US Constitutional text question / federalist papers / republic by definition ..opinion if &quot;treason&quot; against the government was needed to save the country, would &quot;treason&quot; not be a duty? regardless of the current state of the United States(current politics out of discussion) If the country , defined by its creating documents is at its brink.
Legally speaking, there is no such thing as &quot;treason against the government&quot;. Any legal charge of treason is treason against the country. Article III, Section 3, Clause 1 of the US constitution reads: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. See also 18 U.S. Code § 2381 - Treason which reads: Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States. It is hard to see how making war on the United States, or helping an open enemy do so, could &quot;save the nation&quot; and in the absence of either of these, there is no treason, although other charges might possibly apply. The interactive Constitution site from the National Constitutions Center says about this provision of the Constitution: Treason is a unique offense in our constitutional order—the only crime expressly defined by the Constitution, and applying only to Americans who have betrayed the allegiance they are presumed to owe the United States. While the Constitution’s Framers shared the centuries-old view that all citizens owed a duty of loyalty to their home nation, they included the Treason Clause not so much to underscore the seriousness of such a betrayal, but to guard against the historic use of treason prosecutions by repressive governments to silence otherwise legitimate political opposition. Debate surrounding the Clause at the Constitutional Convention thus focused on ways to narrowly define the offense, and to protect against false or flimsy prosecutions. The Constitution specifically identifies what constitutes treason against the United States and, importantly, limits the offense of treason to only two types of conduct: (1) “levying war” against the United States; or (2) “adhering to [the] enemies [of the United States], giving them aid and comfort.” Although there have not been many treason prosecutions in American history—indeed, only one person has been indicted for treason since 1954—the Supreme Court has had occasion to further define what each type of treason entails. The offense of “levying war” against the United States was interpreted narrowly in Ex parte Bollman &amp; Swarthout (1807), a case stemming from the infamous alleged plot led by former Vice President Aaron Burr to overthrow the American government in New Orleans. The Supreme Court dismissed charges of treason that had been brought against two of Burr’s associates—Bollman and Swarthout—on the grounds that their alleged conduct did not constitute levying war against the United States within the meaning of the Treason Clause. It was not enough, Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion emphasized, merely to conspire “to subvert by force the government of our country” by recruiting troops, procuring maps, and drawing up plans. Conspiring to levy war was distinct from actually levying war. Rather, a person could be convicted of treason for levying war only if there was an “actual assemblage of men for the purpose of executing a treasonable design.” In so holding, the Court sharply confined the scope of the offense of treason by levying war against the United States. The Court construed the other treason offense authorized by the Constitution similarly narrowly in Cramer v. United States (1945). That case involved another infamous incident in American history: the Nazi Saboteur Affair. Cramer was prosecuted for treason for allegedly helping German soldiers who had surreptitiously infiltrated American soil during World War II. In reviewing Cramer’s treason conviction, the Court explained that a person could be convicted of treason only if he or she adhered to an enemy and gave that enemy “aid and comfort.” As the Court explained: A citizen intellectually or emotionally may favor the enemy and harbor sympathies or convictions disloyal to this country’s policy or interest, but, so long as he commits no act of aid and comfort to the enemy, there is no treason. On the other hand, a citizen may take actions which do aid and comfort the enemy—making a speech critical of the government or opposing its measures, profiteering, striking in defense plants or essential work, and the hundred other things which impair our cohesion and diminish our strength—but if there is no adherence to the enemy in this, if there is no intent to betray, there is no treason. In other words, the Constitution requires both concrete action and an intent to betray the nation before a citizen can be convicted of treason; expressing traitorous thoughts or intentions alone does not suffice.
