 We now come to the specific articles that form the bulk of this constitutional document. These are articles through which a government is authorized to exist. The written provisions address how the various elements of government will receive power from we the people, and are both specified authorities and denied actions beyond stated limitations. These articles set a government in order, setting duties upon its parts to fulfill stated purposes in the larger agreement. This new government is also to function within the self-governing purposes documented in the preamble. These are the source of the agreement that brings it into existence. Of specific note, this article is not some separate authorization providing absolute powers and suggesting limitations upon a ruling group of government leaders. That is not the written intent, nor the expressed will of the people in whose name this document is signed. I would not have to mention this except for the common challenges to citizen ownership of this nation through government actions. It is further challenged by the use of internal processes that interfere with or even deny representation to we the people. Part of the purpose of this course is to empower future citizens to more perfectly govern themselves, to have a common base of knowledge in our founding document so that they can come to union in assuring the legal government of the United States effectively serves its people in accord with its constituting instrument. The first article of our agreement is focused on initiating, empowering, and limiting a legislative body within this new government, and this body is given legislative purposes in accord with the agreement of we the people. The purpose for there being a legislature is to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. The provisions within this article must be seen as our means to meet our public purpose in having legislature the purpose of we the people in coming to agreement. As this is presented, ask yourself if you can honestly say that you are agreed as part of the people of the United States upon the provisions of this article. That is more than your personal approval. It is general agreement that includes your friends and classmates. Section 1 assigns all legislative powers to two houses of Congress. The term legislation addresses the passing or enabling of laws. Laws are instructions or directions by government that are to be honored by people or that pursue the legal purposes of government. This has to start with the common law as a source of legislation. It is acceptance of the laws that forbid common law crimes and misdemeanors. It includes general acceptance of tort law forbidding us to injure one another, and it includes institution of justice, such as through courts and police. It includes having all these serve us. It also includes common law support for business, the laws of contract and agency. Legislative power is also limited in that it cannot otherwise do what people cannot do on their own. It has to first recognize our authority to do things as citizens before we can do things in our name. Our government, as created and empowered under the authority of this document, has only the powers and authorities we can delegate to it. One immediate and ongoing violation of these principles is seen in the passage of laws that hold people accountable, even though the laws are written to be unclear in effect, or so complicated and involved that we, the people, are not expected to understand their provisions. Consider our tax code now thousands of pages in length. Do our congressmen read and understand all the details in such a massive code? Are each of us expected to read and understand it? What chance is there that this tax code could represent your purposes in operating our government? Here is the guiding principle. If it does not represent you as a sovereign citizen, it is not going to represent you as a part of we the people. We have drifted a long way from having a government that represents a sovereign people. Authority to legislate is not granted to see to government-determined purposes, only to see to the agreed purposes of we the people. Section 2 addresses the House of Representatives as a body that is to intentionally represent the people of the several states. Being apportioned by the number of people being represented is an intentional effort to assure equality among those who are to be members of this body. This subject was equal representation of citizens as individuals. We have an immediate challenge to any procedures, practices, or laws that would give one member of the House of Representatives more or greater representational effect than any other. Granting more effect to senior members, those who have longevity in their membership, is a probable error, as is granting special representational effect to a speaker of the House. Neither should committee assignment be any sort of limit on the activities of a representative in saying to the interests of the citizens they represent. Such assignment can set the duties upon various members of the House for taking an active role in committee actions, but cannot legally establish additional representational duties or limits. This becomes a major challenge when the House as a body makes a representational decision on behalf of all the people by voting majority. That permits a majority of represented citizens to act over the objection of a large minority, denying the very purpose of unity. While this was at the time of the original signing well within the common vision of how English government was to operate, its functional override of the representation of citizens has had challenging consequences. This is perhaps most clear in spending decisions, where the one representative who addresses a citizen is unable to represent them in spending what has been collected from that citizen to operate government. This has resulted in legislation to expend government resources serving some few areas of the nation, without hearing the voice of those citizen owners who provide the funding. It has resulted in spending resources to support a department of education that delivers no value to the public. When originally encountered, this may seem a challenge, but consider what value you receive from this organization. If you do not receive some product of its effort that you value as a citizen, then neither do you receive it as a member of the public. Again, funding such government efforts would not have been a challenge at the founding of the nation, because they would have been considered normal government behavior in the English system of law. These challenges have developed as the nation has grown. The institutionalizing of the representative bodies with professional politician