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REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES BEFORE TAXES Especially When The Taxes Are Used (No Answers, No Taxes) by Robert L. Schulz Chairman, We The People Congress Presented at Freedom Drive 2002 The National Mall, Washington DC November 14, 2002 Acknowledgement Bob Schulz wishes to
acknowledge and thank Anthony Hargis for his fine research paper, "The
Lost Right, Redress of Grievances." (undated). Bob’s speech draws
heavily on that research and the underlying documents. The founding fathers, in
an act of the Continental Congress in 1774, said, "If money is wanted by
Rulers who have in any manner oppressed the People, [the People] may retain
[their money] until their grievances are redressed, and thus peaceably
procure relief, without trusting to despised petitions or disturbing the
public tranquility." This very American Right
of Redress of Grievances Before Taxes is deeply embedded in our
law. The founding fathers
could hardly have used words more clear when they declared, "the people
… may retain [their money] until their grievances are [remedied]." By these words, the
founding fathers fully recognized and clearly stated: that the Right of
Redress of Grievances includes the right of Redress Before payment of
Taxes, that this Right of Redress Before Taxes lies in the hands
of the People, that this Right is the People’s non-violent, peaceful means to
procuring a remedy to their grievances without having depend on – or place
their trust in -- the government’s willingness to respond to the People’s
petitions and without having to resort to violence. Before going further, I’d
like to clarify two points: first, the question we are dealing with here is
not whether the government has the power to tax, but whether the government
is abusing its constitutionally limited power to tax; and second, there is the
question of whether the government is using the tax revenue to effect other
abuses of its authority. The founding fathers were
well acquainted with the fact that government is the enemy of Freedom, that
those wielding governmental power despise petitions from the People; the
representatives of the People, in a popular assembly, seem sometimes to fancy
that they are the People themselves and exhibit strong symptoms of impatience
and disgust at the least sign of opposition from any quarter. The founding fathers knew
that it was possible for the institutions of the Congress, the Executive and
the Courts to someday begin to fail in their duty to protect the people from
tyranny. They knew that unless the People had the right to withhold their
money from the government their grievances might fall on deaf ears and
Liberty would give way to tyranny, despotism and involuntary servitude. The First Amendment to
the United States Constitution states clearly and unambiguously,
"Congress shall make NO law …abridging …the right of the people … to
petition the government for a redress of grievances." While some Rights are
reserved with qualifications in the Bill of Rights, there are none
whatsoever pertaining to the Right of Redress. There are no limits
on the Right of Redress. Any constitutional offense is legitimately
petitionable. We have established that
the Founding Fathers clearly declared that the Right of Redress of Grievances
includes the Right to withhold payment of taxes while the grievance
remains. By the 1st Amendment, the founding fathers secured for
posterity the Right of Redress of Grievances Before payment of Taxes
and they made the Right of Redress Before Taxes operate against "the
government," that is, against all branches of "the
government," -- the legislative, the executive and the judicial
branches. Redress reaches all. Notice that the founding
fathers, sitting as the Continental Congress in 1774, held that this Right of
Redress Before Taxes was the means by which "the public
tranquility" was to be maintained. Then, sitting as the
Constitutional Convention, the founding fathers declared that one of the
major purposes of the (federal) government was to "insure
domestic tranquility." Therefore, whenever this Right of Redress is
violated, the People have a double grievance: a denial of justice by the
government and, an incitement by the government to general
unrest. Today, our concern is the
grievance that falls under the heading of a design to subvert the
Constitution and laws of the country by those wielding governmental power. Under this heading, all
officers of the government are liable, if they strayed from their oath of
office. If we are to secure our
Rights, we must rely on the laws of nature and a reasoned sense of
innovation. To rely on precedent is to oppress posterity with the ignorance
or chains of their fathers. Being forced by the government to rely on
precedent is, itself, a grievance. The sequence of Redress
Before Taxes was well established in English law at a time when great numbers
of Englishmen traveled to America. They brought with them English history and
English law: they brought with them the principle of "taxes with
consent"; the unlawfulness of "troops quartered in private
homes," of "cruel and unusual punishments," and a whole collection
of Rights, such as Redress, Speech, Assembly and Trial by Jury. Any notion, spurious act
of Congress or opinion by a Court that taxes must by paid before Redress
is a perversion of Natural Law, of modern English law, of the American
Constitution and of Truth and Justice. The reverse
principle of "Taxes Before Redress" is based on the
essence of monarchy and kingly power: the king owns everything under his
domain. People possess property under a monarch by his grace alone. Since a
king owns everything under his domain, he merely has to speak to lawfully
dispose of his property. Thus, if a king imposed a tax on land he imposed it
on his own land and whoever occupied the land was obligated to pay the tax to
the king’s treasury. A tax, then, being a part of the king’s property, was
legally presumed to be in the possession of the king before and after its
