Introduction:

While almost all of human history was marked by bloodshed, the united States developed as what some take to be "a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal".[note] But no one has ever believed that the united States was beyond criticism, except the blindest breed of pseudo-patriot. In fact, the united States improves best through constructive criticism (rather than through violence). Unlike some people who have unflagging confidence in the system even as they deny overwhelming evidence that it's crumbling, those of us who are aware that our rights are abused on a daily basis have no such confidence. Where do we go for help? To church leaders who have sold themselves into a state-controlled system reminiscent of the Soviet Union's neutered orthodoxy? To church-goers who have abandoned basic Biblical principles because they are satisfied to seek succor in the pap of hirelings? To politicians who care little about anything other than their own self-aggrandizement? To courts that compulsively strain gnats and swallow camels? Where? To whom? —— If the nation does not move forward through constructive criticism, then it will move backward to the same brute depravity that marks the bulk of human history.

Through this article, we hereby introduce a sample application of the basic jurisdictional principles that we discovered in the investigation –– an application of such principles to the American legal system. Because these principles are grounded in a Bible-based theology, we're calling this a theological inventory of American jurisprudence (TIAJ), meaning that it's an introduction to seeing American jurisprudence from this theological perspective. This sample application is a cursory examination of the Constitution in the light of these Biblical principles. Before going directly into examining the Constitution, we'll look briefly at a passage from the Declaration of Independence.

From the perspective of these basic jurisdictional principles, we find nothing inherently wrong with the Declaration. In fact we find such harmony between the Declaration and these Biblical principles that it could easily lead us to assume that the entire American legal system is built on basic jurisdictional principles. It's clear to any thoughtful student that the following is almost totally consistent with the investigation:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these, are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That, to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

If there is a flaw in this statement, the flaw revolves around the failure to distinguish the two basic types of government. The investigation discovered that the two primordial types of –– and impetuses behind –– government are what we're calling the ecclesiastical and the jural. Both depend heavily upon the concept of consent. But consent has different parameters within these two different jurisdictions.[note]

(1)Consent –– as a necessary prerequisite to the existence of a jural society's positive law –– is not required from people guilty of bloodshed.[note] But God requires obedience to the mandate against bloodshed from all people. Therefore, when people agree to work together to curtail bloodshed, they naturally form a jural society through consent. For practical reasons, the jural society must maintain a geographical jurisdiction, and consider people outside that geographical jurisdiction as having no say about how the jural society operates. So consent to the procedures used by a jural society is not an issue for non-citizens who live outside the geographical jurisdiction. But for citizens living within the geographical jurisdiction –– who are not guilty of bloodshed –– consent, or at least acquiescence, is crucial to the formation and maintenance of the jural society's positive law. Consent and acquiescence are what cause the jural society to take shape, and to take whatever form, processes, and procedures it may assume. The jural society exists to curb bloodshed, regardless of where that bloodshed may be, but especially –– for practical reasons –– bloodshed perpetrated within the jural society's geographical jurisdiction.[note] The agreements that form a jural society pertain exclusively to determining the conventions that are followed to fulfill the mandate against bloodshed.[note] These conventions exist exclusively to fulfill this mandate, without violating it in the process. So consent, within the jural society, pertains exclusively to such agreements about such conventions and procedures. The jural society procures jurisdiction automatically over anyone who perpetrates bloodshed, regardless of the perpetrator's consent.

(2)The only way that an ecclesiastical society can procure jurisdiction over a specific person, is by that person's prior consent, assent, or acquiescence.[note] So the ecclesiastical society relies entirely upon consent, and whenever it ignores consent, and uses coercion to achieve acquiescence, it becomes a perpetrator of bloodshed. So consent –– as a necessary prerequisite to the existence of an ecclesiastical society's positive law –– is not required from people who are not explicitly or implicitly party to some set of contracts or agreements, where these contracts and agreements explicitly or implicitly require that contractual disputes be adjudicated under the jurisdiction of that ecclesiastical society. By volunteering to become parties to such contracts, people are automatically under such in personam jurisdiction.

What about subtle delicts? Where in this whole primordial arrangement do they fit? —— A delict is essentially the same thing as what the investigation calls bloodshed (Genesis 9:6). Delicts are divided into two overriding classes, gross and subtle, based primarily on the type of remedy or punishment suited to the delict. Both subtle delicts and gross delicts are by definition violations of someone's property rights. Gross delicts are by definition punished primarily by retribution. Subtle delicts are punished/remedied by restitution or injunction. Actions against gross delicts are usually brought by what the investigation calls a jural society. In contrast, actions against subtle delicts are usually brought by private citizens. Even though it may be an action brought by a private citizen, it still falls within the scope and purview of the jural society, because the jural society's whole function is the protection of property rights.[note] So if someone, even a foreigner, trespasses on so-and-so's real property, that trespasser, regardless of whether he consents or not, is subject to a lawful action under the jurisdiction of a jural compact.

Given that a human being has reached majority, and is not seriously disabled either naturally or conventionally, and is not a perpetrator of bloodshed, if this human being is forced by government, and he or she does not consent or acquiesce, then government itself is a perpetrator of bloodshed. —— Although we use different words, the basic spirit of these basic jurisdictional principles is evident in this passage from the Declaration. The Declaration does not distinguish these two types of societies, these two types of government, but it nevertheless reaches a conclusion that's foundational to basic jurisdictional principles.[note] Specifically, the global covenant and the Declaration agree that consent, not coercion, is the only righteous foundation upon which to build government.