The direct answer is &quot;no&quot; and the indirect answer is &quot;yes&quot;, that is, your way of putting the matter diverges significantly from how the Bill of Complain puts the matter. The claim is that the defendant states violated the Electors Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Due Process Clause. Texas claims that there is an injury in fact, citing various SCOTUS rulings e.g. Wesberry v. Sanders which says that No right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live. Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined See the argument in the brief for more legal rhetoric. There can be no question that one state can sue another; equally clearly, the plaintiff must show actual harm and not just annoyance. New Jersey v. New York is a case involving a question of equity, not the federal constitution, but there is no legal principle to the effect that one state cannot sue over a constitutional harm rather than an equitable harm. See the brief p. 65 ff. The court does not require that there be exact precedential analogs (otherwise, Roe v. Wade would have turned out differently), what's required is simply that there be reasonable logical steps: SCOTUS gets to decide what is reasonable (or it can decline to decide).
No &quot;No taxation without representation!&quot; was a slogan of the US war of independence, but it was never put into the Constitution. Indeed, the residents of the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico now pay Federal income tax, but are not represented in the Congress that sets the taxes. National debt has some of the same economic effects of a tax, but it is not a tax in form nor in constitutional law. Constitutional limits on tax legislation (such as the rule against unapportioned direct taxes) do not apply to congressional borrowing. &quot;Representation&quot;, in the sense you mean, has never been applied to representatives of future generations, or even of people not yet of voting age. Was the idea of pushing debt onto future generations so unthinkable that it is a constitutional blind spot? Quite the reverse. Borrowing was initiated quite early, while many of the framers were still in government. In several places in the Federalist Papers, Hamilton emphasized the need for an unlimited power to tax, for, among other purposes, paying any national debts, and made it clear that such debts would be incurred, from time to time. See particularly Nos 30 and 41. In The Federalist No 30 Hamilton wrote: In the modern system of war, nations the most wealthy are obliged to have recourse to large loans. A country so little opulent as ours must feel this necessity in a much stronger degree. But who would lend to a government that prefaced its overtures for borrowing by an act which demonstrated that no reliance could be placed on the steadiness of its measures for paying? The loans it might be able to procure would be as limited in their extent as burdensome in their conditions. This is part of a longer argument to the effect that a lack of power by the Federal Government to levy individual taxes would be disastrous. Here Hamilton certainly seems to contemplate the Federal government borrowing in case of war or other emergency, and repaying such loans by future taxes. In The Federalist No 41 Madison wrote; The powers falling within the FIRST class [Security against foreign danger] are those of declaring war and granting letters of marque; of providing armies and fleets; of regulating and calling forth the militia; of levying and borrowing money. Security against foreign danger is one of the primitive objects of civil society. It is an avowed and essential object of the American Union. ... If a federal Constitution could chain the ambition or set bounds to the exertions of all other nations, then indeed might it prudently chain the discretion of its own government, and set bounds to the exertions for its own safety. This again seems to contemplate an unlimited power of borrowing money by the government (or limited only by its available credit) to be repaid from taxes. Thus at least two of the founders considered this issue, and it was in now way part of a &quot;blind spot&quot;. When he became the first Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton embarked on his famous program of encouraging manufactures, funding needed &quot;improvements&quot; (of roads and harbors, in particular) largely by borrowing. These proposals were openly, widely, and heatedly debated both in Congress and out of it, before Congress authorized them. The argument that such debts would have to be repaid out of future tax revenue was indeed advanced, although not, as far as I know, precisely in the terms this question uses. But the issue was generally considered by the public, which was in no way blind to the future effects of present borrowing by the government. It was not a later innovation, unthoguht-of by the founders and early governments of the US. In short the Constitution does not contain any requirement such as the question suggests, and was never intended to do so, because the founders felt it essential to allow the government an unlimited power to borrow money, limited only by the needs of the case and the sound judgement of Congress.
