User blog:R.e. Glenn/Conditional Ratification and War Bonds

Two thoughts have been making their presence known to me more and more over the past few days. The first was prompted by a phrase heard in a lecture series I have been listening to about civil liberties and the Bill of Rights - 'conditional ratification'.

When the constitution was written and submitted to the states for ratification, it did not include the first ten amendments, which we call the Bill of Rights. The states, in turn, made it known that they would only agree to the new constitution if it had these guarantees. So they did something called 'conditional ratification'. They said, in effect, that the only way you will get us to agree to adopt this constitution is if you promise that the first thing this new government does is explictly add these rights and freedoms, and the legalese to protect them. Therefore, if it turned out that these amendments were not made, then the consent of the state would be revoked, and in turn the constitution would be invalid.

The question that keeps popping up in my head is this: What if, by suspending the rights in any of these first ten amendments, the constitution itself could become null? That now, over two centuries later, the conditions for ratification being broken by, say, the suspension of a citizens right to habeas corpus, for example, would cancel the legality of the constitution? Just a thought...

The second thing is about war bonds.

Back in World War II, the United States didn't have the money to buy the things and send the armies to conduct the war, so they launched a massive and continuous effort to raise money from the people through their purchase of war bonds. I wonder how much of the current military actions would continue to be executed if the government had to get its citizens to actively pay for it?