assessment. Since the landholder, or
landless subject, enjoyed the privilege of tenancy on the land only by the
will of the king, he could be required to pay over the tax before he could
contest the assessment—or redress a grievance. Thus, the theory that a
tax must be paid before redress rests on the presumption that society
is organized as a monarchy; that all people living therein exist by grace of
an autocrat – whether one man or an assembly of men. This proposition was
soundly rejected by the Founders in designing our unique system of
governance. In America, such
presumptions constitute grievances. The first duty of any officer is to
uphold the Constitution – the entire Constitution, without reservation and
without bribery or blackmail. Petitioning the
government for a Redress of Grievance naturally includes the ability to
compel admissions – the production of information and answers to questions. Jefferson wrote,
"The right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of
free communication among the people thereon,…has ever been justly deemed the only
effectual guardian of every other right." According to the Right of
Redress, as the Founders described it, we have a right to withhold taxes if
government violates our rights. But, as American courts describe the
Right, we must suffer the injury, pay the taxes, and only then, sue for
Redress against an adversary with unlimited resources. The idea that taxes
are to be paid before redress is asserted by Congress in the Internal
Revenue Code at Section 7241, which states, "no suit for the purpose of
restraining the assessment or collection of any tax shall be maintained in
any court by any person …." How repugnant! American government is supposed
to be organized to protect American citizens; but section 7241 authorizes the
IRS to destroy them with impunity and the judiciary is cooperating with
the executive and legislative branches in a collective decision to deny the
People their constitutional Rights. Such acts of government are
unconstitutional and must be stopped. In America, the right to
petition our government for redress of grievances is the basis of our
liberty. Our founders explicitly recognized this right in the first amendment
to our constitution -- for they understood that without it, we could not have
a servant government whose power is defined and limited by the consent of the
people. In America, the right to
petition our government for a Redress of Grievances is an unalienable
right. It derives from our faith in a supreme being - an ultimate moral
authority from whom we gain our understanding of equality, justice and the
rule of law. Implicit in our first amendment constitutional right to petition
our government for a redress of grievances, is the government's absolute
moral and legal obligation to respond honestly and completely to the people's
petition. This is the essential
cornerstone of Popular Sovereignty -- a government of the People, by the
People and for the People. In 1791, the right to
petition became primary among the Rights of the People of the United States
of America, as expressed in, and guaranteed by, the First Amendment. Some would now have us
believe that our First Amendment right of petition is nothing more than a
guarantee of free speech; that this vital constitutional protection - the
very basis of our liberty - is simply a right to voice our grievances to the
government. Some would try to convince us that We The People do not have the
absolute right to an honest and complete response to our petitions -- or the
authority to demand that our government correct the abuses and violations of
our liberties that result in our petitions. Some would even go so far as to
say it is merely a Right to complain, with no expectation of response. This is nonsense! This is dangerous talk to a free
people. We will not listen to those who would denigrate our
Constitution, and undermine the principles of liberty and justice that gave
birth to our nation. At best they are imbeciles, and at worst they are
tyrants -- or "sharing bedrooms" with tyrants. We must guard against
this nonsense. We must harden our hearts to these false notions that
government is God. We must recognize that even in the long run government
can never be rational, without a principled Constitution firmly rooted in
Liberty. Government has but one legitimate purpose -- to serve and protect
all of the people equally. Government is not God. It is our servant. It is
accountable to the People. The right to Petition for
Redress of Grievances is the final protection -- the final,
peaceful check and balance in our system of Constitutional government in
which the government derives its limited powers from the consent of the
sovereign people. This is the right which publicly reveals and reiterates
for all, who is Master and who is Servant. The way the system is now
working is in sharp contrast to the way it was designed to work. The
servant is taking over the House: the government has brought us to the
brink; the Constitution is hanging by a thread. Not only is the
government neglecting its duties, it is operating outside the boundaries the
People have drawn around its powers. These are some of our
grievances. First: In violation of
the War Powers Clauses of the Constitution, the President has colluded with
the Congress to pass legislation that authorizes the President to apply the
armed forces of the United States of America in hostilities in Iraq without
a congressional Declaration of War. Second: In a hasty
response to widespread fear and panic following 9/11, our elected
representatives voted on the "U.S.A. Patriot Act" (with many having
not read it), which by the plain language of the Act, violates and seizes
a number of the unalienable rights of the People. Third: Our government has
relinquished direct control of the monetary system of this nation to a privately
owned central bank and has transformed our money into nothing but
limitless debt. And, a significant portion of the Federal Reserve stock is
held by foreign entities. And Fourth, the U.S.
Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service reneged on their July
2001 agreement to appear at a public forum to answer the People’s
Remonstrance and well-documented legal charges directly asserting the lack of
statutory or Constitutional authority for the federal income tax and the
systemic abuses of our unalienable rights in the daily operations of the IRS. These are tyrannical and
despotic acts. Are they to be tolerated by the People? Let us thank our
forefathers for their vision, foresight and innate understanding of the
nature of man, political power, and government corruption in recognizing the
explicit right of the People to petition their government for redress. On October 7, 2002, four
Petitions for Redress of these grievances were posted on the internet. The
four Petitions, signed by thousands of American citizens who reside in all
435 Congressional Districts, were hand delivered to the offices of each
member of the House of Representatives and each member of the Senate (in
Washington DC) on November 8, 2002 (last Friday). Then, the Petitions were
each formally served on the President on the twelfth. The Petitions address
specific constitutional grievances relating to: 1) the War Powers Clauses of
the Constitution and the Iraq Resolution; 2) the privacy, due process and
free speech clauses of the Constitution and the USA Patriot Act; 3) the money
clauses of the Constitution and the Federal Reserve System; and 4) the
tax-related clauses of the Constitution and the federal Income Tax system. With the exception of the
Income Tax Petition, the Petitions for Redress include specific questions,
which We the People expected to be answered. The Petitions respectfully
requested each congressperson and the President to send a representative to
meet with the People at 2 P.M. today, right here on the National Mall, to
either answer the questions OR tell the People when the questions will be
answered. With respect to the
Income Tax Petition, we are further along. Those questions have already gone
unanswered by the government following its receipt of an earlier Petition for
Redress. The current, second, Petition on the Income Tax Grievances moved the
petitioning process to the next level with its list of demands. There is
more to the petitioning process than the mere submittal of the
"despised" petitions. With today’s failure to
respond, we can see a clear pattern. Our elected representatives do not
feel compelled to respond to the People. We must take the
appropriate next step. As of two o’clock today, the government has left us no
choice but to engage in civil action – a pro-active, non-violent mass
movement, with the explicit goal of restoring the Republic by bringing
the government back under the control of the People and our Rule Book – the
Constitution of the United States of America. This meeting here on the
National Mall is the culmination of Freedom Drive 2002. On November 8,
citizens from across the nation began driving in caravans toward Washington
DC, to peaceably assemble here to await the government’s response to their
Petitions. We appear to have reached
the point where the institutions of the Court and the Congress and the
Executive have failed in their Constitutional duty to protect the people from
tyranny, The government is refusing to answer the People’s allegations of
governmental wrongdoing. Unless the People withhold their money from the
government their grievances will fall on deaf ears and Liberty will
give way to tyranny, despotism and involuntary, economic servitude. Every adult in this
nation has a personal duty and a moral responsibility, that stem directly
from our heritage, to repel the tyrannical acts of those to whom the People
have granted well defined and limited powers. The right to Petition is
the foundation of Popular Sovereignty and is the direct vehicle for the
peaceful, non-violent resolution of matters involving errant government. This
right is the procedural mechanism that enables the People to call any
branch of their servant government before them. In America, there are
only two things that stand between the people and government tyranny -- our
Constitution, and our will as a free people to protect and defend it. These petitions are about
us -- We the People. They are proof of our resolve to correct our
government’s abusive and unlawful behavior. As a People, who are we?