This flaw of omission that appears in the Declaration is shared by the Constitution. If we examine the Constitution line-by-line, it's clear that this distinction between jural and ecclesiastical compacts is missing. Even worse than that, it's obvious that bloodshed is designed into the Constitution. There's no sign of bloodshed being designed into the Declaration, but you'll see shortly that it was definitely designed into the Constitution. It's obvious that the framers of the Constitution, for the sake of compromise and expediency,[note] allowed serious abuse of human rights to be built into the foundations and fabric of the American social compact. It's true that if they had not allowed such errors to be built into the document, the document probably would have never been ratified in any meaningful manner. So it was a compromise with institutionalized bloodshed that is comparable to Abraham's practice of slavery.[note] —— Given the limitations of the times, excessive idealism would have removed Abraham's social compact from practical existence, and impaired his ability to operate in an extremely imperfect world. —— The framers of the Constitution were faced with similar decisions. The God-fearing among them allowed such imperfection to continue, believing that over time, given a God-fearing population, these imperfections would be amended.[note]

Even though the framers of the Declaration and Constitution did not rigorously apply principles from the global covenant, this doesn't mean that their efforts at creating a viable legal framework was devoid of morality. According to our reasoned study of Scripture, every legal system inevitably exists as a subset of an encompassing moral system. The success, viability, and tendency to produce happiness, of the legal system, depends entirely upon the quality of the moral system. If the assumptions of the legal system's undergirding moral system are (1)that God doesn't exist; (2)that human beings are not created in the image of God, but are rather created in the image of animals; (3)that it's a dog-eat-dog world defined by the survival of the fittest, and you better get your neighbor before he gets you; (4)that what you do today doesn't really matter much, because we're only here to eat, drink, and make money; (5)etc.; then the legal system will inevitably manifest the same assumptions.

The moral foundations that undergirded the legal system that the framers implemented had much in common with Scripture's basic jurisdictional principles. The distinction between "Law" and "Equity"[note] that the framers clearly believed in is very much like the distinction between what we're calling the jural sphere and the ecclesiastical sphere. Even so, the legal system manifested in the Constitution is defective in some respects. As we advance this examination of the Constitution, we'll try to answer four questions: (1)How was the Constitution originally intended to work? (2)How consistent are these intentions with the global covenant? (3)How has the Constitution been implemented? More specifically, how consistent with original intent have the actions of the political branches (legislative and executive) and the judicial branch, been? (To answer this question, we'll look most closely at the decisions of the judicial branch because most controversies eventually end up there.) (4)How consistent with the global covenant are the government's implementations of the Constitution?

In this investigation into the American legal system and Constitution, we'll be comparing original intent and subsequent implementation to the standard set by the global covenant, rather than to the standard set by all of Scripture, because all of Scripture does not always apply to all people. From a Spiritual or psychic point of view, all of Scripture certainly applies to all people. But when we're dealing with positive law, we're dealing with what's physically verifiable. All people are physically party to the global covenant, from the investigation's perspective, but not all people are physically party to the local Covenants. Since the original intent of the framers was for the united States to be largely secular, it's obvious that the global covenant definitely applies to every citizen, but the local Covenants might not apply.[note]

As we scrutinize the Constitution, we'll try to avoid straining over every word, and we'll try to focus only on those features that deviate from the global covenant in the original intent of the framers, or in the subsequent implementation of the Constitution.

Preamble:

We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

There are several expressions in the Preamble of the Constitution that indicate the motives of the framers. Their original intent was (1)"to form a more perfect Union"; (2)to "establish justice"; (3)to "insure domestic Tranquility"; (4)to "provide for the common defence"; (5)to "promote the general Welfare"; and (6)to "secure the Blessings of Liberty". This description of motives does not prescribe positive law, but it does tell us the parameters within which resulting positive law should exist:

(1)The framers already had the Articles of Confederation. They had been "Done at Philadelphia in the state of Pennsylvania the ninth day of July, in the Year of our Lord one Thousand seven Hundred and Seventy-eight, and in the third year of the independence of America.".[note] In the same way that the framers did not discard all the laws of England in the process of framing the Constitution,[note] it would be foolish for us to assume that they discarded the Articles of Confederation, rather than built on them. To do otherwise would be a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bath water. One of the reasons the framers were successful is because they built upon the Articles, upon the common law, and upon their knowledge of history and political science, rather than totally trashing the system they had.[note]

(2)Apparently the degree of justice the framers had under the Articles was not deemed adequate. Why else would they attempt to "establish justice"?

(3)The same can be said about their degree of "domestic Tranquility". If they already had enough, why would they try for more?

(4)Apparently they were concerned about a lack of "common defence".

(5)One of the most abused expressions in constitutional interpretation has been this phrase, "general Welfare". In fact, they did not envision the Constitution being used as an excuse for building the 21^st century Welfare State.[note]

(6)If the original intent of the framers was to "secure the Blessings of Liberty", then it's clear that it was NOT their intent to establish some kind of monolithic government that imposed the curses of bondage.