ALN Vision

            The American Leadership Network (ALN) is an alliance of organizations and individuals dedicated to the Constitutional and spiritual restoration of the American Republic. America is presently faced with a crisis unlike any other since April, 19, 1775. Unless the American people address the present crisis and reverse the downward spiral of this great nation, we fear that like many nations before us, America will ultimately commit suicide and end up on the ash heap of history.

We are faced with the challenge of returning America to the ideals and principles of our Founding Fathers. The challenge before us is certainly a formidable one. Therefore, to succeed in our common goal, we must address the root of the problem, and then propose the most viable solution. United States Federal Judge Bill Pryor has clearly identified the crisis for us:

           “This crisis has two faces. First is the increasing secularization of our country, and second is the erosion of self-government. The primary catalyst for both trends is, in my judgment, the Supreme Court of the United States . . . Our challenge . . . in this next millennium will be to . . . restore the American experiment as understood by George Washington, James Madison and Abraham Lincoln.”

             Our Founding Fathers created the greatest form of government ever experienced by mankind. Former Great Britain Prime Minister W.E. Gladstone once said, “The American Constitution is, so far as I can see, the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.”Unfortunately, the Constitutional Republic created by our Founding Fathers, along with the moral/social system designed to support it, has been drastically altered by the Supreme Court without the consent of the American people. As a result, the Federal government has become the same type of tyrannical government that our Founding Fathers fought and died to defeat.                                   

            The question we have before us is, how do we restore the American experiment as understood by George Washington and James Madison? Since the U.S. Supreme Court is the primary reason for the erosion of self-government and the social ills that their rulings have created, we must first address this issue.

The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

Our Founding Fathers included this amendment to reassure the American people that the individual States and the people would retain all power not specifically given to the Federal government. This amendment guaranteed the American people that they would retain the right to govern their respective societies as they deemed best.

            However, since the mid 1920’s the Federal government has systematically, gradually and silently encroached upon the power originally placed into the hands of the state legislatures and state judiciaries by the Tenth Amendment. James Madison warned us that throughout history, when many countries have been taken over by tyrants, it wasn't always the result of bloody and violent uprisings, but more commonly through silent and gradual tactics that took away one freedom and one civil right at a time: 

“Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.”

             On November 22, 1994, thirty of our States’ Republican governors unanimously adopted the Williamsburg Resolve acknowledging that the Federal government has clearly violated the Constitutional jurisdiction placed upon it. In it, they said:  “The challenges to the liberties of the people . . . come from our own Federal government that has defied, and now ignores, virtually every constitutional limit fashioned by the framers to confine its reach and thus to guard the freedoms of the people” and that “Federal action has exceeded the clear bounds of . . . the Constitution, and thus violated the rights guaranteed to the people.”             

            Our Founding Fathers realized that you can only appeal to tyrants for so long before we must take matters in our own hands. Therefore, the only recourse that the American people have left is for each state to pass a constitutional amendment that boldly declares to the Federal government that, in America, the people are to be the true rulers.  As Alexander Hamilton once declared, “Here, Sir, the people govern.”           

            It is the recommendation of the American Leadership Network, that each state declare its intention to the Federal government that it intends to restore and retain the power, sovereignty and the jurisdiction granted to the states and the American people under Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution which guarantees to every state in the union, a republican form of governmentIt is furthermore the recommendation of the American Leadership Network that each state declare their intentions by passing the following state Constitutional amendment:    

Section 1 - That each State in the Union shall retain its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not by this Constitution expressly delegated to the Federal Government of the United States. 

Section 2 - All power to suspend the execution of state laws and state Constitutions by any member of the federal judiciary, without the consent of the representatives of the people, is injurious to their rights, and ought not to be exercised. 

This type of proposal for a constitutional amendment that will essentially put an end to judicial tyranny is not new. Robert Bork, the conservative American legal scholar nominated by President Ronald Reagan, had this to say in his 1996 book Slouching Toward Gomorrah about the need for the American people to essentially declare political independence from the unconstitutional rulings of the Supreme Court:

“There appears to be only one means by which the Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, can be brought back to constitutional legitimacy. That would be a Constitutional amendment making any federal or state court decision subject to being overruled by a majority vote of each house of Congress. The mere suggestion of such a remedy would bring down cries that this would endanger our freedoms. To the contrary, as already noted, it is the courts that are not merely endangering our freedom, but actually depriving us of them, particularly our most precious freedom, the freedom to govern ourselves democratically . . . The United Kingdom has developed and retained freedom without judicial review.”

             The American Leadership Network recommends the course of action proposed in the book The Rise of America: Fighting the Next American Revolution and the Constitutional Crisis,  that each state that has the authority to have such an amendment placed on the ballot as a referendum do so for the 2008 presidential election cycle. Those states whose constitution does not allow for the state’s constitution to be amended by popular referendum need to have these amendments proposed in their respective state legislatures. The time for inaction is over. We must adopt the attitude of William Jennings Bryan, who once said:

“We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of conquest; we are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned; we have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded; we have begged, and they have mocked… We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them!”