The Purpose of Government

Every government must have a defined purpose and it also must specify what is being governed and what is the governor. When we ask these questions of the United States government we must refer to the last paragraph of the Declaration of Independence where it no only defines what was being sought by declaring their independence from the State of Great Britain, it also tells us who wrote the Declaration of Independence and who they wrote it for:

[We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.]

Notice first that they tell us that representatives of the united States wrote the Declaration of Independence assembled in a General Congress, which means that there was no structure or processes to govern how they reached an agreement on the content of the declaration, yes, the States were confederates, states joined in a common cause against a common enemy, but they were independent states and they had no processes to make collective decisions, not even for the declaration itself, which is why they needed to have a unanimous agreement which only joined the states that signed the agreement, the Canadian Colonies were not a party to the agreement, therefore they were not included in the declaration.

Once the agreement was ratified by each State’s legislature, then the State’s representatives were empowered to sign the agreement in the name of their States, but as simply confederates they still had no mechanism to act collectively, so the first order of business was to establish a union of the States, and they accomplished this through a participation versus compliance agreement which established the benefits, privileges, rights of participation in decision making, and cost of membership in the Union, and that agreement was formalized as the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union.

When we review the Articles of Confederation what we find is that Article 1 named their confederacy, [The Style of this Confederacy shall be, “The United States of America”], Article 2 empowered the Union of the States assembled in a congress as the Established Government Authority; [Article II. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.], then we get to Article 5 and we see how they organized how the States would be represented in the assembly, what constituted a quorum of the States to operate the assembly, the distribution of suffrage to reach a majority consensus of all the States to make collective decisions and choices.

These rights of participation are what defines the purpose, assembly, and function of the government. The collective decision making of the States as the union is what is being governed, and the governor is the legislative process to reach a majority consensus of all the States as the Union. That legislative process is divided into two parts, the first part is to identify and rank choices which forms a ballot of the most desirable choices, the second part is to deliberate those choices and determine the choice by vote, 1 vote per State, and a majority of the States is necessary to the choice. This is a consensus choice legislative process.

Next we need to define that “Consensus Choice” legislative process. “A Democracy” is a legislative assembly, “Democracy” is how that legislative assembly is formed and how it functions, therefore the confederate assembly that was established for the United States is a democracy, a discrete democracy because only the 
states are members of the Union, only the States are the members of congress, only the states are apportioned representatives and suffrage to identify and rank choices and determine the choice which is made by vote, 1 vote per State, and a majority of the States is necessary to the choice.

Neither the people or the States are governed, what is governed is the collective decision making of the States, which are “The People in their Collective Capacity” assembled as each State’s “Most Numerous Legislative Branch”, which is important when we translate the democracy to a Republican Form of Government, and the collective decisions that are being made are those of a free and independent state; levying war, concluding peace, contracting alliances, establishing commerce, and to do any other Acts or Things that an independent state may by right do, in a collective sense where each State had these individual rights once they declared their independence from the State of Great Britain.

This explanation of government and democracy must remain constant, which is the reason why an agreement of this type to form and operate legislative assembly must be formalized in a constitution, which the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was the United States first constitution, which renders the agreement alterable by congressional statutes, and only amendable, including amendments by interpretation, and is only alterable by all the parties to the original agreement, which is why the requirement established in the Articles of Confederation was unanimous ratification by all the States legislature’s, but it was relaxed to ratification by 3/4 of the States with the adoption of the Constitution of the United States which amended the Articles of Confederation to add a Republican Form of Government to address the disparity which existed between the States in their population and wealth by Normalizing the States by their proportion of the aggregate population of the Union which established a iterative legislative checks and balances system where the concurrence of the “People in their Collective Capacity” is necessary to identify and rank choices, followed by the concurrence of the “States in their Collective Capacity”, the discrete democracy, to make the choice by vote, 1 vote per State, and a majority of the States is necessary to the choice, forming a “More Perfect Union”.

Notice, the assembly of the States, the united States, in congress assembled, the Union, is the sovereign and Established Government Authority. Power is distributed among the States through proportional and equal suffrage, and that distribution of power is specified and constant and cannot be changed by competitive partisan elections to determine the composition and control of our legislative institutions, which all must be, State and Federal, as established by Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution of the United States:

[Article. IV. Section. 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.]

In order to form a compound republic, all the constituent parts, the States, must themselves be either simple or compound republics, which means that “Most Numerous Legislative Branch” must be an assembly of an exact representation of the population itself, “The People in their Collective Capacity”, by per capita apportionment of representation and suffrage based upon and enumeration, a census, to determine the proportion of each State’s population as a percentage of the aggregate population of the Union, which is the Republican Principle of Government.