Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution -- All Federal Branches of Government Are Violating the One Guarantee Given In The Constitution

Last week, someone, who at this point remains anonymous, slipped in a rider to HR 933 (a 6-month funding bill intended to prevent the U.S. government from shutting down) that effectively nullified the ability or power of federal courts to stop companies like Monsanto from planting and selling genetically modified crops in the United States even when such products can be shown to pose a risk to public health.

The bill with the above mentioned rider has passed through Congress. It has been signed into law.

Prior to the vote, the foregoing rider should have been reviewed by the Committee on Agriculture, but it was not. The lone voice of opposition to the rider came from John Tester, a Democrat from Montana, and, yet, Tester's attempt to delete the rider from HR 933 was never put to a vote.

The passage of HR 933, along with legislation such as The Patriot Act, The Military Commissions Act, and National Defense Authorization Act, and numerous other pieces of legislation are all in clear violation of the Constitution. More specifically, Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution states: "The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government ..."

Nowhere else in the Constitution is the idea of a guarantee mentioned -- which means that Article IV, Section 4 has priority and supremacy over every other part of the Constitution ... even that of so-called National Security. Every single thing which is done by any of the three branches of Federal government must be capable of meeting the standards inherent in the guarantee of a republican form of government which is stated in Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution.

What is meant by the notion of a 'republican government' has nothing to do with the Republican party or, for that matter, the Democrats. Republicanism was a moral philosophy rooted in the Enlightenment, and it encompassed principles of: fairness, openness, honesty, objectivity, impartiality, rationality, integrity, compassion, justice, truth, freedom from all manner of corruption, and not serving as judges in one's own affairs.

Consequently, the biotech rider in HR 933, the Patriot Act, The Military Commissions Act, the National Defense Authorization Act, and many, if not most, of the Executive Orders that have been issued by the Office of the President (during a number of Administrations, including the present one) with respect to matters such as: torture, the use of drones, warrantless surveillance, undeclared wars (e.g., Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Syria), provisions for the suspension of all rights in relation to whatever future events might be trumped up as a 'national emergency' ... all of these are in violation of the most central and essential part of the Constitution: namely, Article 4, Section 4.

Whatever is hypothesized to be a matter of national security, or in the national interests, as well as whatever powers Congress, the Executive Office, or the Judiciary believe themselves to have -- as outlined in Articles I, II, and III of the Constitution -- are all subordinate to, and in the service of, the guarantee given in Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution. Moreover, in accordance with the guarantee of Article IV, Section 4, NONE of the three branches of federal government has the requisite authority to determine the meaning and scope of Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution, because one of the key requirements entailed by the moral philosophy of republicanism is that one must not be a judge in one's own affair, and, therefore, none of the three branches of federal government can have any legal standing in any matter in which they have a vested interest or conflict of interest that has the potential to undermine the intended protections of Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution for the people of the states of the union.

Article IV, Section 4, together with the 9th and 10th Amendment, clearly indicate that the people who comprise the various states of the union are the only ones who can establish the meaning and scope of Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution. Indeed, acknowledging the ultimate authority of the people as the source of all law -- and considered quite independently from the issue of alleged political representation -- this is the only means through which the federal government can guarantee that the states will be given a republican form of government because Article IV, Section 4 was intended to place a clear set of constraints on what any branch of federal government could and could not do ... in short, everything the branches of the federal government does or intends to do must satisfy the moral requirement of republicanism.

All of the enumerated powers given to any of the three branches of federal government under the provisions of Articles I, II, and III in the Constitution must comply with the guarantee given in Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution. In addition, the individual who holds the position of President may bear the designation of Commander in Chief, but this is only in relation to the military since the Commander in Chief, himself or herself, must act in consort with the guarantee stipulated in Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution.