 Our Constitution is an agreement. 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 signed as their colonial representatives appointed by colonial governments. The first note is that this is no government document. It does not get its authority from the sovereignty of any government unit, nor our states the signatory to it through their representatives. The people are the parties in this agreement. It is for a specific note that the United States is not even a party to this agreement and did not even exist until it was signed. The intense wishes and wants of the new government formed under its provisions are not even matters in issue. There is only one party to this agreement and it is we the people. There are only two ways to determine what has been agreed by we the people. The first is to read what is written. The second is to return to the people and ask after the subject of their agreement. There is no authority in the colonial governments, nor the central government that had been formed by federation of these colonial governments to reset or influence the meaning of the people's agreement. Neither is there any delegated powers to change or expand upon the document other than by the methodology that is written into the agreement. As a potent detail, the document was without title. It is not an authorized book of instructions for sovereign government at its leaders. 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 the need for self-government of a sovereign people. The authority of government does not include adding a title to this agreement to imply that it is something other than a written agreement by and for the people of the United States. The authority of government does not include interpreting or expanding upon the agreement with the people to apply provisions of this agreement where the people have not been agreed. No action can be authorized by this document that would interfere with the right of citizens to own this government and 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, but we also have to recognize contrary results. We have a history of 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 common law to address it as an agreement. To compound this open and obvious error, the courts have relied on judicial readings to set the meaning new intents upon this 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 involved in dealing with government. It is wise to employ those who are expert in current legal interpretations and established procedures instead of relying upon the rights and privileges of being an owner of this government. I must return to the purpose of this study of law and it is not intended to help you be lawyers. It is provided for foundation in law so that you will become effective citizens when you gain your majority. This constituting document is foundation as is the environment in which the people came to agreement on establishing a national government. Where people are in agreement, they are the owners of both the nation and its government, and they are the authority that can direct its officers to see the public purposes of the people. Does this constitution agree with you? Are you in agreement when it applies to you? In a practical sense, if you are within the territory of the United States, then the US law applies to you. This is true even if you are a foreigner who has no claim to US citizenship. In a legal sense, the question is whether you are part of we the people who are the signatories. The historical answer is that you are not part of the body of people who were directly represented, but you are a part of their posterity. It was intended for you to become part of we the people. That was part of the 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 your government. On reaching your teen years, you find yourself given more and more choice with the purpose of supporting your maturation into an independent and effective citizen of this nation. As you pass through your teen years, you will become required to make many of your own choices based on your personal decision. Two immediate challenges in this area, of course, is whether you would agree to this same constitution as a guiding document for the government that represents you, and would you support like decisions of your friends, neighbors, and fellows? These are both a question of you as a part of we the people and as a citizen who will interact with the laws, institutions, and procedures that define 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. The 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 U.S. 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 in opting out. That takes a positive decision and acceptance of the costs. It requires positive actions 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 a big stick of citizenship. It is the ability of self-governing people to accept or reject government. If a government becomes too abusive and burdens them, then we, as individual people, are able to withdraw from it. Like a peasant who is being abused by a feudal landlord, we are also able to withdraw from the supposed authority delegated to the 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 only has legal existence as the support of we the people who continue its citizens. So what is your part of the empowerment of government under our Canaanstituting Agreement? The U.S. citizen is a source of authority for this government. The citizen is the ultimate owner of the United States government established in this marvelous agreement. Your part will, on reaching your majority as a citizen, be in terms of your sovereignty as a citizen, shared with the sovereignty of others. 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 in the documents preamble. It is a statement of the founding purposes. It is a statement of what the people directed to government, this government that the document establishes. These written provisions and purposes provide the legal reason that the people have been agreed to enter into and to maintain this government. The first provision is a general one, the provision of forming a more perfect union. In the original document, signing this was the purpose for their signing the document. It was to establish the government. Clearly, we already have a government in place. So what does this mean to us today? What is the meaning of working together as you, improve our government? For us, it is improving the government as promoting unity among the citizens. For me, that is a good and sufficient purpose for my acceptance of this document as foundation for government. I stress that the choice is mine, even as a like choice will be yours. As a performance expert in my own right, I note that people working together to get things done is many times more effective than people working against one another. I see government working in ways that create division 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 among the citizens in which is right or which is wrong. Any legislation in this area, no matter which direction it takes, will be divisive rather than unifying. If anything, it appears that searching out division-producing legislation has become the common business of the U.S. leadership. We are not becoming more unified by active government, and our government has been failing us in this purpose. We are less unified now than we have been in the past. The United States government seems to have taken on new purposes that are in discord with the purposes given in the Constitution. It is our purpose to call it back to originating agreement, or perhaps our purpose to authorize and support new directions. The unity purpose is followed by to establish justice. Again, the original signing was establishment. I read in this same wording a modern purpose in promoting justice for citizens today. In accord with modern political language, I must emphasize that this is personal justice, justice for the 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 agreement, this applies to each of us as sovereign sources for the self-governing purpose behind this constituting agreement. As a quick observation of modern challenge, any citizen must have a personal lawyer to find justice. The government is failing to provide it in accord with this overriding purpose and 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 sources of service. This is not a source of complaint, even though there is certainly reason in light 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 Ensure domestic tranquility. In historical perspective, this is governmental acceptance and promotion of the common law with implementation of such official actions and institutions as will see to its application. The purpose of that law was domestic tranquility, promoting a society where people were able generally to 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 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 institutions of application. The benefit is that others will have to be agreed on the same principles. I must put the question to you in this provision. Has government been acting to promote peaceful dealings among others? If it is not agreed that it has, then we again challenge the unity principle discussed before. Then provide for the common defense. The meaning for the original signing of this document was clearly associated with the national military defense of we the people. Though change of time and needs is 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 together an 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 military aggression. As never before in history we seem to be growing into a society where groups of citizens gather to visit violence on other citizens. Whether it is gangs of young tufts or terrorist cells doesn't matter under this provision. Our need is for common defense. We are undergoing change and perhaps serving the common defense should involve protection from such internal violence. Next promote the general welfare. This provision is subject to multiple readings. But all seem to address a common theme. It is to secure common good for we the people. As with justice the common welfare of we the people cannot be the common welfare of 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 the government role is promoted through the common welfare of the people as individuals. In this we have to address public welfare as a representative duty for the people under this document. The amazing realization is that giving charity is a personal freedom. It is a choice that is inherent in 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 the valid public purpose. The challenge for the student is again whether seeing to the general welfare is what you want in your government. 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 yours to be determined. And finally and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. The subject is liberty. A synonym for freedom. It addresses a lack of imposed constraints. The subject is liberty not only for ourselves as part of we the people but to people of the future who have the blessings of becoming part of the future of the nation. Liberty is not freedom to do everything we want but freedom to do things in agreement with others. This is freedom that respects the freedom of other people. It involves honoring the special rights and privileges of other sovereign citizens even as you receive their support and exercising your own. This has two impacts on governance. First for its operation. The second is protection of the freedoms that are recognized in we the people who are the source of government authority. It is 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. Is this something to which you agree as a citizen of this nation? Will you still be in acceptance when you reach your majority? Will this continue when you are asked to take part in the self-government efforts of we the people? If you are in effective agreement with the purpose as stated then you can be an active part of we the people as sovereign citizens seeing to our united purposes through the continuation of government in accord with the articles of government.