Edwin Vieira: Preface To “The Sword And Sovereignty”

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Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., Ph.D., J.D.

Dr. Edwin Vieira’s most recent tome, The Sword And Sovereignty: The Constitutional Principles of the Militia of the several States, has yet to be published in hard copy.  However, the book is now available at Amazon dot com on a Compact Disc (CD-ROM).

While reading about this new book at Amazon dot com we find a brief ‘description’ for the book: (quoting)

“The Sword and Sovereignty: The Constitutional Principles of “the Militia of the several States” is a comprehensive study – 2,304 pages in length, with 6,544 footnotes and endnotes – of the constitutional and statutory history of America’s Militia, which gives special emphasis to the unique and indispensable rôle of the Militia as the institutions through which WE THE PEOPLE themselves ultimately provide, or withhold, “the consent of the governed” upon which this country’s form of government depends for its legitimacy.”

So we see that The Sword And Sovereignty is a study on the entire Second Amendment, not just the last half of that Amendment. That is excellent news for James Jaeger and Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., because their upcoming film, Molon Labe, is based on Edwin Vieira’s “The Sword And Sovereignty”.

The Sword And Sovereignty, and the movie which is even now growing out of that book, together bring an encouraging grasp on the supreme solution to save our country from the jaws of statist socialism and power-elite fascism – a full return to the Constitution with emphasis on the Second Amendment and with special emphasis on reinstating the Constitutional Militia of the several States as the way to place the power of American governance back into the hands of the people. The Constitution reveals clearly that our security as a free state rests with the Militia. Dr. Vieira’s book brings to life a resurrected understanding and renewed acceptance of our duty as self-governing citizens in a Republic of law, and shows us how and why we are to accept individual responsibility for our security as a nation.

A word about Molon Labe before reading Dr. Vieira’s Preface for “The Sword And Sovereignty”. Having provided the academic Constitutional theme for the film, Dr. Vieira is heavily involved in the subsequent movie. He also will appear with the cast in the movie.

In addition to Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., Molon Labe features Ron Paul, G. Edward Griffin, Pat Buchanan, Larry Pratt, Stewart Rhodes, Catherine Austin Fitts, David R. Gillie, Sheriff Mack, Alex Jones, Jack Rooney, and Jesse Ventura.  Ron Paul, Stewart Rhodes, Chuck Baldwin, and G. Edward Griffin have already completed their interviews for the movie. An impressive two minute trailer is now online – see it <here>

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America does indeed have indelible roots, family histories, cultural mores uniquely “American”, and Americans have a love for freedom mixed with a wish for peaceful living for one and all. When those treasured values were crystallized and were made manifest in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution for the united States of America, We The People for the first time in history achieved ownership over our specially created government.  No more kings and dictators for Americans.

The culture which incited the American Revolution was a culture which cherished its moral code. The Founders fused their spirits and minds to give birth to a new nation among the nations of Earth, independently sovereign as were the sovereign States (former Colonies which had fought for independence and established each its own sovereign Constitution and system of governance as a Republic of law), devoted to the highest ideals of freedom, liberty, and prosperity.

Dr. Vieira’s writings take one back to life in the Colonies, then into the birth of this nation in colorful detail, and generously takes one down through the ensuing  decades in smooth and scholarly style. Anyone reading his work feels something akin to receiving a free Harvard course in American History. The wisdom is powerful, the knowledge is awesome. Molon Labe the movie, working in tandem with Dr. Vieira’s book  The Sword And Sovereignty, shows the way to a secure future by everyone accepting one’s  Constitutional duty to participate and support one’s local and/or State  government by registering in one’s County or State Constitutional Militia.

Our nation’s roots run deep to the era in which its founding legal documents were written, and at that time participation in one’s Militia was required by law. Every able-bodied man with few exceptions was to furnish his own weaponry and personal gear for fighting battles if called forth.  Wives had responsibilities as well. That was the cultural more, the tradition of the former Colonies, and was a central part of everyone’s lives during the founding of this Nation.  The Militia is at the core of what America traditionally was and should be today.

