ABSTRACT
The sovereignty of the people was ended by the outcome of The War Between the States, so that the real sovereign is now not the people but the nine blackrobed deities in Washington who at will decree what our Constitution means. The Republican Party, even after having won the war, maintained its power only by force and fraud, known as Reconstruction. The war had been fought on the basis that the States could not leave the Union, but were only temporarily under the control of a conspiracy of rebels. Reconstruction was built on an utterly dishonest reversal of ground. The Constitution has never recovered from these lies. The Republican Party, even after having won the war, maintained its power only by force and fraud, known as Reconstruction. Throughout the war and Reconstruction, the Republican Party behaved as a revolutionary party-though sometimes using conservative rhetoric-a Jacobin party, bent on ruling no matter what, on maintaining its own power at any cost.
