“A Republic, If You Can Keep It.” B. Franklin

(Recent) Historic Backdrop

1. January 3, 2019, CNN Politics — New NY attorney general vows to target Trump | New York’s new Attorney General Letitia James campaigned on investigating President Trump and his business dealings. CNN’s Athena Jones reports.
   • NBC News, September 3, 2024 — Ex-top aide to N.Y. Gov. Kathy Hochul was a secret Chinese agent, prosecutors say
   • NY Post, October 2, 2022 — Kathy Hochul’s pay-to-play scandals make her unfit for New York governor
   • NY Post, September 28, 2022 — ‘Would do that all again’: Hochul doubles down on $637M ‘pay-to-play’ deal
2. December 20, 2021, CNN Politics — New Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg pledges to focus on Trump investigations
3. August 26, 2022, New York Post — Kathy Hochul’s call for 5.4M Republicans to leave New York is dangerous and disgusting

The premier duty of all governments is to secure our rights.

The Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776 states this.

“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, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.“

National Archives — Declaration of Independence: A Transcription

Bradley J. Birzer, in a post titled, Four Tenets of Republicanism: A No-Frills Primer, superbly describes the tenets. He lists them as Virtue, Property, The Right To Defend, and The Fear Of Power.

Presumption of Innocence

This important presumption is not explicitly in the Constitution. A presumption of innocence has its foundation in the Bill of Rights.

• Amendment V — No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
• Amendment VI — In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
• Amendment XIV, Section 1 — All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

A presumption of innocence is not a right implied by the Constitution; it is a principle of American jurisprudence that rests on the Constitution.

Sometimes referred to as a “fundamental right,” the presumption of innocence can be traced back through centuries of legal precedent. The presumption was a foundational precept in Anglo-Saxon law: “Throughout the web of the English criminal law one golden thread is always to be seen that it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner’s guilt.” Likewise, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which they have had all the guarantees necessary for their defense.”

Although the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly refer to the presumption of innocence, the presumption is implicit in the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth amendments.

In the adjudication context, this means:

1. The prosecution in a criminal trial must prove all elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
2. The defendant is not required to testify, call witnesses, or present evidence in his defense. The defendant’s decision not to testify or present evidence, cannot be used as an indication of his guilt.
3. The trier of fact is forbidden from drawing any inference of guilt from the fact the defendant has been charged with a crime. The jury and judge must decide the case solely on the evidence presented during the trial.

CENTER FOR PROSECUTOR INTEGRITY—CORNERSTONE OF JUSTICE

Lawfare vis-à-vis the Republican Form of Government

What is lawfare? The Cambridge English Dictionary definition: the use of legal action to cause problems for an opponent. The Collins dictionary definition: (1) the strategic use of legal proceedings to intimidate or hinder an opponent.

Article IV, Section 4 stipulates, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government…”

Opinion

Founding Father Benjamin Franklin was asked what form of government we were to have. He stated, “A republic if you can keep it.”

A democracy, the mantra of the Democrats, enables a simple majority of one to override the opposing 49%.

James Madison traveled to Philadelphia in 1787 with Athens on his mind. He had spent the year before the Constitutional Convention reading two trunkfuls of books on the history of failed democracies, sent to him from Paris by Thomas Jefferson. Madison was determined, in drafting the Constitution, to avoid the fate of those “ancient and modern confederacies,” which he believed had succumbed to rule by demagogues and mobs.

Madison’s reading convinced him that direct democracies—such as the assembly in Athens, where 6,000 citizens were required for a quorum—unleashed populist passions that overcame the cool, deliberative reason prized above all by Enlightenment thinkers. “In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever characters composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason,” he argued in The Federalist Papers, the essays he wrote (along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay) to build support for the ratification of the Constitution. “Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.”

National Constitution Center | Excerpt, September 12, 2018: America Is Living James Madison’s Nightmare

A nationwide failure of public education to teach a true historical foundation of our country positions our national future on a precipitous ledge.

The republican form of government dates from 1446 B.C. The basis for the representative republican form of government was first recorded in Exodus 18:13-27.

An oft-repeated lie of the enemies of our republic is a false claim our founding fathers were agnostics and atheists. Nothing is farther from the truth.

The laws set forth in the U.S. Constitution did not emerge out of a moral vacuum unrelated to the writers’ own beliefs, but rather are the product of the reasonings of those who created it. By their own words, the Founding Fathers were not neutral on the question of religion as the basis of government and society.

For example, in a letter to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, John Adams writes, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Noah Webster stated, “The moral principles and precepts contained in the scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.”

Delegate Governor Morris of Pennsylvania forthrightly professed, “I believe that religion is the only solid base of morals, and that morals are the only possible support of free governments. Therefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man towards God.”

Excerpt from: The Classroom, an article posted by Tamara Christine Van Hooser, May 10, 2019 — How Did the Bible Influence the U.S. Constitution?

President John Adams observed: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Un-American politicians, deep-state bureaucrats, and willingly ignorant of our foundations greatly imperil our individual and collective freedoms.

Knowledge is Power.

John White
Rockwall, Texas