And who do we want to be? What kind of country do we want to leave to our
children and future generations of Americans? Will we tolerate tyranny
merely to be comfortable? Again, we ask: What does
a free People do when confronted with a government that refuses to honor, and
systemically schemes to evade, the boundaries and limitations established for
it by We the People? We stand at the brink of
a Constitutionally unauthorized war and the meltdown of a monetary system
based on the endless conjuring of debt. Under the guise of
"protecting" us from terrorists, our government is attempting to
seize our most fundamental rights and deprive us of their protections.
To finance it all, the IRS and the Department of Justice use intimidation by,
and the power of, the police state to enforce and prosecute offenses of tax
"laws" --- yet they continue to refuse to cite the specific legal
authority that purportedly allows them to enforce those laws. If the People fail to
act, we will end forever the chapter in human history when a People reigned
sovereign, and the chains of a written constitution limited and bound their
government to their service. We have a
choice. YOU have a choice. We came for answers, but
we did not get them. Now we demand that our government obey the
Constitution, which, after all is a strongly worded set of principles to
govern the government, not the people. By the terms and
provisions of the Constitution the People have not only formed their
government and enabled the government to act in certain ways, they have
purposely and markedly restricted and prohibited the government from acting
in certain other ways. The nature of our
resistance is clear. It is not an act of anarchy or rebellion; rather it is
an act of resistance to a government that is violating the purposes for which
the Creator -- through the People and the Constitution -- has ordained civil
government. We are not
"anti-war." We are not "anti-tax." We are
"pro-constitution" and "anti-fraud." Thus far we have pursued
peaceful reconciliation and petition. It is the President and the Congress
who have refused to respond to our Petitions for Redress of Grievances, in
violation of the 1st Amendment. We did not initiate this
conflict. We have been fully committed to peaceful reconciliation and have
pursued that course for decades. We have no desire for
resistance or violence of any kind. However, in the People's peaceful
reconciliation attempts, the People's petitions and appeals have been met
with force, and in some instances with near- military force. The defense of our homes,
families, properties and possessions is a most important point to us. It is
our heritage. It is our Right. There is not the most
distant thought of subverting the government or of hurting the interest of
the people of America, but of defending our personal Rights, Freedoms and
Liberties from unjust encroachment. There was not the least
desire of withdrawing our allegiance from the leaders of the branches until
it became absolutely necessary -- and, indeed, it has been their own choice. Our political leaders
know that our cause is just. They know that we, the
People, struggle for that freedom to which all men are entitled -- that we
struggle against oppression, seizure, plunder, extortion and more than savage
barbarity. We are not moved by any
light or hasty suggestion of anger or revenge. Through every possible change
of fortune we adhere peaceably to this determination. Our property and
happiness have been attacked. Our self-defense against an aggressor government
is righteous. Our civil action is for
the cause of civil justice -- a righteous struggle, undertaken in defense of
our property, our happiness and our families. It is to oppose the invasions
of usurped power. We will bravely suffer present hardships and face future
dangers, to secure the rights of humanity and the blessings of freedom
for generations yet unborn. It is our obligation, as
responsible citizens of this country, to set a proper value upon, and to
defend to the utmost, our just rights and the blessings of Life and Liberty.
Without this personal commitment, a few unprincipled individuals would
tyrannize the People, and make the passive multitude the slaves of their
power. Thus it is that civil action is not only justifiable, but an indispensable
duty to correct these wrongs. It is upon these
principles that we are resisting the government and will oppose force
with force. How? Any wage earner who gives
money to the federal government and any employer who withholds money from the
paychecks of working Americans is undermining the People’s Rights, Freedoms
and Liberties. Under the present circumstances, their behavior must be
considered to be un-American. As our Founders said so
clearly: "If money is wanted by Rulers who have in any manner oppressed
the People, [the People] may retain [their money] until their grievances are
redressed, and thus peaceably procure relief, without trusting to despised
petitions or disturbing the public tranquility." How? We the People must
get Redress of Grievances before payment of taxes. No Answers. No Taxes! |