The constitutionality of each of the charges is well supported and there is no really viable First Amendment defense to any of them. There is literally a U.S. Justice Department handbook on how to prosecute attempts to undermine the integrity of elections accumulating the wisdom its has gleaned from doing precisely what it is doing in this indictment, successfully, for generations. 18 U.S.C. § 371 (Conspiracy to Defraud the United States) This statute states that: If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. If, however, the offense, the commission of which is the object of the conspiracy, is a misdemeanor only, the punishment for such conspiracy shall not exceed the maximum punishment provided for such misdemeanor. Fraudulent statements which are protected by the First Amendment are the exception more than they are the rule. When fraudulent statements of presenting existing facts, or fraudulent concealment of presently existing facts, seek to impair someone's legal rights, it is generally constitutional to punish that conduct criminally. At noted here: Fraud and Perjury While, again, the First Amendment makes no categorical exception for false or misleading speech, certain types of fraudulent statements fall outside its protection. The government generally can impose liability for false advertising or on speakers who knowingly make factual misrepresentations to obtain money or some other material benefit (such as employment). Prohibitions on perjury — knowingly giving false testimony under oath — also are constitutional. This statute requires proof of intentional fraud, and not just a good faith difference of opinion sincerely held by the defendant. Probably the most on point precedent upholding the constitutionality of this statute in an analogous context is United States v. Rafoi, 60 F.4th 982 (5th Cir. 2023). This case held that the statute was constitutional where the charged conduct caused harm inside United States or to United States citizens or interests, that provided sufficient nexus, as required by due process, between United States and defendant's conduct in allegedly meeting with co-conspirators in Miami, Florida, where a noncitizen defendant, a citizen of Portugal and Switzerland who was employee of Swiss wealth-management firm, conspired to violate Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) as agent of a person while in United States, relating to alleged international bribery scheme between businesses based in United States and Venezuelan officials and the defendant has the intent or knowledge that the monies involved were proceeds of specified unlawful activity would be unlawfully transmitted from or through a place in United States to a place outside United States. The relevant holding in this case is that prosecuting violations of U.S. laws that exist for the purposes of insisting upon orderly and non-corrupt conduct of actions related to U.S. officials or U.S. persons through fraud under this statute, is constitutional. When it affects the conduct of U.S. government business, or of a U.S. business or person, the statute is actionable and constitutional. Also pertinent is a much older U.S. Supreme Court decision, Hammerschmidt v. United States, 265 U.S. 182 (1924): [F]ormer President and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court William Howard Taft explained in a landmark 1924 opinion, the full meaning of the statute almost anticipates our current surreal scenario: “It also means to interfere with or obstruct one of its [the country’s] lawful governmental functions by deceit, craft or trickery, or at least by means that are dishonest.&quot; In contrast, fraud in the course of a political campaign to persuade voters is protected by the First Amendment. See United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709 (2012) (holding that a law criminalizing false factual statements about military honors received in a political campaign called the &quot;Stolen Valor Act&quot; in the version then in force was unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds). But that isn't what this charged is seeking to prosecute. A law review article from 2015 attempts to clarify the scope of Alvarez, distinguishing between completely unprotected lies, lies that are protected so as not to chill the expression of truthful statements, and &quot;lies that must be protected for their own sake&quot;. The citation to the article is Alan K. Chen and Justin Marceau, &quot;High Value Lies, Ugly Truths, and the First Amendment,&quot; 68 Vanderbilt Law Review 1435 (2015). It is notable that in Alvarez every conservative justice on the Court at the time other than Chief Justice Roberts, voted to affirm the constitutionality of the &quot;Stolen Valor Act&quot;, over a mostly liberal majority that held that it was an unconstitutional violation of free speech rights. Now that there is a six justice conservative majority in the U.S. Supreme Court, if the positions of conservative justices on the issue was consistent, the U.S. Supreme Court would be even more likely to uphold the constitutionality of a prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 371 than the U.S. Supreme Court would have been inclined to in 2012. It is unclear, however, how much this conservative ruling was dependent upon the fact that the statute prohibited lying about military honors rather than about other matters. Conservatives tend to hold honor, and in particular, military honors, in greater esteem than liberals. Also, conservative justice may have been more clear than the liberal