Full Text of Kansan Sovereignty Legislation: Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 1615

Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 1615

By Senators Pilcher-Cook, Abrams, Apple, Barnett, Brownlee, Bruce, Colyer, Donovan, Emler, Huelskamp, Kelsey, Lynn, Marshall, Master- son, McGinn, Morris, Ostmeyer, Petersen, Pyle, D. Schmidt, Schodorf, Taddiken, Vratil and Wagle

A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION claiming sovereignty under the
Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over cer-
tain powers; serving notice to the federal government to cease and
desist certain mandates; providing that certain federal legislation be
prohibited or repealed; and directing distribution.

WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States reads as follows:
‘‘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.’’; and

WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal
power as being that specifically granted by the Constitution of the United
States and no more; and

WHEREAS, The scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment
means that the federal government was created by the states for the
specific purpose of being an agent of the states; and

WHEREAS, Today, in 2009, the states are demonstrably treated as
agents of the federal government; and

WHEREAS, Many federal laws are in direct violation of the Tenth
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; and

WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment assures that we, the people of
the United States of America and each sovereign state in the Union of
States, now have, and have always had, rights the federal government may
not usurp; and

WHEREAS, Article IV, Section 4 says, ‘‘The United States shall guar-
antee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government’’,
and the Ninth Amendment states that ‘‘The enumeration in the Consti-
tution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others
retained by the people’’; and

WHEREAS, The United States Supreme Court has ruled in New York
v. United States, 112 S. Ct. 2408 (1992), that Congress may not simply
commandeer the legislative and regulatory processes of the states; and

WHEREAS, A number of proposals from previous administrations
and some now pending from the present administration and from Con-
gress may further violate the Constitution of the United States.

Be it resolved by the Senate of the State of Kansas, the House of Representatives
concurring therein: That the State of Kansas hereby claims
sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to
the federal government by the Constitution of the United States;

Be it further resolved: That this serve as Notice and Demand to the
federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immedi-
ately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally del-
egated powers;

Be it further resolved: That all compulsory federal legislation which
directs states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties or sanc-
tions or requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding be pro-
hibited or repealed; and

Be it further resolved: That a copy of this resolution be distributed
to the President of the United States, the President of the United States
Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the
Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate of each state’s
legislature of the United States of America, and each member of the
Kansas Congressional Delegation.

Kansas to Declare Sovereignty

Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook has introduced a bill that will declare Kansan sovereignty via the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Bill 1615, while not yet passed, reads as follows:

"Be it resolved by the Senate of the State of Kansas, the House of Representatives concurring therein: That the State of Kansas hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States; Be it further resolved: That this serve as Notice and Demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers;"

Recent Poll Results

A unanimous vote for the independent states of Kansas and Oklahoma to join the Republic of Texas in the event of a secession, on the condition that the states retain total sovereignty, has been cast.
While this union of states is entirely hypothetical and, at least for now, just-for-fun, what would a plausible appellation be for such a political body?

My current thought would be for something along the lines of "The United Republics of Texas", but one must keep in mind that such a union would be for the benefit of the three states, and not just for Texas. Each state would contribute to the whole: Kansas being the main crop provider, as it is "America's Breadbasket"; Texas being the main oil and trade provider, as it is rich in "Texas Tea"; and Oklahoma providing... cool license plates.

All name suggestions will go into the next poll.

Montana: The Firearm Freedom State

(Oddly similar to the Kansan flag)

Montana has been on the sunny side of the Second Amendment since it signed on to the U.S. Constitution when it became a state in 1889.

Most recently, it played a major role in the D.C. gun-ban Supreme Court case, with its legislature basically stating that they would consider secession if the Supreme Court ruled against the Second Amendment, since Montana became a state on the condition that the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual's right to keep and bear arms.

Now comes the news that Montana has a bill that has passed the Montana House of Representatives that would exempt all Montana made firearms in the hands of Montana citizens from Federal gun laws.

More and more we are seeing a new era in our country's history, a new state's rights era; an era that may prove to be the largest genuine movement of discontent among the states in America since the 1860's.

And it's about time, too! Now Kansas is suspending income tax refunds due to insufficient funds! Now is the time for the states to take back control for the people, the control guaranteed to them by the Tenth Amendment and the very nature of our form of government.

The full legislation may be read at American Memorandum.

New Poll

"Should Kansas and Oklahoma join the Republic of Texas in the case of a Secession?"

