Is Impeachment Our Obligation?

by Scott Creighton 

What are we bound to under this nation of laws? What intangible power holds us together as a people and as one nation? Do these very ties that bind us one to the other also compel us to act to protect their existence, not only for ourselves but for the generations to come, against all those who would seek to undermine the unalienable Rights endowed at birth to each man, woman, and child in the eyes of the law?

“To take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them.”

W. Shakespeare, Hamlet

We are armed by the Constitution of the United States of America with many tools by which we can protect ourselves and each other from the unwarranted abuses of our government. The Constitution serves to protect our rights from any group or individual that seeks to usurp their authority, granted by the people of this nation, over the governed people for whom it was written.

But the constitution also has within it certain provisions that command us to protect it.

Article VI of the Constitution of the United States reads, in part, as follows;

 ”The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution;”

Article II Section 1.- The President -  ends with the following;

“Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Our representatives on all levels of governance are sworn by solemn oath to protect and defend our Constitution. Our representatives are duty bound by that oath of office to carry out the wishes of the people of this nation as long as they are so entrusted to do so.

And when they as individuals, or as an administration, have violated their oaths, through neglect or through direct intention, to defend that very Constitution, they have indeed broken the  pact that we, as a nation, made with them, and are no longer our true representatives.

James Madison – “A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution.”

Alexander Hamilton – impeachment is warranted for “those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust… as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.”

The violations of our Constitution by this administration and Richard Cheney specifically are clear and numerous. Many are detailed in Dennis Kucinich’s Resolution of Impeachment, summarized here, and many others are not.

From his support of “water boarding” in direct violation of the Geneva Convention, which he is obligated under the Constitution to consider “the supreme law of the land”, to his insistence of the office of Vice President as being outside the scope of the Executive Branch of government; from his violation of the Presidential Records Act by destroying the visitors records to his office, to his “Office of Special Plans” within the Department of Defense whose sole occupation was the ‘re-interpretation” of documented evidence to support an illegal war in Iraq; this Vice President has repeatedly violated the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. He has done with malice of forethought and has quite probably also violated the War Crimes Act, which is punishable by death.

This Vice President has clearly entered into a realm of corruption and criminality never before seen by a vice president, in the history of this nation. Richard Cheney has earned impeachment.

From The Declaration of Independence – “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,…”

Upon taking office, after the elections of 2006, when the people of this nation made a clear statement that they wanted a change in how this government was being run for the good of the corporations absent any accountability and rule of law, the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, representing her party’s newfound controlling majority, announced that ‘Impeachment was off the table”, thus giving this administration a free hand for the remainder of it’s term in office.

Never before has any President been similarly informed that they will not be held accountable to the people of this nation.

Nancy Pelosi, that same Speaker, is in direct violation of her oath of office for making that claim and for working behind the scenes to see that it is fulfilled.

There can be no reason for such a clear violation of the Constitution and her role as its protector.

Impeachment does not belong to the Speaker of the House nor does it belong to the party she represents. Impeachment belongs to the Constitution and to the people for which that Constitution stands to protect.

Impeachment belongs to the future generations of this nation, who will have to pay the price for Pelosi’s negligence and dereliction of duty.

Nancy Pelosi is obligated by her oath of office to uphold the Constitution and to defend it against all threats, foreign and domestic. She must bring the impeachment resolution to the floor of the House of Representatives, or she must step aside as speaker to make room for a representative who understands their constitutional obligations.

Part 1. Article 1 of the Constitution of New Hampshire, [Equality of Men; Origin and Object of Government.] “All men are born equally free and independent; therefore, all government of right originates from the people, is founded in consent, and instituted for the general good.”  Established October 31, 1783 Effective June 2, 1784

This administration no longer enjoys the consent of the governed. Nor does the leadership of the House of Representatives.

Part 1. Article 10 of the Constitution of New Hampshire, [The Right to Revolution]“Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government”. Established October 31, 1783 Effective June 2, 1784

Part 1. Article 10 of the Constitution of New Hampshire, [The Right to Revolution] “The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.”  Established October 31, 1783 Effective June 2, 1784

If in fact we have reached that point where we may as a people no longer trust that our representatives will hold true to the provisions laid out under our Constitution, which they have sworn to uphold and which is the very foundation for all these truths that we hold so dear.. if we cannot foresee any redress for the numerous grievances committed by a rogue Executive Branch of government… if we can no longer trust our representatives to adhere to the rule of law under any circumstances, then we must act to provide for our own reclamation of the ideals that set this great nation into motion, so many years before.

We must act to reclaim the United States from those which will subvert it into a tyranny for the good of ourselves, for the good of all nations that stand to be threatened by this administration, and for the good of those yet unborn who will live under the rule of government that we set as precedent upon this nation. Just as our fore fathers left this Representative Republic for us, we too are burdened with the responsibility of legacy.

Let us not hand over to the next generation of Americans, repression, slavery, and tyranny; but rather, let us pass on to them that which was promised to us, so that they to, will in turn, know freedom and hope, and their own obligation to this nation, and each other.

This is our birth right and our obligation. In turn, it will be theirs.