|Basic Jurisdictional Principles|
|A Theological Inventory of American Jurisprudence|
|ARTICLE I § 8 CLAUSE 4|
“The object is great which We have in View, and We must expect a great Expence of Blood to obtain it. But We should always remember, that a free Constitution of civil Government cannot be purchased at too dear a Rate, as there is nothing on this Side of the new Jerusalem, of equal Importance to Mankind.”[note]
“[W]e call for your strenuous, unremitted exertions. Yet do not believe that you have been, or can be saved, merely by your own strength. No! it is by the assistance of Heaven, and this you must assiduously cultivate, by acts which Heaven approves. Thus shall the power and the happiness of these sovereign, free, and independent states, founded on the virtue of their citizens, increase, extend, and endure, until the Almighty shall blot out all the empires of the earth.”[note]
The Congress shall have Power … To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
These days, anyone born in one of the fifty States automatically has the legal status of a citizen. This is according to the 14th Amendment § 1. An infant may be a citizen who lacks capacity, but it's normally understood that when that human being reaches the age of majority, that natural person will be a full-blown citizen. When a foreigner moved to one of the thirteen States prior to the ratification of the Constitution of 1787, each State had its own rules for making this foreigner a citizen of the given State. Since it's the primary concern of any secular government to protect the unalienable Rights of its citizens, it's important for such government to make sure that people who migrate to the geographical jurisdiction of such government are not inimical to such rights. It's therefore perfectly legitimate for Congress "To establish an uniform Rule" for doing so. So this "uniform Rule of Naturalization" is not a troublesome aspect of clause 4. We conclude that this Naturalization Clause, when viewed from the perspective of the framers' original intent, is perfectly lawful. It is not inconsistent with the global covenant. But the constitutional distinction between citizens and non-citizens, according to supreme Court jurisprudence –– i.e., according to the current implementation of the Constitution –– is something altogether different, thanks largely to the supreme Court's interpretation of the 14th Amendment.
Section 1 of the 14th Amendment addresses itself in part to the distinction between "persons" and "citizens". It says, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.". Since the 14th Amendment is one of the "Civil War Amendments", it's obvious that "All persons born … in the United States" pertains primarily to ex-slaves. This part of the Amendment makes ex-slaves citizens –– clearly long overdue. But it also means that anyone born in the United States since then –– even if the parents are illegal aliens and members of a Middle Eastern terrorist organization –– is also automatically a citizen. This situation makes it obvious that we need to ponder more fully the facts surrounding citizenship.
When someone is born within the geographical jurisdiction of the united States, they lack capacity. Until they reach the age of majority, they are minors, and they are therefore disabled from exercising all the privileges of citizenship. But when they reach the age of majority, the disabilities that accrue to them as minors are eliminated, and they become citizens in fact, and not merely in potential.
We say "the privilege of citizenship", rather than the rights of citizenship, because in our study of the global covenant, we determined that since all people are created in the image of God, all people have rights, that are essentially property rights, that are inherently part of being alive, and being human. People have these essential rights regardless of whatever other abilities and disabilities they may have. Such rights are God-given. The only circumstances under which such rights can be denied by human beings, are in cases of bloodshed.[note] In other words, when one person violates the God-given property rights of another person, all human beings are mandated by the Noachian Covenant (Genesis 9:6) to execute justice –– meaning retribution if the bloodshed is a gross delict, and restitution or injunction if the bloodshed is a subtle delict –– against the perpetrator. To distinguish these God-given gifts called rights –– called unalienable Rights by the Declaration of Independence –– from natural and conventional abilities and disabilities, especially from conventional disabilities deriving from gifts, licenses, implied contracts, etc., that are given by humans, we call the latter privileges. This distinction is essential to any studied view of the global covenant.
Citizenship is essentially the same thing as being a party to a social compact. It is essentially contractual, which means that it requires consent. Whatever benefits accrue to such citizen from the ecclesiastical compact are privileges, while benefits that accrue from the jural compact consist of protected property rights. Since every social compact implicitly and/or explicitly encompasses two sub-compacts –– the jural compact and the ecclesiastical compact –– the privileges of citizenship vary according to the composition of these two sub-compacts. When a person consents to being party to the jural compact, they essentially consent to adhering to all the due process mechanisms, office filling mechanisms, etc., that pertain to fulfilling the obligations of the jural compact. When a person consents to being party to the ecclesiastical compact, they likewise consent to fulfilling whatever obligations they have to make the ecclesiastical compact functional. But the difference between these two types of compacts is radical, as was manifestly clear in the investigation.[note] So the privileges of citizenship that are associated with these two sub-compacts also differ radically.