leaders coming into what had been initiated as citizen representatives has shifted emphasis from representation to security and public employment. The institutionalizing of political parties is another major influence that has grown into an effective government business. Protecting the continuation of political leaders in office has become a political industry, and that is a challenge of having non-citizen political parties being given a voice in the House of Representatives that is only supposed to represent citizens. As will be examined under the Common Law Foundation for Agency, the political party is not the agent of the people who adhere to its general party platforms. It is the elected leadership that is supposed to represent citizens in the House of Representatives. For perspective, the methodology in this section of Article 1 addresses what was a good and effective means for collecting and presenting the votes of citizens as to elections. It describes a process for a citizen's election of those who will represent them. It provides a reasonable means, and probably as good a means as was unavailable, for assuring that the members of the House of Representatives actually would strive to represent their constituents. We have the technology and methodology to do a much more effective election effort, but that would require an amendment to this constitutional agreement. A well-designed change could give citizens greater voice, greater ability to steer and direct their representatives. But again, such changes would not serve the interests of non-citizens who have come into influence, nor would it support longevity in the public employment within the current political system. Accordingly, the now awkward election system is still in place. It will probably continue until the people change it into something that better serves the population of self-governing citizens. The specific address of impeachment in this section is significant, in the sense of going to the purpose of representation. Even as the writing in this section includes legislation, it also includes prosecutorial duties for managing the larger function of government. As the most representative body within this government, the House of Representatives is given the duty to watch internal operation of government and to take official action in prosecuting any government officers who would challenge the purpose stated in our constituting agreement. By its ordering in this section, impeachment is made a fundamental purpose, even as legislation is a fundamental purpose. It is not some special power as in managing our monetary system, but is a fundamental duty to be performed on behalf of we the people in fulfillment of the purposes set in the preamble. Section 3 addresses the existence and membership of a Senate, a House of State representatives. Again, in the environment in which this constitutional agreement was signed, it contains a certain amount of confusion as to the status of the colonial governments. The people of this revolution did not fully accept them as sovereign bodies, and yet they were functioning as central governments for public services and their recognized territories, giving them a voice in the Senate through representatives actually made these state government bodies stronger, giving them greater official recognition. The potency of the state governments must be understood in the context of this making a provision of an agreement where government powers are delegated from sovereign citizens. It recognizes that these same citizens are also to be the owners of their state governments. This second House of Congress is to represent people in territories recognized as states. It does not give voice to the states as subordinate feudal barons under sovereign United States. It gives voice to the people in recognized internal territories, providing for their representation as a collection of people with common territorial interests. Of special concern is the election of representatives by the legislatures of the states rather than directly by the people. This was a simple, effective, and appropriate way to address the process of election and relied upon the representative nature of the state legislature to assure the representation of the people of the state. It was too simple. I did not provide a good means for political corporate bodies such as political parties to have influence on these representatives. They would answer directly to the legislatures that selected them. And so this method of election has been challenged and changed into something closer to that use to elect members of the House of Representatives. This will be further discussed in the Articles of Amendment. Once again, we have a second specified purpose for this body of Congress. This time it is for trials of impeachment. The Senate is addressed as the people's agent for handling internal misconduct in office. The Senate is, by trial, given the power to remove public officers from their offices where they abuse its privileges and powers. By its placement in this section, the trial of impeachment is every bit as much within the function of the Senate as the passage of laws. The fourth section of this article addresses two authority relationships. The first is the authority to establish the method for voting for members of Congress. The basic process is to be set by the former colonial legislators. They are to arrange for proper representation of their people. To this, the new Congress is given the power of voting regulation. They can also set voting requirements and can regulate the process for the benefit of the larger people of the United States. Their efforts are to address national consistency in voting process. Where the Congress has granted regulatory authority to do more than this, there is no indication of any purpose in assuming authority over the people in the state territories. The second provision requires Congress to meet. It cannot excuse itself from meeting, but it is granted authority to set a schedule for its meetings through the legislative process. In summation, we have an extremely well-considered establishment of Congress that is written into our constituting agreement. For your consideration, this is now the basis for our agreement as citizens of the United States. While it can be changed, it is not subject to change because something is better. It is subject to change when we the people can come together to do it. For now, this is our written agreement. Is it good enough so that you can accept it as a basis for continuing the government that it sets in place? I'm not asking about whether you can accept the modern government that is in place, but the government that the founding fathers envisioned when they wrote and signed this agreement.