Of First Principles & Organic Laws
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Dominican Scholar Graduate Master's Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects Student Scholarship 5-2017 Of First Principles & Organic Laws Pietro Poggi Dominican University of California https://doi.org/10.33015/dominican.edu/2017.hum.05 Survey: Let us know how this paper benefits you. Recommended Citation Poggi, Pietro, "Of First Principles & Organic Laws" (2017). Graduate Master's Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects. 299. https://doi.org/10.33015/dominican.edu/2017.hum.05 This Master's Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at Dominican Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Master's Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects by an authorized administrator of Dominican Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Of First Principles & Organic Laws A culminating project submitted to the faculty of Dominican University of California in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts in Humanities by Piêtro G. Pôggi San Rafael, California May, 2017 This Thesis—written under the direction of the candidate’s Thesis Advisor and approved by the Graduate Humanities Program Director—has been presented to, and accepted by, the Department of the Graduate Humanities, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Humanities. The content and research methodologies presented in this work represent the work of the candidate alone. Piêtro G. Pôggi 17 May, 2017 Master of Arts in Humanities Candidate Joan Baranow. Ph.D. 17 May, 2017 Director of Graduate Humanities Jordan Lieser, Ph.D. 07 May, 2017 Assistant Professor of History/Thesis Advisor Gigi Gokcek, Ph.D. 17 May, 2017 Associate Professor of Political Science/Secondary Thesis Advisor © 2017 Piêtro G. Pôggi All Rights Reserved. Table Contents of Abstract .................................................................................................................................i Acknowledgments ...............................................................................................................ii Nota Bene ...........................................................................................................................iii Preamble: ..............................................................................................................................1 Introduction ..........................................................................................................................6 Part One I: First Principles ........................................................................................................41 II: The Organic Laws of the United States ...................................................................47 III: Coup d’État Federaliste ...........................................................................................66 Part T wo IV: The Scheme of Rights ...........................................................................................106 Political Rights .................................................................................................112 Due Process Rights & Protections ...................................................................120 Personal Rights.................................................................................................125 Debatable Rights ..............................................................................................127 V: Mandate of the Supreme Court..............................................................................132 VI: Duties of Congress ................................................................................................166 VII: The Imperious Presidency .....................................................................................170 Part Three VIII: Practical Application .............................................................................................182 Consent .............................................................................................................185 Unalienable Rights ...........................................................................................195 Personal Autonomy ..........................................................................................197 The Pursuit of Eudaimonja ..............................................................................201 Captured by Capitalism ....................................................................................208 Whither Democracy .........................................................................................229 Democracy & Government ..............................................................................233 Towards Self-Determinatioin & Democracy ...................................................241 Demanding Consent & Options .......................................................................244 Demanding Constitutional Laws ......................................................................247 Demanding Personal Autonomy ......................................................................250 Demanding the General Welfare ......................................................................257 Demanding Court Checks & Balances.............................................................261 Beginning Anew ...............................................................................................263 Bibliography .....................................................................................................................265 ABSTRACT The First Principles and Organic Laws of the United States ought to be part of a daily discussion at every water cooler and every dinner table in the country. Instead, it is entirely possible there have been days, weeks, months—or even years—when neither term has been spoken anywhere in America. Yet, during the first several decades of the country’s existence, the concepts of First Principles and Organic Laws were commonly discussed; in fact these notions were crucial to the founding of the country and its political organization. Works concerning the foundation of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, the American War for Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the men involved in these events and creating these documents, are perhaps the most published in the United States. Nonetheless, arguably few American citizens have an accurate understanding of these concepts, events, documents, and men—and they are virtually all men. One method by which to stimulate discussion about how the United States was politically organized, how it is politically organized, and how it might be possible to re-organize the political system of the United States, is an exposition of the First Principles and Organic Laws; and of the events, documents, and men, associated with them. This exegesis is underscored by three years of research that produced 750 footnotes from overwhelmingly primary sources, with a 43-page Bibliography. The results are decidedly at odds with the commonly internalized mythology of the United States. It is the prerogative of the citizen reader to use the information herein to discuss and debate the political, social, and economic, organization of the United States; or to perhaps Alter or Abolish it. i Acknowledgements I would like to profusely thank Dr. Jordan Lieser, my Thesis Advisor for this Master’s Thesis, for believing in me and in this work, and graciously going far above and beyond the requirements of Thesis Advisor as he patiently oversaw four major revisions of this text, after stepping in as an emergency replacement for my original Thesis Advisor, Dr. Laura Stivers. I would also like to thank my Secondary Advisor, Dr. Gigi Gokcek, as well as Dr. Stivers, who sifted through three complicated revisions. In addition, I thank Christelle Etienne for proofreading my original draft prior to its submission. THANK YOU ALL! ii Nota Bene: Critical reflective skepticism is a willingness to re-examine all previously held attitudes. Herein, the defining documents of the United States—its Organic Laws—and the events surrounding their creation are critically re-examined with reflective skepticism. Such re-examination has extended to the use of capitalization and traditional naming conventions. Some naming conventions originated centuries ago and may have long passed their expiration date. It is perhaps a disservice to readers to perpetuate and re-enforce mumpsimus that scholars, educators, and citizens of the world know full well to be inaccurate. It is for this reason that the actual names of historical personages, political units, and geographic locations are observed, rather than cognomen invented in the distant past that have continued unabated as parochial “conventions.” It is unfortunate that some may find this choice pretentious, but if one person will have learned the given names of Aristotéles and Platón and discovered there are such places in the world as Ellada, Deutschland, España, and Bhārat—and that “Greece,” “Germany,” “Spain,” and “India,” do not exist—it will have been well worth the effort and potential disdain. Throughout, the collective term “First Principles,” as well as the individual First Principles and their subsets, denote particular concepts and are therefore absolutely proper nouns and properly capitalized—something that emphasizes their philosophical, conceptual, or theoretic importance. Certain other key notions, such as a very specifically defined