The serious flaw with the National Convention method for amending the Constitution is that it leaves Congress in charge of the amending process at two critical points: namely, at the beginning and the end of the National Convention. Look again at the relevant portion of Article V with the extraneous wording excised away:
[O]n the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, [Congress] shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which shall be valid as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress.
Observe that the word ‘Congress’ occurs twice. It is noteworthy that Article V says that Congress gets to specify how whatever the Nation Convention proposes is to be ratified; but what is more crucial is that Article V states: “Congress shall call a Convention…” It is Congress, not the various State Legislatures, that calls the National Convention. This means it is Congress, not the various State Legislatures, that initiates the National Convention; and in doing so it would be derelict of Congress if it did not specify what is meant by the National Convention that it is calling inasmuch as it is not specified by the Constitution. This implies that Congress can specify:
- When and where the National Convention will meet;
- How the delegates are to be allocated, for example, the same number from each State (as was essentially the case for the 1787 Constitutional Convention), or some other way; and
- How the delegates are to be chosen, for example, by the State Legislatures or some other method.
It is true that Congress will lose control over a National Constitutional Convention (from here on the ‘National Convention’ is called the ‘National Constitutional Convention’ for the sake of extra clarity) when and if one were ever to actually get underway, but it may not be for lack of opportunity and perhaps effort in trying.
Let’s consider what a National Constitutional Convention might look like in this present day and age. Once such a convention is called and authorized for the purpose of proposing Constitutional amendments for at least three fourth of the states to ratify, and the delegates are chosen and come together to commence the convention, what is likely to happen? On a good day the delegates might break up and form groups to draft various amendments, for example a term limits amendment, a balanced amendment, plus various amendments to strengthen the perfectly clear language in the original and actual Constitution that the Supreme Court has deliberately perverted in order to bow to political exigencies pertinent at various times. As complexities of amending the Constitution, which was originally written nearly a quarter of a millennium ago and has since already accreted 27 amendments, arise, a mood might sweep through the convention to essentially start with a clean sheet of paper and commence to write an all new constitution. This is approximately what happened when the Constitutional Convention gathered together in Philadelphia in 1787. It should be remembered that the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was called to fix deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation, but once it got underway the delegates completely turned their back on the Articles of Confederation and came up with an entirely new Constitution; namely, our present US Constitution. Some might suggest that if that were to happen again that might not be a bad idea. Actually, that would be a terrible idea. The statesmen who gathered in Independence Hall in Philadelphia in 1787 were the wisest and most honorable men of our nation, who essentially had just a few years earlier midwifed, at great cost and with terrible trials, personally as well as for the whole nation, the independence of our original thirteen colonies from the tyrannical control of the strongest nation in the world at that time. They were selected by their various states as their wisest guardians of our newly established independence; and they were dedicated to securing that precious independence as well as possible. Our nation, and indeed the whole world, is extremely fortunate that such a group of extraordinary statesmen gathered in 1787 and produced the US Constitution. The idea that, if a similar gathering were to occur in the twenty-first century, such a felicitously beneficial Constitution would again result is absolutely absurd. First of all, it is abundantly obvious that if a National Constitutional Convention were called by Congress as described above, it would either be populated by the same animalistic partisans that make up the ruling class in the first place, or by minions under their influence. Neither case presents a favorable start for a Constitutional Convention; it would far more likely result in a completely new and different Constitution tailor-made for a disempowered citizenry with its natural rights constitutionally curtailed or eliminated and even more effectively controlled by the ruling class. Lest one be inclined to dismiss the possibility of such an outcome from a National Constitutional Convention, one needs to know that at least two Progressive organizations have each already created their own replacement constitutions – namely, the Constitution for the Newstates of America [1], and the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America [2] – each of which is all ready to go and to supplant the US Constitution, and which will vastly fortify a new central national government and the Progressive ruling class, and demolish what is left of our republic and replace it with a statist form of government, securing and enshrining the offices of elitists at the expense of the rest of the citizens. This is why in this present day and age a National Constitutional Convention is such a risky undertaking.
1 http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/concon/newstates.htm
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/master_file/newstatesconstitution.htm
2 https://revcom.us/socialistconstitution/
