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Lex Gubernatio
or 
The Law and Government
a dispute for 
The Just Prerogatives of Citizens
containingThe reasons and causes of the most necessary and just active resistanceagainst the federal and state governments of the United Statesand of theRight of the citizens to defend themselves with arms against the usurpations of the federal and stategovernmentsof the United Statesand of theRight of the citizens to replace the said current governments;in which their rights are asserted and defended against those who desire to enslave them withunconstitutional, illegal, tyrannical or despotic forms of government.In Fifty-Three Questions byFrancis Marion
 
Question IWhether the Citizens are the basis of all government, state and federal.
The basis of all government is the citizenry.There are three spheres of government: 1) individual; 2) state; and, 3) federal.
 Individual 
government consists of those rights as set forth in the Constitution of theUnited States and commonly referred to as the Bill of Rights and the freedom withwhich to exercise those rights. Such rights and freedom are not subject toamendment, modification, abridgment or repeal by any governmental authority, atany level, regardless of what power or authority the individual representing thatgovernment may claim to assert, President or no. They are
rights
- recognized as belonging to each citizen, individually, granted by God, Himself, and not subject torestriction or such alteration so as to make them of no effect, by any other personor authority.
State
government consists of the citizens of a particular geographic locationrecognizing that there are common needs to be met within each state due to thegeographic nature of each particular state as well as the cultural differences withinand without those states. The authority of the state resides in the people of that particular state. No people outside that state, no non-citizens, have the authority tointerfere with the rights and freedom of citizens within a state or to do so in suchmanner as to make the rights and freedom of citizens of that state of no effect.Similarly to the federal government, state government was instituted to performthose duties and responsibilities which are common within the society, culture andgeographic boundaries of each particular state, but no further. The authority of thestate government resides in the citizens of that particular state.
 Federal 
government consists of those delegated duties and responsibilities to becarried out in the common cause of all citizens of every nation-state which,otherwise, would require that those duties be performed on a state-by-state basis.The authority of the federal government resides in all of the citizens of all of thenation-states, combined. None of the spheres of government has any authority over and above any of theothers, unless the citizens grant that authority through the delegation of powers toestablish and exercise such authority. The delegation of powers is not the ceding of those powers. It is merely the appointment of certain persons to act on behalf of,and in good stead of, those delegating the powers.
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The problem with the Constitution of the United States is not that it does notclearly set out the rights and freedom of the citizens. The problem is that it doesnot sufficiently limit the government, whether state or federal, in exercising thedelegated powers on behalf of the citizens and preventing those governments fromusurping powers and authority they do not have. Nor does the Constitution setforth the duties, sufficiently, of the states to intervene on behalf of the citizens of each state to prevent such usurpations and the falling of the federal governmentinto a tyrannical form.
Question IIWhat the purpose was behind the forming of the federal government.
Originally, there were thirteen colonies acting independently and none inclined tosubject themselves to any authority outside their respective colonial boundaries.Most especially this exercise of freedom was felt subsequent to the victory over their British taskmasters in the First American Revolution; or commonly referredto as the Revolutionary War. However, all sober and right minded colonistsrecognized that without some form of unified government for the purpose of representing the various colonies in a united front there would be difficulties posedin international relations and commerce which would not be easily overcome or even prevented.For that reason, the new states attempted, through the Articles of Confederation, toestablish such a government. Keeping in mind that a strong, central governmenthad just been defeated in its attempts to subject them, the new nation-states wereloathe to establish another which they recognized would certainly, over time, growinto a tyranny with just as vicious an aim of subjecting the citizens of the nation-states, if not the nation-states themselves, as ever the crown had demonstrated.To prevent such an occurrence, the nation-states established a federal government; but they ensured through extremely tight controls that the federal government hadno ability to force itself upon the citizens or the nation-states or to expand under itsown authority, and therefore, enslave the citizens. Thus, the Articles of Confederation failed because they were so restrictive that the federal governmentwas never able to function as a government should. It was constantly in debt,unable to enforce the very laws it was tasked with enforcing, and unable to defendthe nation-states or their citizens.That situation brought us the constitutional convention. It was the purpose of thisconvention to explore, not to create, the concept of a constitution befitting the newnation-states which would acknowledge the authority of the citizens to create the
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