justices in that case about just how open and shut these cases were, since the truth or falsity of the statement can be determined definitively, from a single official document, the veteran's Form DD214, which there is a strong presumption that almost any veteran capable of running for political office would understand perfectly well. Another issue which influenced swing votes in the Alvarez case is that the statute that the U.S. Supreme Court considered at the time criminalized fraud regarding military honors even when it was arguably immaterial (e.g. in dinner table conservations with friends or family, as opposed to only in the context of an election campaign, or only in a request for economic benefits or legal privileges). This concern is not present in this particular prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 371, since Donald Trump would receive the legal benefit of being re-elected as President of the United States if his alleged election results related fraud conspiracy was successful. One critical distinction, previously noted by the Washington State Supreme Court its 2007 decision in the case of Rickert v Washington, is whether, in the context of the speech giving rise to the legal consequences, &quot;the government is capable of correctly and consistently negotiating the thin line between fact and opinion in political speech.&quot; This will generally be true in the case of factual statements related to election results and administration, but will generally not be true in wide ranging statements about policy issues in the course of a political campaign. An August 1, 2022 report of the Congressional Research Service, the non-partisan research arm of Congress, generally confirms the analysis above. This is the only D.C. grand jury indictment for which there is even a colorable free speech argument, but given the case law, it is a weak argument. 18 U.S.C. §§ 1512 (Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding and Conspiracy To Do The Same) Obstruction of an official proceeding in action action with an intended effect and doesn't prevent people from expressing opinions in a way that does not obstruct official government functions, so again this isn't unconstitutional. The charge in this case charges the crime that: Whoever corruptly-- obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so is guilty of a felony punishable by up to twenty years in prison. There is already case law testing the constitutionality of this portion of this statute in the context of the same course of conduct related to the January 6, 2021 riot by a lower level minor from the D.C. Circuit whose rulings are binding precedents in this indictment. United States v. Fischer, 64 F.4th 329 (D.C. Cir. 2023). The foundation for this ruling is longstanding: Speech Integral to Criminal Conduct In Giboney v. Empire Storage &amp; Ice Co. (1949), the Supreme Court held the First Amendment affords no protection to “speech or writing used as an integral part of conduct in violation of a valid criminal statute.” A robber’s demand at gunpoint that you hand over your money is not protected speech. Nor is extortion, criminal conspiracy, or solicitation to commit a specific crime. Abstract advocacy of lawbreaking remains protected speech. There is no constitutional basis to distinguish a direct charge of obstruction with official business from a conspiracy charge to do the same. In the case of the conspiracy to obstruct charge, the co-conspirators take actions that collectively seek to deprive people of their constitutional rights or obstruct an official proceeding, the statements made in furtherance of the group effort to achieve those ends are not legally protected speech. It is the action (either a verbal act or another kind of act) and not the expressive content of the speech that is implicated. 18 U.S.C. § 241 (Conspiracy Against Rights) A conspiracy to cause false election results to be certified to Congress to change the results of a Presidential election by two or more persons impairs the constitutional right to vote, and rights under Congressional adopted federal election laws. Notably, a conspiracy to violate rights, which is a felony punishable by up to death if the conspiracy causes someone's death (as can be plausibly alleged in this case due to a death arising from the January 6, 2021 riot) provides that the felony has been committed: If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same. The U.S. Supreme Court has previously held that prosecuting conspirators for tampering with the process of determining the correct result of the election is constitutional. U.S. v. Saylor, 322 U.S. 385 (1944). This also comes within the &quot;Speech Integral to Criminal Conduct&quot; exception to the protections of the First Amendment that is discussed above. FOOTNOTE: If the Justice Department sought the death penalty on this criminal charge the jury would have to be &quot;death qualified&quot; in the court of jury selection which tends to make the jury more conservative. But, there is no indication that the Justice Department intends to seek this relief in this particular prosecution of Donald Trump. As a practical matter, given Donald Trump's age, health, and the length of time necessary to fully appeal a death penalty conviction (which exceeds ten years in most cases), any criminal conviction with a sentences of ten or fifteen years or more would as a practical matter result in him dying in prison, and it is unlikely that appeals of a death sentence would be completed before he died of natural causes.
