The Constitution is a parchment barrier to tyranny — if we use it

Sometimes, I look at the eyes of pundits on television, wide and full of righteous anger toward their conservative or liberal counterpart, and I feel hopeless.

The eyes reflect the hostility that so many Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike, feel for their own countrymen, as well as the very government that is supposed to represent them. The look in those eyes reflects that our country seems to be spiraling out of control, with a new political crisis or controversy every day, and D.C.-based politicians asserting more and more control over our everyday lives — taking more power for themselves and their friends, and leaving little for the people they’re supposed to represent.

The biggest losers in this ongoing drama are the American people.

{mosads}The look I so often see in the eyes of the talking heads, and all that it conveys, are good reasons for Americans to commemorate Constitution Day. On September 17, 1787, our brave and brilliant Founders signed the original seven articles of the Constitution. These articles established our political framework, our system of checks and balances, our independent branches of government — and offered us, the people, the power to change our government if it ever become unresponsive or overbearing.

This power rests in Article V of the Constitution, inserted two days before the end of the Constitutional Convention, which presents two ways of amending the Constitution. One of them is as follows:

“The Congress, … on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which … shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress.”

Although Article V is one of the shortest in the Constitution, that single paragraph is one of the most remarkable written by our Founders. Its prescient and empowering words give regular Americans the ability to exercise their moral obligation to rein in an out of control federal government.

By using that Constitutionally-provided tool, we can protect the foundation of self-government on which our nation was built, but which our Founders knew was fragile.

In Federalist Paper 48, James Madison warned us that the provisions of the Constitution were only “parchment barriers against the encroaching spirit of power.” He and the other Founders knew the only real protection for liberty and self-governance dwelled in the will of the people to fight for those values. Sometimes even the word fight feels overwrought in this divided political era.

What does the #Constitution say? Read the transcript: https://t.co/VXa94RhmXj #ConstitutionDay pic.twitter.com/O8XATM8Ac5

— US National Archives (@USNatArchives) September 16, 2017

We can be thankful the Founders gave us a tool to have that fight in a non-violent, Constitutional manner.  Now is the time to use the Constitution to save the Constitution, and to save our Republic.

The fundamental question of the day is not what should we do? — the question is who decides? The answer to that more important question is We the People.

By utilizing Article V to call a Convention of the States, we can let each state fully embrace the character and values of its own people. California can decide what’s best for its residents, which almost certainly won’t be what’s best for those in Mississippi.

It’s too late for one-size-fits all governance. We need local governance. Self-governance.    

On Constitution Day, we should resolve to restrain the scope, power and jurisdiction of the federal government so that we can save our nation. Resolve this Constitution Day to do your part to save this nation by calling for an Article V Convention of States.

Mark Meckler is the president of Citizens for Self-Governance, founder of the Convention of States Project, and a leading constitutional grassroots activist.