Within the context of the global covenant and the investigation's basic jurisdictional principles, all this is common-sensical. But the general government has abandoned such fundamental legal principles. This is clear from the fact that the general government abandoned the compact theory of law during the War Between the States. They did this because the people who were expounding this theory (like John C. Calhoun) were expounding an extremely defective version of the compact theory, a version that attempted to justify the existence of slavery. When the Confederacy was defeated, the theory was considered totally discredited.[note] This is another classic case of throwing the baby out with the bath water.
With these things understood, we need to look at what kind of mess the supreme Court and the general government as a whole has led us into. Before diving into a few supreme Court decisions, we should look at the rest of Amendment 14 § 1: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." From the point of view of the global covenant, "privileges and immunities of citizens" pertains to the benefits that derive from being a party in a secular social compact.[note] This is because the "United States" is secular, meaning that it attempts to encompass all faiths within a single umbrella compact. It implicitly attempts to provide a secular social compact that encompasses numerous religious social compacts,[note] and numerous other social compacts, like those that form the States. Since the "United States" is a secular social compact, it is primarily jural. This is because, from a Biblical perspective, the global Covenants are the only Covenants that pertain to all human beings, and the impetus behind the jural compact, the bloodshed mandate in the Noachian Covenant, is the only term of the global Covenants that comes close to being genuine positive law that's pertinent to all people. So the "privileges and immunities" that accrue to every party to the secular social compact that forms the "United States", are primarily jural.
From a Biblical perspective, all social compacts have both jural and ecclesiastical features. But one set of these features predominates according to whether the social compact is secular or religious. If it is secular, then common sense demands that it is primarily jural. The primary ecclesiastical features that a secular social compact has are ecclesiastical courts, places where secular contract disputes can be resolved. —— If the social compact is religious, then common sense demands that it is primarily ecclesiastical. —— The duties and benefits that accrue to citizens of the united States from the jural side of the social compact are things like (i)the duty to vote / the benefit of being well represented; (ii)the duty to serve on a jury in a criminal case / the benefit of trial by jury instead of by vigilante committee; (iii)the duty to protect one's property / the benefit of being able to make property ownership part of the public record; (iv)the duty to pay lawful jural taxes / the benefit of being protected by the jural society; (v)the duty of testifying when under subpoena / the benefit of living in a society in which justice is revered; (vi)etc. It's reasonable to surmise that benefits like these are what the 14th Amendment calls "privileges". The immunities that accrue to citizens of the "United States" from the jural side are things like immunity from illegal searches and seizures. The "privileges" that accrue to citizens of the "United States" from the ecclesiastical side are things like the privilege of having a contract dispute heard in a court of the general government. From the perspective of the investigation, these are all lawful "privileges" and "immunities" of a secular social compact.
The expression, "life, liberty, or property", is a legal term of art that goes back at least as far as the "social contract" writings of John Locke. Locke was a 17th century English philosopher whose rendering of the compact theory of government was commonly studied and respected by the framers.[note] From the investigation's perspective this phrase is essentially a reference to unalienable Rights, to the fact that every human being is created in the image of God, and therefore has essential rights, virtually all of which can be understood to be property rights. So when Amendment 14 § 1 says no "State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law", from the perspective of the global covenant, it's essentially saying this: No State shall deprive any person, regardless of whether they are a citizen or not, of their unalienable Rights, unless it's through lawful jural takings, lawful ecclesiastical takings, lawful conviction for committing bloodshed, or to fulfill a lawful contractual obligation. Given this understanding, "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law", is perfectly lawful. This understanding acknowledges unalienable Rights, and posits that the States are obligated to recognize and honor them in all people, regardless of whether they were slaves or not, and regardless of whether they are citizens or not.
Given that the "United States" is a secular social compact, the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment also makes perfect sense. It says no State shall "deny any person within its jurisdiction of the equal protection of the laws". So if an ex-slave and an ex-slave owner are each being victimized by some perpetrator of bloodshed, the State, according to this clause, cannot give preferential treatment to one over the other. From the point of view of the global covenant, it makes perfect sense.
Seen from the perspective of the investigation's basic jurisdictional principles, the first section of Amendment 14 is excellent law, and deserves our honor and respect especially because it was intended to be an at least partial correction to the institutionalized bloodshed of the South's "peculiar institution". But in the hands of jurists and legislators who don't recognize or acknowledge the fundamental distinction between rights and privileges, because they don't acknowledge that people are created in the image of God, because they contend that God has no place in secular jurisprudence, Amendment 14 § 1 turns into something almost totally unrecognizable.
