Bob Bird: Of treaties and the U.S. Constitution

By BOB BIRD

            “This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state notwithstanding.”

So reads Article VI of the U. S. Constitution. Right now, the very sovereignty (which means “no higher authority”) of the United States is at risk, and Article VI is at the center of it.

The traitorous and lying dolt currently exercising the powers of the presidency, is negotiating a deal with the World Health Organization through an “executive agreement” over health powers that would have America submit to the dictates of global “health” bureaucrats. 

And, as usual, the fight of “original intent” v. “current interpretation” continues to rear its ugly head, causing disunity and confusion. Any fair reading of American history would tell a careful historian that the federal Constitution was never much of a unifying factor, and right from the beginning. The fact that the union of states endured numerous crises, both before and after the failed War for Southern Independence, is proof enough that the document’s interpretation, whether proper or phony, could lead to great trouble. 

And, of course, the misnamed “civil war” itself demonstrated that this disagreement of interpretation had the ability to lead to massive self-destruction still unmatched in our bloody history. After all, the South, along with many northern politicians, editors and even three former presidents, contended that secession was perfectly constitutional, and Lincoln just the opposite. 

A fair reading of Article VI would know the operative phrase: the laws which shall be made in pursuance of the Constitution. Ergo, laws made in defiance of the Constitution would be null and void, something Jefferson, Madison and Calhoun certainly understood with the doctrine of state nullification, which all three famously advocated.

But consider the obvious absurdity: would any constitution write into itself a mode of self-destruction, one that would forfeit the sovereignty not only of the federal but the state governments? And at the time (in 1788) when states were justly jealous of their sovereignty and fearful of a newly created central power?

What then, was the “original intent” of Article VI?

In the Treaty of Paris that ended the War for Independence, the British were extremely generous, not contending ownership of the lands west of the Appalachians, that they had won by conquest in the French and Indian War in the 1760s. The western American boundary was to extend to the Mississippi River.

In exchange the Americans conceded that the properties seized from American Loyalists (Tories) by state governments and torchlight mobs would be compensated to the survivors and their estates. Certainly, popular wisdom completely understood that to keep such neighbors in their midst would be directly harmful to not only the cause of independence, but to their own peace and safety. But just as certainly, the loss of the Loyalists’ property rights, if not their very lives, was also unjust.

This, however, led to tremendous difficulties. Many states refused to be party to such a compensation. Not all confiscations were authorized, but a result of mob rule. The states had already been greatly pressed, in blood and treasure, to win independence, and compensating the losing side in a war seemed ridiculous. In fact, the people would certainly resist local taxation done for this object, and so states wrote into their constitutions, charters and laws the guarantees that no such thing would be allowed to happen.

And how could it ever be collected, anyway? Many Tories had gone west into the Ohio Valley and were eager to keep their previous loyalties to the crown a secret. Others had found refuge in maritime Canada and even England. How would they be identified? Who were their rightful descendants, entitled to estate compensation? And where were they now?

The failure to compensate Loyalists contributed to the next war with England in 1812. Because of this failure, the British — playing tit-for-tat — kept possession of American soil and the forts in the Great Lakes, trading with the western tribes, and ostensibly using the wealth from this resource to compensate the estates of the Loyalists, a full generation after independence.

Thus, Article VI was a noble, if failed, effort for the federal government to abide its treaty obligations contracted under the Articles of Confederation. It was a signal sent to the potentates of Europe that America would be a responsible member of the world community. Just as likely, the federal government knew all along that it would never be enforced, but as the Constitution acknowledged that all acts and laws made under the Articles would be honored, it had to do so with treaties.

It would be bad enough if the health powers were surrendered to an international entity even after a treaty was approved by the U.S. Senate, which requires 67 of the 100 members. In a culture that still possessed common sense, the states would rightly resist such a nefarious treaty, and right down to counties and municipalities, where the authentic health powers exist. But now local government has been compromised by the federal inflation purse, with a trillion dollars’ worth of “free” money that they are fully aware has become a vital source of revenue. 

With this confidence, even if unfounded, the charlatans in Washington would tell us that a mere “executive agreement” would have the same power, simply because, well, that is how the American presidency has morphed into a dictatorship.

The Covid Capers are not over. We face a looming nightmare of the first order.

Bob Bird is chair of the Alaskan Independence Party and the host of a talk show on KSRM radio, Kenai.

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