Constitutions To Go – epub e-books

Thomas Jefferson, for one, believed that the only safe repository for democracy was an enlightened (educated) voter, combined with wise and honest officials. He believed that citizens needed “to know his rights; to exercize with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor, and judgment;”

Citizenship means far more than having a piece of paper proving you are a citizen. The single most important obligation a citizen has to this country is that of exercising the Franchise with fidelity to the Constitution and “The Great Experiment”, for the good of ourselves and our Posterity.

I shudder to think how many people do not know what “The Great Experiment” is, or that they play a role in its continuation or its demise.

What to do? Get to know your Constitution, including your State constitution.

In the course of researching laws and legislation, I discovered that there are considerable differences in how the states present their constitutions online. Most are published by the state, some states outsource the job. They might be web pages, PDFs, or even Word documents. Some are searchable or downloadable, others are neither.

There is also a distinct lack of consistency in structure and formatting and even detail. That makes it very difficult to compare them.

I am in the process of converting the state constitutions into epub format. A format that can be carried in a smartphone or tablet.

My first book is The Constitution of the United States, including the Amendments, and the Declaration of Independence thrown in for good measure. It is formatted for ease of reading and reference, is searchable, and has a handy Table of Contents. Download a copy to take with you, so you always have it handy for reference.

I have set up a folder on Google Drive to put them in, as I finish them.

Short Link to this post

3/07/2017 Update: I have updated the reference-formatted version of the US Constitution, and added a traditionally formatted version.

 

We The People, part 1

We the People

The very first words of our Constitution, writ far larger than all others. And why not, for what is the foundation of a nation if not it’s people?

Governments rise and governments fall. Constitutions are replaced. Businesses form and last for a moment, a generation, a lifetime… but not forever. Partnerships dissolve. Businesses go bankrupt. The people remain.

It is the people who abide and endure when all else fails.

We the People, and the land we claim for our own, ARE the country.

“Nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of government, and it is equally undeniable, that whenever and however it is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights in order to vest it with requisite powers.”

John Jay, Federalist 2

Where there is unlimited liberty, there is inevitable conflict between the competing liberties of multiple individuals. To participate in a human society, some restraint is required. Even animal communities have their rules. Humans are more complex, and need more complex rules. Society exists on the premise that more liberties can be preserved through common cause than can be preserved by the individual alone. The effectiveness of society could be measured by the degree of liberties preserved v.s. the degree of liberties ceded in their defense.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,”

Declaration of Independence.

The consent of the governed, the consent of We the People. – The fundamental restraint on the powers vested in the government. The power of government can only be Just when nothing comes between the citizens of this country and their right, their unalienable right, to exercise that restraint. To allow others to interfere with that restraint, or to exert their own restraints on our government, is to surrender to them a portion of our sovereignty and the portion of our liberties ceded to government so that it can function on our behalf.

• Shortlink: We The People, part 1

 

 

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