If you have a different answer, or if you have a comment on the poll, please give it in the comments box.

The UnUnited States of America

This is a simple map showing how many states have declared themselves a sovereign state and how many are planning such a measure.

I think we can just forget about California, though; it doesn't count. (Kidding!)

Kansas appears to be preparing legislation, much to my delight, as well as the rest of the central states.

There has been some discussion around my house about Kansas and Oklahoma joining the Republic of Texas in an alliance of states, since Texas has a greater GDP than many countries its size.

But what would such an alliance be called? The United States of Texas? The Texan Alliance of States? The Texan Confederation? The Republic and Commonwealths of Texas? The possibilities are endless.

For ten years, the Republic of Texas was a sovereign nation, the only state in the Union to previously be so. Its borders encompassed parts of Oklahoma and Kansas in its brighter days, as well as New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming, before Texas was annexed to the Union.

If or when the U.S. falls, will we have another secession era?
Most likely, I would say; what is questionable, though, is what factions will side with whom?

State of the Republic Announcement

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit." ~ Abraham Lincoln, (speech in Congress January 1848).

This defines the American ideology of absolute freedom. As the farmer of old tossed the reigns of his plow horse about his back and shoved the plow through the sod, so does mankind bind himself to his government. As it is man’s prerogative to plow his fields, it is also his prerogative, as it says in the Declaration of Independence, that:

“...when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

As I see it, the Declaration of Independence is our nation’s “official reason of existence”, and if the truths in said document be not truths, then we have no right for existence as a nation. But if it be so true, and if God has favored our cause for absolute freedom, then the Constitution, as the supreme law of the land, must be followed, and that according to God’s word.

But a matter has arisen regarding the portion of the Constitution know colloquially as the 2nd amendment; some feel that the law should be changed to fit their own personal opinions. This would be disobedience to God, because He says to submit to the higher powers, and the powers don’t get any higher than the Constitution in this country.

Now, every state in this Union of States has a "state constitution", each one being unique.
Some state constitutions have guarantees that if the state legislature voted to leave the Union, they could do so. When such a thing was pulled off in the 1860's, though, it was met with absolute hostility, and the most insane war this nation has ever seen ensued.

Now, the Sovereign State of Montana is threatening secession if the Supreme Court of the United States of America rules against the United States Constitution. More than forty politicians, including the Secretary of State, are saying that secession would be their response, because Montana’s statehood hinged on the 2nd amendment when it first became a state.

This, I feel, is the best response that any state in the Union could give to tyrannical despotism.
No bloodshed, no civil riots, just a quiet bowing out.

But what do you think?

Take the poll on the right side of the screen, and if your answer isn’t there, or you want to explain your answer, please place your comments on this post.

[UPDATE] The poll has ended in a tie.

An Article about Confederation

Our government structure is a Federalized Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy. The only form of Democracy involved is in the election process, where majority rule.

But note that we are a Federalized Constitutional Republic; we have a central federal form of government. These United States were not always so, though.

When the Declaration of Independence was written and signed, we were under Articles of Confederation.

Believe it or not, Confederate isn’t another word for a slaveholder.

It means a decentralized form of government, with no concentration of power; each unit of local Government has as much power as the next.

In the late 1780’s, when the Constitution was being written, one could say that there were basically two political parties: Federalists and Anti-Federalists.

The Federalists were those that felt not that the current government wasn’t big enough under the Confederation, but that it wasn’t strong enough to exist as a Union; it had no provisions for the collection of taxes, among other basic things.

The Anti-Federalists were those the felt that the fewer powers that a central government had the better, as the idea of “Americanism”, if you will, was the sovereignty of the individual.

Just so long as the government was in-fighting, they felt, the people couldn’t be oppressed.

As you know, the Federalists won, but with a few compromises with the Anti-Federalists.

The Federalists were against the idea of a Bill of Rights, stating that if an enumeration of an Individual’s writes were put into law, it might cause the Government to take any rights not enumerated.

Never the less, the Constitution was written with a Bill of Rights, (for what it was worth), and the Confederation ended.

Not another Confederacy sprouted up in America until 1861, but that died just five years later due to an overwhelming invasion by an opposing government.

You may have previously noticed a Confederate States of America flag on my blog header; I removed it because the C.S.A. is gone and I have an allegiance to the Constitution. But, I didn’t put up the current U.S. flag in its place, I put up a flag of 1770’s, as it is the flag of what America used to be.

The current flag represents the current state of affairs, as the flag changes with the times , and I don't like the current state of affairs.

