A Watershed Moment
We are living in a watershed moment in American History. We face a Constitutional crisis no less crucial or important than the events leading up to the Civil War in 1860.
George Washington in his farewell address in 1796 laid out the grounds of citizenship clearly and unequivocally:
”The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish Government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Government.”
“All obstructions to the execution of the Laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency …”
“However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”
Simply put, we as citizens are obligated by our adoption of the Constitution to recognize and check any person or persons involved in acts that are designed to circumvent or betray the Constitution. Failure to do so is failure to support the principle which we consider to be fundamental to our lives and livelihood, Democracy.