This wording does not affect the remainder of Article IV, Section 4.
Certainly it is our hope that under this Amendment States would finally
be free to adopt forms of government that best serve the will and rights
of their people, including but not limited to Representative Democracy protected
by Monarch at the State level. But even if not, it is our belief that
this Amendment will better serve the American people than the current text
of this clause of the Constitution, and deserves the support of the people
of all the States.
A State Monarchy even within the current Federal Republic is doable because
the States are the effective source of Sovereignty in America. Federal
Sovereignty was delegated by the States, and the Federal Government can do
nothing except what is explicitly authorized in the Constitution as interpreted
by the Courts. The Constitution was created by the representatives
of the States in the Constitutional Convention. All powers not permitted
to the Federal Government are retained by the States "or the people" (10th
Amendment).
State Sovereignty may be represented by a Monarch, irrespective of the
Sovereignty of other States or of the Union, especially if the Monarch is
charged to protect that State's democratic structures and its people's rights,
as modern national Monarchs do throughout the developed world, for instance
by signing legislative bills into law (or not), overseeing governmental administration,
and upholding the law...and rendered incapable of tyranny him/herself with
practical limits such as are over all modern First World monarchs.
State Monarchy is most visible today in Australia. That country's
history is similar to our own, in that Australia is a Federation of former
colonies, its current States of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South
Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania. Since Federation Australia
has always had a written Constitution, modeled on ours in significant ways.
During the recent referendum defeating a proposal to become a Republic,
it became clear that even if the Federation became a Republic, any of the
States, in retaining their degree of Sovereignty, would retain the Monarchy
respectively unless they too became Republics. (Australia has an appointed
Governor-General representing the Queen at the Federal level, and appointed
Governors representing the Queen at the State level, different from our State
Governors at present in that they govern "with the advice of" the State Premiers.)
Canada is similar. There the primary Sovereignty inheres in the
Confederation, not the Provinces. But certain powers normally remain
Provincial versus Federal powers, and these Provincial powers are officially
exercised by "Her Majesty in Right of" Ontario, or Quebec, etc., as opposed
to "Her Majesty in Right of Canada." (Canada also has a Governor-General
at the Federal level, and Lieutenant-Governors at the Provincial level, who
function the same as the equivalent officials in Australia.)
In America, State Monarchy might be desirable for the same reasons it
is desirable at the Federal level. Our States are not subdivisions
of the Union, but its components. Their powers continue to be real
and substantial - in fact, anything not delegated to the Federal Government!
- and their Sovereignty persists intact. The Monarchy Party of the
United States recognizes State Sovereignty and proposes its protection by
Monarchy in Representative Democracy for as long as it endures.
Tiernan O Faolain, Jan. 12, 2004