Shortly after the 14th Amendment was ratified, the supreme Court started applying it to alienage cases. The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) may not have been alienage cases, but in the majority opinion, Justice Samuel F. Miller, while indicating that the "Civil War Amendments" (13th, 14th, and 15th) existed to insure rights for newly freed slaves, "these amendments did not necessarily apply to African-Americans alone".[note] Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886) built on Miller's opinion in Slaughterhouse. In Yick Wo, the Court held unanimously that the 14th Amendment applied to aliens. This is because the Equal Protection Clause in section one applies not only to citizens, but to all persons. This finding is not inconsistent with the 14th Amendment viewed through the global covenant.
On its surface, there is absolutely nothing about this case that violates the standards set by the global covenant. Yick Wo and the other Chinese laundries certainly suffered an injustice, and it's an absolute good that the supreme Court corrected it. But this case raises at least two issues that relate directly to this "uniform Rule of Naturalization": (1)What "privileges or immunities" should citizens have that aliens shouldn't? (2)From the perspective of the global covenant, what agency, compact, facility, etc., should be the bearer of police powers? —— By answering these questions, we'll be in a much better position to appraise the alienage cases of the late 20th century.
It's reasonable –– especially since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 –– for citizens to wonder why our laws allow aliens to exist for protracted periods of time within the geographical jurisdiction of the united States, without their becoming citizens. It's also reasonable for citizens to wonder why our laws allow people born within the geographical jurisdiction of the united States to automatically be citizens, having all the privileges and benefits of citizenship even though they have never taken any kind of oath of allegiance or loyalty to the united States. —— In Yick Wo, Chinese were disallowed from becoming citizens, but they were simultaneously allowed to immigrate. This is a colossal piece of insanity comparable to claiming that all people have unalienable Rights, and simultaneously claiming that slavery –– an institution that exercises a denial of unalienable Rights –– is good and deserves to continue. If a Chinese, or anyone else, immigrates to the geographical jurisdiction of the united States, it should be mandated that they (i)submit themselves to being educated about how the united States functions, legally; and (ii)pledge themselves to abide by these laws while they're within this geographical jurisdiction. These two things should be minimal for anyone who migrates into this geographical jurisdiction, regardless of whether they intend to be citizens or not. If they intend to become citizens, then they should also (i)take an oath of allegiance and loyalty to the united States, and to the State where they reside; and (ii)commit to performing whatever obligations are inherent in being a citizen. If any immigrant refuses or is unable to go through this process, then they should be deported. For every person born within the geographical jurisdiction of the united States, when they reach the age of majority, they should be offered the opportunity to become a citizen. If they choose to be a citizen, then they should (i)submit themselves to the same education; (ii)pledge themselves to abide by the laws; (iii)take the same oath of allegiance; and (iv)commit to performing the same obligations. If they are unwilling or unable to do these four minimal things, then these people born within the geographical jurisdiction of the united States should be considered to have the legal status (i)of a denizen if they have perennial habitation within the United States,[note] and (ii)of an alien if they don't have perennial habitation. A denizen, in keeping with the global covenant, would have fundamental property rights, including the right to own land, but would not be able to exercise certain privileges retained by citizens, like voting, being a juror, holding any governmental office (including being an officer of a court, a lawyer), etc. So all denizens would be natural born. No one would be allowed to immigrate, by law, for the sake of procuring a denizen status. Denizens would be required to pay jural taxes, and would be able to register their property in the public records. But they would be people who refuse the privileges and obligations of full-blown citizenship (of being full-blown parties to the American social compact).[note] Every person born within the geographical jurisdiction of the united States, whose parents are either citizens or denizens, would be a natural born denizen, and the fact of perennial habitation would confirm this status. Citizenship status would be available only through consent. This is consistent with the fact that the united States is a social compact, and social compacts are established and maintained through consent.[note] To pretend that citizenship can come to anyone without consent is to pretend that this nation is some kind of monolithic entity that forces people to accept the obligations of citizenship without their consent. Out of all the obligations of citizenship, only submission to lawful jural taking / taxation would be the obligation of denizens with capacity. —— Part of this arrangement entails that legal aliens would be allowed to stay in this country for very limited periods of time. While here, they would have all their unalienable Rights, including the right to own land. But when they left the country, they would lose the ability to own land within the geographical jurisdiction of the united States, which means that they would need to sell it before they left the country, or forfeit all rights to it. To do otherwise, is to give foreigners, people who may desire the ultimate destruction of the united States, power over our destiny.
Before we address this question about police powers –– namely, where they should reside –– we should look at another case. "While the states have police powers to regulate health, safety, welfare, and morals, Yick Wo held that these powers were subject to the federal equal protection clause.".[note] Implementing this view, the supreme Court held in Truax v. Raich (1915) that a State law that used its police powers to force businesses to limit the number of aliens they hired to no more than 20%, violated the Equal Protection Clause. The State law violated the right to contract by forcing businesses to have limits on their employment contracts. It thereby violated the right to property by being a regulatory taking. The State law could have easily been struck down on those basic grounds. But the supreme Court chose to use the Equal Protection Clause instead, thereby limiting State police powers.
