 Before going into the details of our founding document, we need to look at it as a legal paper. It is written as an agreement for we the people and signed by people of the colonies, but signatories are representatives appointed by state-level governing bodies. The first note is that this is no government document. It does not get its authority from the sovereignty of any government unit, nor are states the signatory to it through their representatives. It is in accord with the common law covering contracts, we the people who are the only stated parties to this agreement. It is for specific notes that the United States is not even a party to this agreement. It did not even exist until it was signed. The intense wishes and needs of the new government formed under the provisions of this agreement are not even matters in issue. There is only one party to this agreement and it is we the people. In accord with the principles of the common law, there are only two ways to determine what has been agreed by we the people. The first is to read what was written. The second is to return to the people and ask after the subject of their agreement. There is no common law authority in the colonial governments, nor the central government that had been formed by the initial confederation of these colonial governments, to reset or influence the meaning of contracts between people. Neither is there any government right or privilege to change or expand upon agreements by and among the people. In specific, this document is not some authorizing book of instructions for sovereign government and its leaders. It is not like the constituting documents of other nations setting limitations upon the exercise of their sovereign rule. It is what its writing proclaims it to be, an agreement among the people of the United States on setting up and authorizing a government to serve their desire for self-governance. The authority of government does not include adding a title to this agreement to imply that it is something other than a written agreement for and by the people of the United States. The authority of government does not include interpreting or expanding upon the agreement of the people to accomplish some governmental purpose. No action can be authorized by this document that would interfere with the rights of citizens to own this government and to give it purpose. This document does not and cannot subordinate the people to the government authority without denying its own legal foundation. This is a matter of law concerning a written agreement, but we also have to recognize contrary results. We have a history of the U.S. courts treating this document as a royal edict to be interpreted as a matter of law. This demonstrates an active and continuing failure in applying the common law to address what was written into this signed agreement. To compound their open and obvious error, the courts have relied upon judicial readings to set new meanings and new intents upon our agreement. The courts have given effect to provisions on which we the people were not agreed. This is why it is often wise for a citizen to have attorneys when dealing with this government. It is wise to employ those who are expert in current legal interpretations and this to establish procedures. The courts will not protect the rights and privileges of citizens just because a citizen is an owner of this government. I must return to the purpose for this study of law and it is not intended to help you be lawyers. It is to provide for foundation in law so that you will become effective citizens when you gain your majority. Our constituting a document is foundation as is our environment in which the people came to agreement in establishing our national government. Where people are in agreement, they are the owner of both this nation and its government and they are the authority that can direct its officers to see the public purposes set by we the people. Does this constitutional agreement apply to you? In a practical sense, you are within the territory of the United States then U.S. law applies to you. This is true even if you are a foreigner who has no claim to U.S. citizenship. In a legal sense, the question is whether you are part of we the people who are signatories. The historical answer is that you are not part of the body of people who are directly represented, but you are part of their posterity. It was also intended for you to become a part of we the people that intent is written right into our national agreement. In yet another perspective, teenage students are not given that decision as a choice. Their parents make such determinations on their behalf. If your parents are citizens of the United States, then by default you are also a citizen and this parental agreement addresses your legal situation and relationship to government. On reaching your teen years, you find yourself given more and more choice with the purpose of supporting your maturation into independent and effective citizens of this nation. As you pass through your teen years, you will be required to make many of your own choices based on your personal decisions. One immediate challenge in this area of the course is whether you would agree to this same constitution as a guiding document for government that represents you. A second challenge is whether you would support like decisions of your friends, neighbors and fellows. These are both questions for you as part of we the people and as a citizen who will interact with the laws, institutions and procedures that define our legal government. Your answer of course is private in the sense that you are not required to confess your belief in this document. You are rather to learn about our constituting agreement to discover your own answers to your personal purposes and concerns. Your first challenge, will you be part of we the people of the United States? That is a choice that is not open to you under our laws until you gain your legal majority. Then, almost all of you will be defaulted into independent US citizenship. Inherent in that citizenship is the application of law and governance in reliance upon this constitutional agreement. You will then be able to deny your citizenship, but there are costs to an opting out. That takes a positive decision with acceptance of the costs. It requires positive action to deny citizenship. Still, that choice will always be yours. Once you gain your majority, that option cannot be legally taken away from you. It can only be delayed by contrary situations. This of course is the big stick of citizenship. It is ability of a self-governing people to accept or reject government. If a government becomes too abusive and burdens them, then we as individual citizens can withdraw from it. Like a peasant who is being abused by a feudal landlord, we are able to withdraw from the supposed authority delegated to a few who govern in our name. This is not some threat of revolution. It is a threat of abandonment. The government of the United States has only legal existence, as it has the support of we the people who continue as its citizens. So what is your part in the empowerment of government under our constituting agreement? The U.S. citizen is the source of authority for this government. The citizen is the ultimate owner of the United States government, established under the authority of this marvelous agreement. Your part on reaching your majority as a citizen will be in terms of sovereignty as a citizen. It will also be shared with other sovereignty of citizens. This government will be partly your creation, as you are part of today's we the people of the United States. We find a stated purpose for this government written into the documents preamble. It is a statement of the founding purpose for there being a government. It is a statement of what the people directed to the government that is documented here. These written provisions and purposes provide the legal reason that the people have been agreed to enter into and maintain this government. The first provision is a general one. It was the purpose of forming a more perfect union. In the original signing, union was the purpose for their signing this document. It was to establish a united government. Clearly we have a government in place, so what does this mean to us today? What is the meaning of this wording