Restoring the Lost Republic (6 PART SERIES)

1 - Money, Currency, Debt, & Credit Backgrounder
2 - The Legitimacy of the Federal Government in Washington D.C.
3 - Department of the Treasury & The Federal Reserve (The Fed)
4 - The 16th Amendment and the IRS (Internal Revenue Service)
5 - 3-POINT ACTION PLAN
6 - Conclusion & Quotes from U.S. Presidents

In Part 1 – Money, Currency, Debt, & Credit Backgrounder of this 6-part series, we explored the difference between money, currency, debt, and credit.

In Part 2 – The Legitimacy of the Federal Government in Washington D.C. we will look at some historical facts regarding the federal government and learn more about the nation's capital - Washington D.C. Finally, we will pose the question as to whether Washington D.C. and the United States itself is a corporation. What you read may very well surprise you!

Part 2 – The Legitimacy of the Federal Government in Washington D.C.

There seems to be a lot of confusing information out there (not to mention a lot of disinformation) regarding the legitimacy, jurisdiction, and authority of the federal government (i.e., the Congress which is comprised of the Senate and the House of Representatives). Now, by no means am I a constitutional lawyer, nor a regular one for that matter, but I will do my best to attempt to simplify and clarify things as much as possible. For this, I think it is best to look at the source or stem from which law in this country is derived, namely the Constitution for the United States of America (3).

The first thing to look at is where the federal government is located. According to the Constitution which was created on September 17th, 1787 and ratified on June 21st, 1788, the site that would serve as the country’s capital – Washington, D.C. – was selected as per The Residence Act of 1790 (officially An Act for Establishing the Temporary and Permanent Seat of the Government of the United States) (4) and would come into effect in 10 years time. The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801 (officially An Act Concerning the District of Columbia) (5) was passed by Congress in accordance with Article 1, Section 8 (last two clauses) (6) of Constitution and thus confirmed that the District of Columbia would serve as the permanent seat of government.

The part that confuses many people is a duplicate act of Congress – the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 (officially An Act to provide a Government for the District of Columbia) (7) which was also laid out by Congress. Its first section reads as follows:

That all that part of the territory of the United States included within the limits of the District of Columbia be, and the same is hereby, created into a government by the name of the District of Columbia, by which name it is hereby constituted a body corporate for municipal purposes, and may contract and be contracted with, sue and be sued, plead and be impleaded, have a seal, and exercise all other powers of a municipal corporation not inconsistent with the constitution and laws of the United States and the provisions of this act.

How was it possible that to create a municipal government by the name of District of Columbia when it had already been created and officially recognized 70 years earlier in 1801?

There are many lawyers and legal organizations (8) who see this act as one that was illegally and most importantly, unconstitutionally, executed or enacted by the Congress and is thus null and void.

Moreover, under this Act of 1871 the District of Columbia would now be seen as a “body corporate”, or corporation. The confusing part here is “for municipal purposes” which seems to imply that it is a ‘municipal corporation’ (9). Some cities, such as Chicago (10) for example, are set up as corporations. In England the ‘City of London’ (11) is incorporated and actually is administered by the ‘City of London Corporation’ (12).

A corporation can have its own charter (a distinct set of rules which can be seen as laws). Thus the District of Columbia could have its own distinct set of laws.

In the Front Matter (Organic Laws) of United States Code (13) we see reference to the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (14). Four things are noticeably different with the title on this page compared to the original “We the people” document of 1787. Firstly, the word “The” is omitted. Secondly the word “for” has been changed to “to”. Thirdly, the title appears all in CAPITAL LETTERS (something commonly done in corporate legal documents). And fourthly, there is a footnote “1” at the end of the title. Now, why have these changes been made? I would, at the very least, certainly think that the writing [of the title] of such a critically important legal document would have been more diligently undertaken. Wouldn’t you?

Some would argue that under the Act of 1871, the corporation simply copied the text of the original Constitution in order to legally separate or distinguish it from the original 1787 document written by the Founding Fathers. Once more, I am not a lawyer, but these four changes in the title alone appears extremely odd, not to mention disturbing, to me. Moreover, Title 28—Judiciary And Judicial Procedure—SUBCHAPTER A—DEFINITIONS AND GENERAL PROVISIONS— §3002. Definitions (15) reads as follows:

(15) "United States" means—
(A) a Federal corporation;
(B) an agency, department, commission, board, or other entity of the United States; or
(C) an instrumentality of the United States.

Many legal, moral, and constitutional questions can be raised by this definition and affirmation. Would the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 “re-confirm” the District of Columbia as a “federal corporation”? Is the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 in itself legal, constitutional, and enacted? Did Congress have the constitutional and legal authority to provide a legal government for the District of Columbia a second time? Would the charter of this corporation only apply to the territory within the District of Columbia? If so, what would that mean for the enactment and validity of its laws within each of the fifty States of the Union? Is the corporation’s charter in fact the United States Code? If not, what is it exactly? Does the ‘United States’ have a board [of directors]? Who exactly owns this corporation? In no way do I wish to even attempt to answer these questions; I will leave them up to the experts in their respective fields to ponder and debate.

[END OF PART 2]

Stay tuned for Part 3 -Department of the Treasury & The Federal Reserve (The Fed) where we will explore the beginnings of the Fed, who owns it, how it creates money, and its link to the US Treasury Department.

Notes:

(3) Constitution for the United States of America, http://www.usconstitution.net
(4) The Residence Act of 1790 (officially An Act for Establishing the Temporary and Permanent Seat of the Government of the United States),
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Residence.html
(5) The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801 (officially An Act Concerning the District of Columbia),
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=002/llsl002.db&recNum=140
(6) Constitution for the United States of America (Article 1, Section 8), http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A1Sec8.html
(7) District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 (officially An Act to provide a Government for the District of Columbia),
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=016/llsl016.db&recNum=0454
(8) Team Law – Historical Outline, http://www.teamlaw.org/HistoryOutline.htm
(9) Municipal Corporation (Wikipedia), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_corporation
(10) Chicago (Wikipedia – see “Incorporated (city) March 4, 183”), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago
(11) City of London (Wikipedia), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London
(12) City of London Corporation, http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/about-our-website/Pages/legal-notices.aspx
(13) United States Code, http://uscode.house.gov/
(14) United States Code – CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/frontmatter/organiclaws/constitution&edition=prelim
(15) United States Code – Title 28—Judiciary And Judicial Procedure—SUBCHAPTER A—DEFINITIONS AND GENERAL PROVISIONS—§3002,
http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title28/part6/chapter176/subchapterA&edition=prelim