Convention of the States…a Refute to a Runaway Convention

Many people are jumping on the Constitutional Convention bandwagon. I wanted to address a couple of issues with Michael Farris’ latest article about the Runaway Convention Myth.

In his article titled “Can We Trust the Constitution? Answering the Runaway Convention Myth”, he states that opponents to a Constitutional Convention claim two arguments, they are 1) “the delegates were instructed to merely amend the Articles of Confederation, but they wrote a whole new document and 2) The ratification process was improperly changed from 13 state legislatures to 9 state ratification conventions.

First, let’s straighten something out, Michael Farris should know better than the U.S. Constitution is the “supreme Law of the Land”…not the Supreme Law of the Land. The Declaration of the Independence references the “Supreme Judge of the world…” and our U.S. Constitution refers to the Supreme Court as the “supreme Court”. Our founders understood the limits of a manmade Constitution and the existence of a “higher law”.

Being the founder of a religious college, hopefully there’s no further explanation needed but it does explain why he’d support a Convention of the States in controlling the federal government. The understanding that there is a higher law is the reason there’s opposition to a Constitutional Convention.

You cannot control the actions or morals of individuals through manmade law.

According to the article, the delegates for both the Constitutional Convention and State ratifications conventions were selected by popular vote…which meant that state legislatures had no say in calling, conducting or ratifying our current Constitution. The claims were that they were instructed but were they instructed? That we are merely saying is that the delegates went to the convention and created a whole new document. Not sure if George Washington, Alexander Hamilton or Benjamin Franklin, necessarily needed direction in how to conduct the convention, they were elected by popular vote.

Whereas the Articles of Confederation may not have given the Continental Congress authority to “call” a convention, the U.S. Constitution does.

The fact that the number of states to ratify the Constitution was changed from 13 to 9 is the point.

We trust the Constitution; we don’t trust the current political process to fix a document that has endured centuries.

As Michael Farris is in good company with Ruth Bader Ginsburg as she wishes to change the Constitution also.