to us so we can agree among ourselves? For me it speaks to the perfection of the union. This is purpose that generally addresses our modern effort as working toward improvement of our government in promoting unity among citizens. For me that is a good and sufficient purpose for my acceptance of this document as foundation for our government. I stress that the choice is mine even as the choice will be yours. As a performance expert in my own right I note that people working together to get things done are many times more effective than people working against one another. I see government working in ways to create divisions and intentionally set some citizens against other citizens. Consider if you will the potential for legislation to promote either a pre-born's right to be born or a parent's right to abort. The very subject is one of division, one where it is unlikely that there will ever be agreement amongst all citizens on it being right or wrong either way. Any legislation in this area no matter which direction it takes will be divisive rather than unifying. If anything it appears that searching out our division producing legislation has become the common business of US leadership. We are not becoming more unified by active government and our government has been feeling us in this purpose. We are less unified now than we have been as a people in the past. The United States government seems to have taken on new purposes that are in discord with the purposes we set upon our constitution. For your consideration, is it our purpose to call this back to our originating agreement or to authorize and support other directions? The unity purpose is followed by to establish justice. Again, the original signing was establishment. I read this same wording as a modern purpose promoting justice for citizens today. In accord with modern political language I must emphasize that this is personal justice. Justice for each sovereign citizen who is in general agreement with this document. There is no separate social justice that is supported. Society does not sign this agreement. It is signed on behalf of sovereign self-governing people. It is also not some increased level of justice for some special people at the expense of others. It does not promote buying and selling justice as a commodity but promotes approaching it as a service for all who are part of we the people. In terms of this agreement that applies to each of us as sovereign sources it is a self-governing purpose behind this constituting agreement. As a quick observation of modern challenge wherever any citizen must have a personal lawyer to find justice the government is failing to provide it in accord with this overriding purpose in its founding document. Our government is created to serve us not to rule over us. Our government is to serve its citizens not to respond to legal experts as separate and special class of citizens. This is not a source of complaint even though there is certainly reason in light of failing to serve. This is a purpose for future public efforts a way in which the experiment that is the United States has potential for improvement. Next we have insured domestic tranquility. In historical perspective this is the governmental acceptance and promotion of the common law with implementation of such official actions and institutions as we'll see to its application. The purpose of that law was domestic tranquility promoting a society where people were able to generally live in peace in the presence of other citizens. It was where their legal actions and activities were promoted so that governments honored personal efforts to live in harmony. The personal challenge for you is whether this is what you want or what you will want when you reach your majority. The cost of this provision is your adherence to the requirements of the common law and support for the institution of application. The benefit is that others will have to be agreed on the same principles. I must put the question to you on this provision has government been acting in promotion of your peaceful dealings among others? If we are not agreed that our government is promoting a peaceful existence for us as citizens then it is challenging the unity principle discussed above. Provide for the common defense. The meaning in the original signing of this document was clearly associated with the national military defense of we the people. Through change of time and needs and also through amendment this document has come to address personal defense from both foreign and domestic assaults. Inherent in this is the idea of a combined defense effort. It addresses an effort that is so common that it brings we the people together in agreement to support public activities. In accord with our history defense has been one of the chief benefits of being a nation being a people who are not subject to foreign military aggression. As never before in history we seem to be growing into a society where groups of citizens gather and visit violence upon other citizens. Whether it is gangs of young tufts or terrorist cells does not matter under this provision. Our needs for common defense are undergoing change and perhaps serving for the common defense should also involve protection from internally promoted violence. Promote the general welfare. This provision is subject to multiple readings but all seem to address a common theme. It is to secure a common good for we the people. As with justice the common welfare of we the people cannot be common welfare for some people at the expense of others. In accord with the signing of this agreement we are addressing the common welfare of the gathered people and our government's role as promoted through the common welfare of the people as sovereign citizens. In this we have to address public welfare as a representative duty for people under this document. The amazing realization that giving charity is a personal freedom. It is a choice that is inherited being a member of we the people. A public action that sees to the welfare of some people at the expense of others denies this personal freedom. The government that engages in public charity where people would not give charity on their own is directly misrepresenting the people. Our misrepresentation through social programs is not the fault of the signed constitutional agreement. It is a potential area for eventual citizen action based on valid public purpose. The challenge for the student is again whether seeing to the general welfare is what you want your government to accomplish and will it be acceptable direction when you reach your majority. By default you are now a citizen of the United States but acceptance of the constitution as representing you as an individual is still to be determined and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. The subject is liberty a synonym of freedom. It addresses lack of imposed restraints. The subject is liberty not only for ourselves as part of we the people but to people of the future who have the blessing of also becoming part of the future of this nation. Liberty is not freedom to do everything we want but freedom to do an agreement with others. This is freedom that respects the freedom of other people. It ignores honoring the special rights and privileges of other sovereign citizens. Even if you receive the support in exercising your own this has two impacts on governance. The first is that minimizing of imposed restraints that government establishes by its operation. The second is protection from of the freedoms that are recognized in we the people who are the source of government authority. It is also recognition of the superior rights and privileges of citizenship over those of governance even as we accept reasonable regulation to protect and preserve the benefits that come from peaceful exercise of our freedoms. It is something to which you agree as a citizen of a nation. Will you still be an acceptance when you reach your majority? Will this continue when you are asked to take part in self-government efforts of we the people? If you are an effective agreement with the purposes as stated then you can be an active part of we the people and your part is that of a sovereign citizen saying to our united purposes through the continuation of government in accord with the articles of this document.