Article IV - Section I "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State."
Article V - "The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution"
This particular part of this series will cover two of the articles within the Constitution and will be the last part covering the individual articles as the final two articles numbers VI and VII cover the basic pretext of debts and the ratification of the Constitution.
Article IV specifically addresses the rights of the individual states and the rights under the Constitution that are afforded to individuals within those states. This article establishes that we as citizens have the same rights, privileges and immunities regardless of which state we reside or whether we choose to travel or move to any other state in the Union. Within this country our Constitutional rights and privileges are universal within the boundaries of this nation and we cannot be denied those rights by law.
At the time this was established by the Founders, this one article created a singularly new precedence for a nation or a collective of states. European law for example did not cross national boundaries and the individual provinces even within countries did not recognize many individual rights from one province to the next. One could feasibly find that when crossing into another province in ones own country they could violate a law that was legal within their home province.
Not so in The United States. Under our Constitution the laws of this land apply to every individual in an equal manner regardless of his home or the state that he may abide in. Equally so are the rights that are afforded us in the nation. These rights do not end at city or state boundaries but cross all boundaries and jurisdictional limits thus giving us freedom to travel and move without fear of violating an unknown law or having our freedoms denied because of our location.
The thirteenth Amendment changed a portion of Section 2 in Article IV as this amendment abolished the practice of slavery. Article IV stated that any, "person held in service or labour in one State, " would fall under the same consequences of law in the next State if they escaped. In abolishing slavery the thirteenth Amendment made this provision obsolete and unconstitutional.
The final Section of Article IV establishes that it is the duty of the federal government to guarantee that every state have the ability to have a, "Republican Form of Government, " which coincides with the Constitutional Republic that we live in and that each State shall be protected by the central federal government.
Article V establishes the Amendment provision for the Constitution. Any Amendment must be met with a two thirds majority in both the Senate and the House and then is passed on to the State Legislatures who then must also consist of a three fourths majority of the collective States in order for any amendment to become part of the Constitution.
The process to Amend the Constitution was deliberately created as an exhaustive and consuming process to prevent the amending from becoming not only politically based but fleeting with the whims and fancies of the time. By demanding a two thirds majority in the Congress and a three fourths in the States, amending the Constitution requires much contemplation, debate and consideration before any changes can be made.
This provision and the fact that the Constitution is as viable today as it was the day it was written are what truly constitutes the reference of the document as being, "a living breathing document." Many though see this phrase as a way of more or less bypassing the Constitutional provision of amending by liberally interpreting the Constitution rather than following the set procedure to adapt in accordance to societal changes.
The Founders realized that society and the needs of the nation would change as we grew as a country. Thus the exhaustive amendment process made the Constitution able to adapt to the changes that have and will take place in our society. Liberal interpretation of the Constitution has in many forms usurped the amendment process and made adaptations in the way the Constitution is used to bend to ideas or agendas that would not necessarily meet the Constitutional test. This very liberal interpretation has caused a basic dumbing down of America in knowing what the Constitution actually states and what the Founders intended when it was written. The majority of Americans now depend on their elected officials to interpret and define the Constitution rather than knowing it themselves. Liberal interpretation also allows for many misconceptions and the misleading of the nation as to what our rights and privileges are.
Several instances come to mind but one in particular that I will mention is the liberal interpretation of eminent domain. The Constitution provides for private property to be used for the ,"public good, " after the individual who owns the property is compensated fairly and due process is served accordingly. Today this is being liberally interpreted to allow developers to take private property to increase the tax base by building higher priced business or dwellings on that particular property. Many long held family homes and homesteads are falling to this unconstitutional practice.
The Founders realized that if changing the Constitution was a simple task then it would become common place for citizens to continually have our rights, freedoms and liberties abused and violated. Liberal interpretation is doing just that by bypassing the amendment process and twisting the true intent and meaning of the Constitution in order to fulfill an agenda or usurp and bend the law.
Ken Taylor
