Getting Back to the ‘Real’ Constitution–Fagettaboutit

Aside from the fact that Kirkpatrick Sale apparently believes he would be freer being ruled by a "state government" rather than a "federal government", he misses an extremely important point when writing about the Sixteenth Amendment.

He omits, completely, the fact that that Amendment unequivocally[1] states, "...all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."

“April 12, 1952 -- John Foster Dulles, later to become Secretary of State, says in a speech to the American Bar Association in Louisville, Kentucky that ‘treaty laws can override the Constitution.’ He says treaties can take power away from Congress and give them to the President. They can take powers from the States and give them to the Federal Government or to some international body and they can cut across the rights given to the people by their constitutional Bill of Rights.”

"The problem of international treaties superseding the U.S. Constitution and undermining the foundations of our Republic is not a new one. ...

...they hit upon a solution: the Bricker Amendment.

Introduced into the Senate in February, 1952, as Senate Joint Resolution 130, the "Bricker Amendment" to the Constitution read as follows:

* Section 1. A provision of a treaty which conflicts with this Constitution shall not be of any force or effect.
* Section 2. A treaty shall become effective as internal law in the United States only through legislation which would be valid in the absence of treaty.
* Section 3. Congress shall have power to regulate all executive and other agreements with any foreign power or international organization. All such agreements shall be subject to the limitations imposed on treaties by this article.
* Section 4. The congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The Eisenhower Administration, and particularly the U.S. State Department, went all out to defeat the Amendment. Leading the opposition was Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. This was the same John Foster Dulles who had said, two years previous, that "The treaty power is an extraordinary power, liable to abuse," and warned that "Treaties can take powers away from the Congress and give them to the President. They can take powers from the states and give them to the federal government or to some international body and they can cut across the rights given to the people by their Constitutional Bill of Rights." Hammered with this quote by Clarence Manion, Dean of Law at Notre Dame University, and a leading proponent of the Bricker Amendment, Dulles could only take refuge in the argument that this President would never compromise U.S. sovereignty.

Although the Bricker Amendment started out with fifty-six co-sponsors, it eventually went down to defeat in the U.S. Senate, 42-50, with 4 not voting." ~ http://www.antiwar.com/essays/bricker.html

[1] UNEQUIV'OCALLY, adv. Without doubt; without room to doubt; plainly; with full evidence. ~ Webster's 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language