The most relevant federal Obstruction of Justice type is from 18 USC 1505: Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper administration of the law under which any pending proceeding is being had before any department or agency of the United States, or the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress— I'm not sure if passed Articles of Impeachment count as an "inquiry", and I'm not sure whether failing to "send" them to the other house is "corruptly impeding". Even if those two conditions are met, members of Congress are immune to judicial process for acts taken while they are in session, as part of the Speech or Debate clause of the Constitution (Article 1, Section 6, Clause 1): ...shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their attendance at the Session of their Respective Houses, and in going to and from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place. So, if the person in question is not a member of Congress acting in their official capacity and intentionally endeavors to prevent passed Articles of Impeachment from being sent from the House to the Senate (e.g. a courier intentionally failing to deliver them, or an IT person preventing the electronic form from being copied into the Senate's database), I do not know whether that could be considered Obstruction of Justice, as I doubt such a situation has ever been adjudicated. Given the publicity of the proceedings, such an impediment would probably be found out or overcome so quickly that no one would be inclined to do more than fire the perpetrator.
There is nothing wrong with this requirement. The teacher or professor isn't requiring you to change your opinion. Instead, the requirement is simply to marshall evidence in favor of an opinion that you may not hold. Being able to do this is a valuable rhetorical skill (and a skill which lawyers must routinely employ). For example, in competitive debate, you often do not have the freedom to decide whether you will be arguing in favor or against a resolution, and may not even know which side you will be advancing until moments before the event starts. Freedom of conscience does not extend to freedom from understanding people who disagree with your deeply held belief. UPDATE: Requiring a whole classroom of students (possibly many classrooms of students) to advocate with multiple representatives for a bill does seem problematic, in terms of election laws and probably in terms of the legal requirements that apply to the university, and also possibly in terms of "forced speech", because in requiring the advocacy to be submitted to the official and take a particular position, goes beyond the "let's pretend" veneer that applies in most debate contexts.
This depends on how far along you're waiting for court rulings to set in, and if you count laws of Congress passed under the 13th amendment's enforcement clause. There were quite a lot of things that got ruled as violations of the 13th and 14th amendments (mostly the 14th), but many were not ruled or legislated that way for decades. Some were even ruled to have an essentially opposite effect of what the current (overturning) precedents do. "Separate but equal" was challenged on 13th amendment grounds, but was upheld in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), and wasn't overturned, on 14th amendment grounds, until 58 years later in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Your particular situation sounds like peonage, which was outlawed by Congress in 1867 via the enforcement clause. This law specifically banned "the voluntary or involuntary service or labor of any persons as peons, in liquidation of any debt or obligation, or otherwise." However, peonage cases continued to make their way into the courts for more than 40 years thereafter, such as Clyatt v. United States (1905)&mdash; which ruled that peonage was involuntary servitude&mdash; and Bailey v. Alabama (1911). These cases affirmed that the 13th amendment abolished not just chattel slavery but essentially all forms of involuntary or indentured servitude (except as punishment for a crime). Though exactly what qualifies as "involuntary servitude" is still something courts decide on a case-by-case basis; the draft doesn't, nor does mandatory community service to graduate high school.
First, I don’t believe the author is using quotation marks to indicate an actual quotation, it is being used for emphasis and to group the words as a concept. That concept is that while it may seem undemocratic for a judge to overturn a law enacted by a democratically elected assembly, the “higher democracy” is that it protects the democratic institutions themselves by limiting the power of the legislature to what the higher law of a constitution allows.