#txcot

If you didn't do so during Early Voting, go vote in the Primary Run-Off elections. There are several major statewide races to be decided and a few county offices as well. 

By no stretch of language is an Article V Convention of States with a limited purpose of reigning in the Federal government abuses and officials a Constitutional Convention. A Constitutional Convetnion is the rewriting of the whole governing document as the Framers were given the task to amend the Articles of Confederation, "to render the constitution of the Federal Government adequate for the exigencies of the Union." A limited Convention of States is meant to perfect our governing document.

Constitutional Convention was a term used by a radical Liberal Justice Burger and other Liberal cohorts to silence states from using their authority to overturn their decisions.

Nullification is not a right of the States. Why are we calling to assert a purely theoretical right? Convening to propose IS a right. States cannot act as a legislative and judiciary above the Federal level as Virginia was rightly rebuked for putting forth its resolution to nullify. People authorize the Constitution's powers, not the States.

Texas did not call an Article V Convention in 1977, as it is not listed in a database of called Conventions. There are 27 resolutions in the 2012 Republican platform a Convention of States can potentially fulfill.

This, as Mark Levin says, is Federalism at work.

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Sadly I was not able to cite all of the rich resources I listed above, This speech or resources are just the surface of the wealth of knowledge that is becoming available in regard to the history and understanding of the Article V process. I'd encourage everyone to check out Convention of States, Rob Natelson, and the ongoing series on RightScoop.

I gave my speech in favor of an amendment to strike new language from Collin County's proposed revisions to the 2012 Republican platform that opposes a Constitutional Conventions. In my opinion, the revisions equate two vastly different things, and cuts off our chance to stop the encroachment of the Federal government. Our amendment was defeated but I feel confident that our testimonies encouraged others to seriously look at the matter.

The Unanimous Declaration of Independence made by the Delegates of the People of Texas in General Convention at the town of Washington on the 2nd day of March 1836.

When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty and property of the people, from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for the advancement of whose happiness it was instituted, and so far from being a guarantee for the enjoyment of those inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression.

When the Federal Republican Constitution of their country, which they have sworn to support, no longer has a substantial existence, and the whole nature of their government has been forcibly changed, without their consent, from a restricted federative republic, composed of sovereign states, to a consolidated central military despotism, in which every interest is disregarded but that of the army and the priesthood, both the eternal enemies of civil liberty, the everready minions of power, and the usual instruments of tyrants.

When, long after the spirit of the constitution has departed, moderation is at length so far lost by those in power, that even the semblance of freedom is removed, and the forms themselves of the constitution discontinued, and so far from their petitions and remonstrances being regarded, the agents who bear them are thrown into dungeons, and mercenary armies sent forth to force a new government upon them at the point of the bayonet.

When, in consequence of such acts of malfeasance and abdication on the part of the government, anarchy prevails, and civil society is dissolved into its original elements. In such a crisis, the first law of nature, the right of self-preservation, the inherent and inalienable rights of the people to appeal to first principles, and take their political affairs into their own hands in extreme cases, enjoins it as a right towards themselves, and a sacred obligation to their posterity, to abolish such government, and create another in its stead, calculated to rescue them from impending dangers, and to secure their future welfare and happiness.

Nations, as well as individuals, are amenable for their acts to the public opinion of mankind. A statement of a part of our grievances is therefore submitted to an impartial world, in justification of the hazardous but unavoidable step now taken, of severing our political connection with the Mexican people, and assuming an independent attitude among the nations of the earth.

The Mexican government, by its colonization laws, invited and induced the Anglo-American population of Texas to colonize its wilderness under the pledged faith of a written constitution, that they should continue to enjoy that constitutional liberty and republican government to which they had been habituated in the land of their birth, the United States of America.

In this expectation they have been cruelly disappointed, inasmuch as the Mexican nation has acquiesced in the late changes made in the government by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who having overturned the constitution of his country, now offers us the cruel alternative, either to abandon our homes, acquired by so many privations, or submit to the most intolerable of all tyranny, the combined despotism of the sword and the priesthood.

It has sacrificed our welfare to the state of Coahuila, by which our interests have been continually depressed through a jealous and partial course of legislation, carried on at a far distant seat of government, by a hostile majority, in an unknown tongue, and this too, notwithstanding we have petitioned in the humblest terms for the establishment of a separate state government, and have, in accordance with the provisions of the national constitution, presented to the general Congress a republican constitution, which was, without just cause, contemptuously rejected.

It incarcerated in a dungeon, for a long time, one of our citizens, for no other cause but a zealous endeavor to procure the acceptance of our constitution, and the establishment of a state government.

It has failed and refused to secure, on a firm basis, the right of trial by jury, that palladium of civil liberty, and only safe guarantee for the life, liberty, and property of the citizen.

