So What is Important to You?

"Demand Day" Rally at the Capital

Speech given by Cindy Redburn

March 26, 2009


I am honored to represent the Constitution Party of Missouri today. I am a founding member of the party and I serve as State Secretary. I also was privileged to represent the Constitution Party as their 3rd Congressional District candidate for Congress in 2008.

I would like to mention a few things that distinguishes the Constitution Party from other parties. One, you will find our members greatest loyalty is to the Constitution rather than the party, and secondly, unique to our party is the fact that all thirty-nine planks of our platform are linked to an authorizing statement in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights or the Declaration confirming that our positions are constitutional. But perhaps the best way to clearly and quickly define our party is to share our mission statement with you.

The goal of the Constitution Party of Missouri is to promote and defend the great American principles of individual liberty and the return to constitutional government by means of educational and political activity, and through the election, at all levels of government, of Constitution Party candidates, who will uphold the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

Promoting and defending the principles of individual liberty and returning to constitutional government is the driving force behind everything we do in the Constitution Party of Missouri. We are here today because this rally is centered around the 9th and 10th amendments to the Constitution - amendments, which embody the principle of state sovereignty. This principle of state sovereignty is rooted in the historical fact that the states created the national government and gave it few and defined powers, and those powers are clearly enumerated in Article 1, Sec 8 of the Constitution. That’s it, nineteen delegated powers from the states to the federal government. Anything else the national government does to interfere or intervene in state government is a direct violation of the Constitution.

Our party platform includes a plank on state sovereignty, and the sixth principle of the seven principle of the Constitution Party is State Sovereignty. I would like to read part of that plank to you.

The 10th Amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

The Constitution delegated few, enumerated powers to the Federal Government, reserving all remaining powers to the States and the people. Thus, powers of the Federal were the exception.

Our federal republic was created by joint action of the several states. It has been gradually perverted into a socialist machine for federal control in the domestic affairs of the states.

The federal government has no authority to mandate policies relating to state education, natural resources, transportation, private business, housing, and health care, ad infinitum.

We call upon the states to reclaim their legitimate role in federal affairs and legislation (See Amendment 10 United States Constitution) and thus cause the federal government to divest itself of operations not authorized by the Constitution and extract the federal government from such enterprises, whether or not they compete with private enterprise. The Constitution Party believes that state sovereignty is an important step in restoring the proper balance between state and federal governments.

I wish restoring proper roles of government was as simple as quoting amendments and party platform planks. However, we all know that it requires more than words to affect the necessary changes. Yet, if we expect to survive as a nation, we must return to the place, where the Constitution is honored once again by our elected officials as the supreme law of the land.

“How will that happen? What will it take?” Is a question that has been on my mind and heart for years and I’m sure on the hearts of many here today. And for the first time in years I am filled with hope that we may actually be seeing an answer to the questions. In fact, there is a part in the Declaration of Independence that eludes to the very nature of what I see happening,

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

This is the place we find ourselves today. We have had a history of repeated injuries and usurpations and the shenanigans of Wall Street bankers, the Federal Reserve, Congress and both Presidents Obama and Bush have heaped insult upon injury. Their outrageous behavior has brought thousands of people together in a way that no one could have planned.

Protests, tea parties and meet-up groups are gathering all across the nation, and when you made the decision to be here today, you also became part of this movement to reign in a rogue government.

And lest you think I am unduly harsh in using such a word to describe our government, let me define “rogue” for you. The dictionary defines rogue as “a dishonest and unprincipled person” and a second definition further states a rogue is “a person or thing that is defective or unpredictable. I have no trouble applying all of those adjectives to our government, for it has truly acted in a dishonest, unprincipled manner and has become defective and unpredictable in it’s efforts to solve the very problems it created at the expense of the taxpayers.

Furthermore, we know that rogues do not, without an outside force acting upon them, change their ways. That is what you have become today, an outside force being applied, when you say to your state legislator, “You know, I believe the Constitution of the United States limits the authority of the federal government, and I want you, my state government to get off the federal welfare rolls, and start acting as a sovereign state that does not exist by the good graces of Washington.”

And let me repeat, this is just a start. You cannot leave here today, thinking, “Well, I’ve done my duty! No, that won’t cut it.” This is just the beginning of a long, hard fight. Can you imagine where we would be today if the signers of the Declaration would have just signed and went home to take their ease?

The signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. If you think you can do any less, then you are not cut out for the battle. Yes, this battle is not to the faint of heart, but to those, as one of my favorite lines from the song America the Beautiful states, those “who more than self their country loved”. Battles are won by those who have that level of commitment.

What is your commitment level?

Will you commit to educating yourself in the ideas of liberty and the principles of constitutional government?

Will you then use that knowledge to hold your elected officials accountable to oath of office?

Will you be willing to replace those who violate the Constitution?

Will you be willing to even run for office yourself to assure a choice for candidates, who will obey the Constitution?

The Constitution Party is committed to restoring constitutional government that guarantees individual liberty to all. We are committed to make the necessary sacrifices to insure that our posterity will enjoy the blessing of liberty. We invite you to join us in this worthy and honorable cause.