the independence, not of the United States, but of each independent State, transferred the King’s former “sovereignty” over the colonies, not to any existing State government, but rather, to the people in the individual colonies themselves. The Citizens of these “free and independent States” were made the new “sovereign”. This had never happened before in the history of the world. In other countries, the government is recognized as “sovereign”, and it makes laws for its subject-citizens and may give them certain rights (which can be recalled at the governments pleasure). Not so here where the people were endowed by their creator with inalienable rights that can’t be taken away. The government was established for the purpose of securing and protecting those rights. History teaches us that the people gave up a small portion of their sovereignty to their State governments, who in turn gave up a small portion of their sovereignty to the federal government so we’d be strong enough to defend each State’s independence. The U.S. Constitution describes the powers that the States delegated in the formation of the federal compact.

The historical record proves that “we the people”, in ratifying the federal compact, were not an amalgamation of all the people from all the States, but rather, refers to the people of each individual State acting in their sovereign capacity, ordaining and establishing the Constitution for the united states of America. In other words, the Constitution was an instrument created by the people of the individual States. How is it that what was created as an agent of the States, to protect the States, has become greater than its creator? If you can answer that question then you will discover the seeds to our transformation from citizens of our States to citizen-subjects of the federal government.

We should remember that we once had rights that were considered gifts from Creator God. It was understood that they could not be disturbed by any acts of man. Some were considered important enough to be specifically secured in the Bill of Rights. The theory was that these rights existed long before the creation of the nation and that government, left to its own devices, could and would use man made law to destroy the liberty of the people.

Our conversion from citizens of our States, to citizen-subjects of the empire…err…I mean federal government, has come about through a series of Congressional acts that in my view have been designed to usurp the people’s sovereignty in the interest of consolidation, power, and control by a wealthy elite that presumes to know what is best for us. I will endeavor, in next week’s column, to trace the legalisms that have been instituted over the course of many years, that will show us how we’ve unknowingly traded our status as sovereigns of our States, for a second-class citizenship deemed “federal”. I believe it can help us understand the ongoing evolutionary process that threatens to reduce us all to “world citizens” under the control of an international government elite, styled “the United Nations.” In the meantime, if you’d like to better understand how we were supposed to be governed under the Constitution, I’d urge you to read John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison’s “The Federalist Papers”.

Wayne Carlson is the Secretary/Treasurer of the Patrick Henry Chapter, Virginia League of the South. Mr. Carlson can be reached at simplysouthern@i-plus.net

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