The 17th Amendment – Saving Our Constitutional Republic
February 21st, 2012William J. Dell
Amore Dei, Familiae, Patriae ducit !
This article, though lengthy, is very important and needs to be understood by every citizen. It is only by repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment that We the People can restore the vertical separation of powers our Founding Fathers placed in our Constitution to prevent the federal government from being too strong and tyrannical.
Our Founding Fathers envisioned our nation as a Union of united States with a limited grant of power by We the People to the federal government. Their vision was that the several States governments would always remain stronger than the federal government. A vision they expressed and granted in Article I of the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment of our Bill of Rights. It was their vision that the federal government would only have power to deal with external issues of the several States. Issues requiring representation of the United States, as a whole, to other nations and issues between the several States, such as, interstate commerce.
The most hotly contested issue of the Constitutional Convention was James Madison’s inclusion in the Virginia Plan that the bicameral Congress be “proportional” based on population rather than each State having only one vote as set forth under the Articles of Confederation. It was so contentious, in fact, that the matter was tabled while all other proposals of the Virginia Plan were debated and decided. The issue for the small States was that they would have no effective voice against the large States who could push through any proposal by reason of their larger representation. The issue for the large States was that they felt that they were entitle to a greater voice because they represented a larger number of citizens.
To deal with this contentious issue, the Connecticut Compromise
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