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Our Constitution was finished in September of 1787. But it had to be ratified by the individual states through popular conventions. The people of the states, rather than the state governments, had to approve the new document. Supporters of the Constitution had to appeal directly to the American people. It was not easy as the Colonists were reluctant to give more power to a central government controlled by an established political elite.

The Revolution promised power is in the local community and the hands of the common folk. Now the writers of the Constitution wanted to change all that. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay used the widespread and widely read newspapers of the day to distribute a series of short essays known as the Federalist Papers to influence America to accept and ratify a Constitution.

The essays covered a broad range of topics, including presidential authority, taxation and representation, and the division of power between the national and state governments.In the end, the newspaper plan worked. The Liberty Bell rang so long, it finally cracked. Americans were persuaded to support the Constitution, but the Liberty Bell could not ring in the Bill of Rights, which guaranteed the sought after freedom and individual liberty for all.

The Federalist Papers are now considered the first – and most important internationally – discussions of federal government.

The Federalist Papers serve as a model of political reasoning, and so can readily be ascribed to the reason the Colonists were influenced and prepared to ratify a Constitution for the United States of America.

No other set of essays created such an international clamor for independence and a new kind of power in that eighteenth century. No man could believe or envision that Power actually emanates from the bottom up. Power is by the will of the people and is granted by Providence. That is what happened. The Natural law then, would soon be an Organic law in a written Constitution of the United States to protect the rights of all men created equal.

The sentiment swept the nation then and such is the sentiment which was later so historically and strongly expressed by President Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863.

That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

We are again at that same crossroad where sovereignty and liberty intersect. The basis for our Constitution is inherent in its Federalist Papers. But who knows of them? Our Constitution, after months of work, finished in September 1787 and is a document that cannot by any standard be ratified by the individual state unless their populations wants them to do so.

The Constitution FOR the United States of America is ordained and established in its Preamble by the People OF the United States.

Its Federalist Papers (number 39) established two things:

• A country to be known as the United States of America (U.S.A.).
• A national government for that country to be known as the United States (US).

All American citizens are Sovereign citizens OF the United States of America – the Country. They live under the Common Laws of the country (Nation) known as the United States of America (U.S.A.)

The United States, as such, is only a national government (US) representative of the union of all states, known as these United States (U.S.A.); and is not to be confused with the nation (country) known as the United States of America.
The only sovereignty delegated to the national government (US) is that of foreign commerce and treaties.

It is this area where the States granted international powers to the federal government, albeit with the checks and balances accorded the separation of powers among the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial departments.

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By Elvin Lim

As the situation continues to unfold in Egypt, and as the White House continues to walk a fine line between support for democracy and support for a new regime which may not be as pro-American as Hosni Mubarak’s was, Publius, the author of the Federalist Papers may lend us some wisdom.

It may surprise some people, but Publius was no fan of democracy. “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention,” Publius wrote in Number 10. The mob cannot rule, though the mob may delegate power to those who can. And that was the genius of 1787 – a full decade after the American revolution, it bears repeating. Revolutions are negative acts where old worlds are shattered; founding, on the other hand, is a positive act, where a new world is created. Egypt has had her fair share of revolutions, and it is high time for a founding that will make a future revolution unnecessary.

But who should the supporters at Tahrir Square anoint to be the leader of a new Egypt? Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm, Publius warned us. The irony of this weekend’s hagiographic celebration of Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday is that the Framers of the US Constitution had hoped to create a system so that we did not have to wait for virtuous men any more, as the history of a capricious world had only done before. Egypt will become a republic when she no longer awaits a Nasser or a Sadat or a Mubarak. Even ElBaradei should not be mistaken for a messiah.

How would Publius have handled the Muslim Brotherhood? Certainly not by banning it, as Hosni Mubarak did. Instead, Publius would have proposed that Egypt bring as many political and religious groups as possible to the negotiating table, and let ambition counteract ambition. “A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy,” Publius wrote, “but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national councils against any danger from that source.” If the Muslim Brotherhood supports suppression, then the solution to it is not more suppression, but to engulf it with groups who support liberty.

Finally, Publius’ greatest innovation arguably laid in the fact that he proposed an entirely new constitution, not a mere amendment to the Articles of Confederation, as was the charge of the Continental Congress in 1787. Vice-president Omar Suleiman is apparently now overseeing a committee to oversee amendments to the Constitution, focusing in particular on provisions that would allow the Opposition to run for the Egyptian presidency. This is not a good idea because the Egyptian constitution needs more than piecemeal change. In particular, even the Opposition has been co-opted into believing that Egypt’s problems could be solved by having the right person assume control of the presidency. But the problem lies not just in the manner by which the president is selected, but in the size of the office. Publius stated it well in Number 51, “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place