It has failed to establish any public system of education, although possessed of almost boundless resources, (the public domain,) and although it is an axiom in political science, that unless a people are educated and enlightened, it is idle to expect the continuance of civil liberty, or the capacity for self government.

It has suffered the military commandants, stationed among us, to exercise arbitrary acts of oppression and tyrrany, thus trampling upon the most sacred rights of the citizens, and rendering the military superior to the civil power.

It has dissolved, by force of arms, the state Congress of Coahuila and Texas, and obliged our representatives to fly for their lives from the seat of government, thus depriving us of the fundamental political right of representation.

It has demanded the surrender of a number of our citizens, and ordered military detachments to seize and carry them into the Interior for trial, in contempt of the civil authorities, and in defiance of the laws and the constitution.

It has made piratical attacks upon our commerce, by commissioning foreign desperadoes, and authorizing them to seize our vessels, and convey the property of our citizens to far distant ports for confiscation.

It denies us the right of worshipping the Almighty according to the dictates of our own conscience, by the support of a national religion, calculated to promote the temporal interest of its human functionaries, rather than the glory of the true and living God.

It has demanded us to deliver up our arms, which are essential to our defence, the rightful property of freemen, and formidable only to tyrannical governments.

It has invaded our country both by sea and by land, with intent to lay waste our territory, and drive us from our homes; and has now a large mercenary army advancing, to carry on against us a war of extermination.

It has, through its emissaries, incited the merciless savage, with the tomahawk and scalping knife, to massacre the inhabitants of our defenseless frontiers.

It hath been, during the whole time of our connection with it, the contemptible sport and victim of successive military revolutions, and hath continually exhibited every characteristic of a weak, corrupt, and tyrranical government.

These, and other grievances, were patiently borne by the people of Texas, untill they reached that point at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. We then took up arms in defence of the national constitution. We appealed to our Mexican brethren for assistance. Our appeal has been made in vain. Though months have elapsed, no sympathetic response has yet been heard from the Interior. We are, therefore, forced to the melancholy conclusion, that the Mexican people have acquiesced in the destruction of their liberty, and the substitution therfor of a military government; that they are unfit to be free, and incapable of self government.

The necessity of self-preservation, therefore, now decrees our eternal political separation.

We, therefore, the delegates with plenary powers of the people of Texas, in solemn convention assembled, appealing to a candid world for the necessities of our condition, do hereby resolve and declare, that our political connection with the Mexican nation has forever ended, and that the people of Texas do now constitute a free, Sovereign, and independent republic, and are fully invested with all the rights and attributes which properly belong to independent nations; and, conscious of the rectitude of our intentions, we fearlessly and confidently commit the issue to the decision of the Supreme arbiter of the destinies of nations.

If you didn’t get a chance to make it Tuesday night to the North Texas Yrs hosted Lt. Governor debate, here are a few excerpts to summarize:

I'm running for reelection to stay #1 and provide more economic opportunities for us & children. @DavidHDewhurst #txyrdebate #txyrs #txgop

— Collin County YRs (@CCYRTX)

November 13, 2013

We need a Lt Gov with energy passion conservative record to help steer Texas in the right direction @DanPatrick #txyrdebate #txyrs #txgop

— Collin County YRs (@CCYRTX)

November 13, 2013

I'm gonna be the 'get 'er done' conservative as Lt Gov. @Patterson4TX #txyrdebate #txyrs #txgop

— Collin County YRs (@CCYRTX)

November 13, 2013

I want to capture the passion of young people to make an impact in our state. @Todd_Staples #txyrdebate #txyrs #txgop

— Collin County YRs (@CCYRTX)

November 13, 2013

The candidates fielded questions about: banning texting while driving, abortion, appointments of committee chairmans, the 2/3 rule, mileage or raising gas taxes, border security and issues on the Economic Stabilization Fund.

Role of gov is not to interfere w/private lives if it doesn't effect another. @DanPatrick #txyrdebate #txyrs #txgop

— Collin County YRs (@CCYRTX)

November 13, 2013

We need to find ways to protect life & women at same time. Need culture of Life here. @Todd_Staples #txyrdebate #txyrs #txgop

— Collin County YRs (@CCYRTX)

November 13, 2013

Ds don't rule Senate. Have Ds chairmanships because of the Sen rules. @DavidHDewhurst #txyrdebate #txyrs #txgop

— Collin County YRs (@CCYRTX)

November 13, 2013

All diversions of taxes should end and stop kicking can through bonds @Patterson4TX #txyrdebate #txyrs #txgop

— Collin County YRs (@CCYRTX)

November 13, 2013

If you would like to learn more about each candidate check out their websites:

Lt. Governor David Dewhurst

Senator Dan Patrick

Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson

Commissioner of Agriculture Todd Staples

Join the Collin, Dallas, Denton, and NE Tarrant Young Republicans, as we host the four candidates seeking the nomination.