"This is how great republics die"

Tom Hoefling

"Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths?" -- George Washington

The Constitution of the United States, which all officers of government, in every branch, must swear to support, is crystal clear that Congress has the exclusive constitutional grant of power to establish immigration and naturalization standards.

Article 1, Section 8:

"The Congress shall have Power...To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization..."


Also, the Constitution absolutely requires that the United States protect each of the States from Invasion.

Article 4, Section 4:

"The United States...shall protect each of them [the States] against Invasion..."


Barack Obama's actions this week in, by executive decree, granting certain classes of illegal invaders of our country a de facto amnesty are an obvious usurpation of that exclusive congressional power, AND they are a gross dereliction of one of the primary imperative duties of the Commander-in-Chief.

If a president were acting to check a lawless law passed by a lawless Congress; in other words, if he was standing firmly against a Congress or Court that had clearly breached their own constitutional limits; I would support actions by the chief executive to stop them. His oath would require that he do so.

But that is obviously not the case here.

I applaud the actions of my congressman, Steve King, in launching a court challenge to this illegitimate Obama policy. The third branch of government, the judiciary, should immediately join with the legislative branch to check the executive's lawlessness.

However, this is a perfect case to illustrate why Congress was also given the impeachment power. If they cared at all for their own oaths to support the Constitution; if they cared about the survival of the rule of law in this country, if they cared for our territorial integrity and sovereignty, they would immediately impeach this usurper and remove him from office at once.

To be frank though, experience tells me that they will not do so. Obama Democrats have no regard for the Constitution or their oaths, and Romney Republicans have no principles or spine.

This is how great republics die.

 
 
 
 
"There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

-- James Madison, speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

 
 
"What raised us to the present happy state?...The Government has been in the hands of the people. To the people, therefore...is the credit due...

It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty.

Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin...

If we persevere...we can not fail, under the favor of a gracious Providence...My fervent prayers to the Almighty that He will be graciously pleased to continue to us that protection which He has already so conspicuously displayed in our favor."

-- President James Monroe, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1817

 
 
"What is to be the consequence, in case the Congress shall misconstrue this part [the necessary and proper clause] of the Constitution and  exercise powers not warranted by its true meaning, I answer the same as if they should misconstrue or enlarge any other power vested in them...the success of the usurpation will depend on the executive and judiciary departments, which are to expound and give effect to the legislative acts; and in a last resort a remedy must be obtained from the people, who can by the elections of more faithful representatives, annul the acts of the usurpers."

-- James Madison, Federalist No. 44


 
 
"What is to be the consequence, in case the Congress shall misconstrue this part [the necessary and proper clause] of the Constitution and exercise powers not warranted by its true meaning, I answer the same as if they should misconstrue or enlarge any other power vested in them ... the success of the usurpation will depend on the executive and judiciary departments, which are to expound and give effect to the legislative acts; and in a last resort a remedy must be obtained from the people, who can by the elections of more faithful representatives, annul the acts of the usurpers."

-- James Madison, Federalist No. 44, 1788