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Article V -- Loophole Or Safety Valve?

Article V Isn’t a Loophole

There’s this old myth floating around—like swamp gas rising from a broken Capitol dome—that says calling an Article V convention is radical, dangerous, or somehow “unconstitutional.”

I’ve gotta say: nothing could be further from the truth. It’s not just constitutional, it’s THE constitutional safety valve. It’s not a backdoor. It’s the front gate the Founders swung wide open for us when tyranny or dysfunction take hold in our government.

Let’s be real for a second. Do you truthfully believe that Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington, or Alexander Hamilton would look at the bloated federal monstrosity we’ve got today and say, “Yup, that’s exactly what we had in mind”? Not a flippin chance! These men were revolutionaries, not bureaucrats. They didn't just expect the system to drift into dysfunction, they actually planned for it. They built in a way for the people to take back the wheel when the driver (read: Congress) gets drunk on power and veers off the constitutional road.

Jefferson laid it out plainly: “If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates.” OK, fairly plainly . . . What Jefferson meant is that if people think something in the Constitution isn’t right, they should fix it the proper way, by changing it through the steps the Constitution itself allows.

Madison? He called us out from the pages of Federalist No. 43 and No. 49. The people, acting through their states, can assemble in convention to amend the Constitution. No permission slip from Congress required. No need to wait for the same politicians who are the problem to become the solution. He labeled it the “ultimate arbiter.” Not the courts. Not the President. Not Congress. We the people.

And Hamilton, always blunt: “We may safely rely on the disposition of the State legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority.” Say what? What Hamilton meant is that we can count on the state governments to stand up and push back if the national government tries to take too much power.

But here’s the punch in the gut: we, and the states, are not using it. Not because it doesn’t work. But because we’ve been sedated by fear and misinformation.

Fear pushed by D.C. elites who whisper sweet nothings about a “runaway convention.” Fear amplified by some academics who love complexity more than courage. Fear spoon-fed by media outlets who wouldn’t recognize first principles if they tripped over Washington’s farewell address and fell face first into it. And fear, tragically, parroted by well-meaning patriots who’ve been lied too for so long they don’t know what to trust anymore.

Let me say it loud for the folks in the back rows: the real runaway is already happening.

Washington is running away with our freedoms. The federal debt is galloping past $37 trillion with no brakes in sight. Unelected bureaucrats are inventing laws out of thin air. Agencies now act like little kings. And Congress? They can’t even pass a budget without threatening to shut the whole place down.

If this isn’t a system in crisis, I don’t know what is.

And while we wring our hands about hypotheticals, the Constitution—the very document that made us the freest people in the history of the world—is being torn apart by lawyers, ignored by presidents, and reshaped by judges.

Still worried about a “runaway convention”? Hamilton wasn’t. Madison wasn’t. Washington wasn’t.

As the official records of the Founders’ debates make clear: “Two-thirds of the states can always procure a general convention for the purpose of amending the Constitution, and that three-fourths of them can introduce those amendments into the Constitution, although the President, Senate, and federal House of Representatives should be unanimously opposed.”

Read that again. The Founders gave US, We the People, the power to overrule Washington. Even if every last soul inside the Beltway screams “no”, We the People—acting through our states—can still say “yes.”

So what’s stopping us? Nothing but fear. And fear, when it silences truth, becomes complicity.

Here’s the bottom line my friends: we’re staring down a constitutional crisis, not because Article V is too dangerous to use, but because we’ve been too cowardly to use it.

The Founders gave us a tool. A lifeline. A remedy for federal corruption, judicial activism, executive overreach, and congressional cowardice that they assured us would happen. But a tool unused is a liberty lost.

Folks, the house is on fire and an Article V Convention is the emergency fire blanket. Will we use it, or burn with the building? Yes, I’m asking you that question; will you answer?

Restore First Principles exists because the system isn’t broken, it’s being broken, on purpose. The Founders handed us a Republic. What do we have now? A bloated, unaccountable machine chewing through the Constitution line by line. If that doesn’t scare you, it should.

https://restorefirstprinciples.substack.com/

www.ConventionofStates.com

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Created:	2025-07-25 14:23 GMT
Updated:	2025-08-01 07:00 GMT
Published:	2025-07-16 13:00 GMT
Converted:	2025-11-11 12:06 GMT
Change Author:	Ken Whaley
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