I think I would prefer that we still lived under a Confederation, but who knows what it would have been like.

Never the less, I am an individual, free and sovereign, answerable only to the law of God and the law of this land, respectively. I neither owe, nor am I indebted to any state or governing body, past or present.

I support my Constitution, and pray God brings confusion on upon its enemies, be they peasant or prince.

The War Between The States: Rebellion or Adherence?

For the most part, one cannot speak of the so-called "Civil War" without mentioning rebellion.

I feel that this is a disservice to American history, whether one is for or against the ideologies at war. The simplest research into the matter would show that the South was not in rebellion, rather, it was the North.

The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land.
To willingly create any law against the Constitution is treason.
The southern cause was to leave the Union due to Washington D.C.'s lack of respect for the Constitution. The rights of individual states were being infringed upon.

To be in rebellion, whether on a personal or national level, there must something or someone to rebel against. In the case of the War Between the States, it would, at first, appear that the South started the war against the morally upright and abolitionist North.

However, it would seem war was started, in fact, by the North; hence the term "War of Northern Aggression".

The southern states primary objectives were to separate from what they felt was a tyrannical government, not to control it.

There were no apparent provocative attempts at war on the part of the South once their provisional government was set up. And it would seem that such an endeavour, by itself, was not at ideological fault, as I shall explain.


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"Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable and most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world.

Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can may revolutionize and make their own of so many of the territory as they inhabit." ~January 12, 1848.

Who do you think said this?

Robert E. Lee? Sam Davis? Stonewall Jackson?

It was Abraham Lincoln. Not twenty years later would he face such a situation. Not a revolution, but a "shaking off". Apparently, Lincoln wasn't one to allow the practice of what he preached. Sort of ironic, huh?

Lincoln made quite a few contradictory statements such as this.

Popular culture has it that Lincoln freed all the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation; truth be told, he didn't. That famous document only freed slaves in states that were "in rebellion", not anywhere else.

"I am not now, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social or political equality of the white and black races. I am not now nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor of intermarriages with white people.

There is a physical difference between the white and the black races which will forever forbid the two races living together on social or political equality. There must be a position of superior and inferior, and I am in favor of assigning the superior position to the white man."
~ Lincoln in his speech to Charleston, Illinois, 1858.


"And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;"~ Acts 17:26.

It would seem he didn't much care at all for ending slavery, and clearly states that the war was not about slavery, instead, he wanted to "save the Union" at any cost:

"My paramount object, is to save the Union, and not either destroy or save slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing the slaves, I would do it. If I could save the Union by freeing some and leaving others in slavery, I would do it.

If I could save it by freeing all, I would do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because it helps save the Union." ~Lincoln in a letter to Greeley.

Sad to say, Lincoln also denied the Christian faith:

"My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them." ~ 1862 letter to Judge J.S. Wakefield, after the death of Willie Lincoln.

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The point I am making is that to say the war was about slavery is a deep injustice to the 618,000 men that died in one of the most uncivil wars in history. It appears that the war was about the prevalent issue of state's rights, versus the centralized control of Washington, D.C.

The Southern states tried to remove themselves from the Union, and had no intention of provoking or invading their Northern counterpart. They felt that the differences between the southern and northern cultures were too great to stay in the same union. And even today some feel that the United States has too diverse a populace to remain a peaceful nation.

While the legality of secession is debatable, the founding documents seem to overwhelmingly support that choice by each state. The Southern states were adhering to the letter of the law.
Many states' constitutions contain clauses which indicate that the state has the unquestionable right to dissolve the contract binding it to the U.S.

Think of what "U.S.A." means.

United States of America, the Union of States, before the War of Northern Aggression, it was known as these United States, not the United States, denoting the fact that the Union was made up of several sovereign states.

In fact, when the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the American Revolution, Britain made peace with each state individually, not the whole Union.

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I used to always enjoy movies where the glorious Union troops would wipe out rabble encampments to protect the United States from the dreaded "Johnny's", but, they were Americans killing Americans.

One should note that the South made no offensive manuevers until the war was well underway, and even that was a last ditch effort to end the war quickly, as the South did not want a war with the North.

The entire war was an unnesesary and revolting display of rash insanity.

Each side fought for their nation, and no one really won that war, but I have a new found respect for the men in butternut and grey. I happen to have relatives who fought on both sides, one of which actually served in the Second Confederate Congress.

I wonder just what would have happened if the South won the War between the States.