The Constitutional Case for NH Independence (CACR 32)

This is an e-mail I sent to NH state reps around Jan 26, 2022.

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RepFolk: Here are some reasons you should feel “Constitutionally comfortable” voting for CACR 32…the right of the people to vote on whether we keep being ruled by an empire that starts a new war at our expense every three years or so.

What’s nice about the U.S. Constitution is that you generally don’t have to be a “Constitutional scholar” to understand it.

1) The Tenth Amendment makes the U.S. Constitution innocent of banning independence, until proven guilty. It reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” By default, “the powers,” thus includes the power of states and/or their voters to divorce D.C. In order for the U.S. to lawfully wield a power preventing that, such power would have to be “delegated to the United States by the Constitution.” Where does that Constitution clearly grant such power to D.C.? Why are the “anti-independence” Constitutional passages cited so unclear on this question when compared to the clarity of “The Tenth?”

2) Even if we were to assume, for the sake of discussion, that the Constitutional arguments against independence were valid…that leaves a different problem for Remainers. No one could credibly argue that the U.S. government has complied with its Constitution…not even during the last two hours, let alone the last two centuries. Have they voided their contract, perhaps millions of times? If they are not required to follow their Constitution, why are we?

3) If one could argue that the U.S. Constitution forbids the public from voting on independence this year, one could just as easily argue that the pre-existing NH Constitution *demands* it this year. Article 10 reads: “…whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government.” Has Washington endangered – or not endangered – “public liberty?” Are you currently able to “redress” your grievances with D.C.?

4) You face, perhaps for the first time, legislation which would actually end the central government’s practice of running employment bans and overseas TORTURE CHAMBERS* at NH taxpayer expense. Why have some of your House colleagues apparently picked *this* moment to begin pretending they follow either Constitution?

Dave Ridley
NHexit.com
“Independence without enmity”

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagram_torture_and_prisoner_abuse