In Graham v. Richardson (1971), the supreme Court ruled that a State could not deny "welfare" benefits to aliens, based on the Equal Protection Clause. There are huge problems with this. First, given that each State, like the general government, is a secular social compact, it's obvious that the State collecting taxes for the sake of distributing them to "welfare" recipients is not lawful, from the perspective of the global covenant. This is because the consent of the tax giver is essential to this type of purpose, and it's extremely unlikely that such consent is common. Second, why should aliens be given "welfare"? If a private citizen, a private denizen, or a private religious social compact wants to provide money, housing, food, clothes, etc., to an alien, or to a class of aliens, or to anyone else, then this is not the concern of a secular social compact unless the benefit entails bloodshed. —— In Graham the supreme Court is limiting the State's police powers by mandating that the Equal Protection Clause is applicable to "welfare", and aliens. But this situation demands that we wonder not only about whether the Equal Protection Clause should be applied to "welfare" / aliens, and not only about whether the States should be providing "welfare" at all, but also, this situation demands that we wonder about whether the States should have full-blown police powers at all. Police powers traditionally entail the regulation of "health, safety, welfare, and morals". If the States are secular social compacts, then it appears that most of the ecclesiastical concerns embedded in police powers need to be "reserved … to the people",[note] more specifically, to religious social compacts.
In Plyler v. Doe (1982), the supreme Court held that children who were not born in the united States, and who were the offspring of illegal aliens, were deserving of a free public education. The State of Texas allowed school districts to forbid children of illegal aliens to attend public school. Texas attorneys claimed that illegal aliens are not "persons" covered by the 14th Amendment. The Court disagreed. Texas was forced to allow children of illegal aliens to attend their public schools. —— This case generates the same basic issues as Graham. Since each State is a secular social compact, and traditionally police powers were presumably "reserved" to the States, are we correct to wonder seriously about whether the States are the correct repository for police powers that are inherently ecclesiastical? In the case of Plyler, are the States lawfully collecting taxes to pay for public schools? From the perspective of the global covenant, the answer is an emphatic "No!". So the Equal Protection Clause may indeed apply to illegal aliens, and to their children. But the States have no business using the involuntary servitude of their tax payers to run secular, State-funded schools, regardless of whether the students are children of illegal aliens, children of legal aliens, children of ordinary citizens, or children of the president.[note]
The bankruptcy of a citizen living within one of the States –– and having no financial interests or obligations outside that State –– is an inherently commercial proceeding. But on its face, it falls outside the legal constraints of Article I § 8 cl 3. It falls outside the parameters of the Commerce Clause not because it is not damaging to someone's property, but because it falls exclusively within the sovereignty of the State, and does not cross State borders. For such exclusively intra-state bankruptcies, it appears that each State has the power and authority to maintain its own approach to addressing the bankruptcy. But for cases of bankruptcy in which the affected financial interests cross State borders, it's reasonable, according to Article I § 8 clause 3, for Congress to get involved. If we fail to strictly construe, and fail to recognize that this bankruptcy clause is limited to bankruptcies across State borders, then this clause becomes troublesome because it is again allowing Congress to build a monolithic government that is inherently callous to individual rights.[note] But this bankruptcy clause could be troublesome for us for other reasons also.
[T]he bankruptcy laws compel the discharge of a debtor's voluntarily contracted debts, and thereby invade the property rights of the creditors. The debtor who refuses to pay his debt has stolen the property of the creditor. … Bankruptcy laws, which discharge the debt in defiance of the property rights of the creditor, virtually confer a license to steal upon the debtor. In the premodern era, the defaulting debtor was generally treated as a thief and forced to pay as he acquired income.[note]
copyright © 2006, 2013 Charles Raleigh Porter, III
|Sections 1 thru 7|
|Clauses 6 thru 18|
|Clauses 2 & 3|
|Introduction to the Bill of Rights|
|Amendments II thru IV|
|Amendments VI thru IX|
|Amendments XI thru XXVII|
|De Facto Protestant
|De Facto Secular Humanist
|Boerne v. Flores|
"Parade of Horribles"
|Free Market Economics,
Property Acquisition, & the
Settlement of America
|Conclusion —— Takings Now|
|Declaration of Independence|
|A Memorandum of Law & Fact
|Memorandum of Law:
Involuntary Servitude, &
the Social Contract
|Theological & Custom|
|Maxims of the Global Covenant|