The Constitution requires it, but for over ninety years most Americans have been negligent and their States have failed to maintain their proper Militia. Dr. Edwin Vieira’s “The Sword And Sovereignty” will provide the knowledge needed to return to our rightful Constitutional “Militia of the Several States”.

The statist progressive Anti-Gun Lobby will bristle at the very thought of reinstating the County and State Militia across America, even moreso than it bristles over black rifles. But they are wrong, legally wrong. The book The Sword And Sovereignty and the movie Molon Labe will give all Americans a unified approach to reclaiming our local governments through registering with our respective County Commission Militia and State Militia offices. That is my “say” for today. Please enjoy reading Dr. Vieira’s “Preface” to his remarkable book, The Sword And Sovereignty below. And with your sense of patriotic duty fully activated, please support this work by purchasing your own copy of the book.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Sword-Sovereignty-Constitutional-Principles/dp/0967175941/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1356300509&sr=8-1&keywords=the+sword+and+sovereignty

Salute!

Elias Alias, editor

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AUTHOR’S PREFACE by Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr.

Some people will carp that, in writing this book, I have set myself upon a

quixotic task. Yet anyone who actually reads my words will discover that, from the

first capital letter to the last period, my motivation lies above and beyond what the

Portuguese call saudade. The Sword and Sovereignty: The Constitutional Principles of

“the Militia of the Several States” is not simply a dry intellectual exercise in the

rehearsal of long-forgotten American history, and the penetration of a maze of

obscure legal analysis, undertaken in order to satisfy a nostalgic craving for the

restoration of a country that can never retrace its steps back to its idealistic origins

from the brink of catastrophe at which it now finds itself. Even less is this work

intended to memorialize in print a resignation to the dictates of what the

Portuguese call fado. To the contrary: Fate called The Sword and Sovereignty into

being, not to dust off for the sake of idle curiosity ideas from a bygone era which

retain no practical relevance today, but instead to explore, explain, and advocate

principles of political organization and action with timeless pertinence, and to apply

them for the purpose of bringing about America’s renaissance.

To be sure, this will be a massive job, for the completion of which most

Americans are, no doubt, woefully unequipped at present. So The Sword and

Sovereignty has been designed and executed to supply all Americans with the basic

tools they now lack, but will all too soon desperately need in order to save from

destruction the real America—the America of the Declaration of Independence and

the Constitution.

Some readers may complain, however, that, in a book replete with footnotes

and endnotes complementing an extensive text, I have supplied altogether too

many tools for the average man’s easy use. This criticism is myopic. Although the

matters described in The Sword and Sovereignty were common knowledge among

most literate Americans once upon a time, they have not been such for quite a

while. In fact, the historical and legal character—and especially the uniquely and

critically important constitutional place—of “the Militia of the several States” have

been passed over, garbled, misrepresented, and even suppressed for generations, not

only by all of America’s domestic enemies, but also by all too many American

patriots who have naively prided themselves as champions of the Second

Amendment—so that, today, vanishingly few and extremely far between are those

Americans even minimally conversant with the subject. As did the Founding

Fathers who subscribed the Declaration of Independence, I believe that “a decent

respect to the opinions of mankind” demands more than the airy assumption that

my readers should supinely “take my word for it”, without perusing the evidence

themselves. Instead, to become sufficiently educated in this area—and, perhaps of

more consequence, to be convinced that his education rests on a foundation

sufficiently solid to undergird political action—the contemporary student must be

presented with, and must himself both ingest and thoroughly digest, the full record

of historical facts, and the full panoply of legal analysis and arguments, in support

of the reasoning, conclusions, and recommendations that The Sword and Sovereignty

lays out.

Other readers may conjecture, though, that, whatever their merits in theory,

these tools will prove to be simply too ponderous for politically and economically

illiterate, self-indulgent, and slothful Americans to take up and wield in practice.

At least as an admonition, this observation may be marginally valuable. Folkwisdom

identifies four types of human minds: The very best mind understands

things on its own, and always acts in conformity with its understanding. The good

mind understands things when they are explained to it, and usually acts in

conformity with that explanation. The bad mind cannot understand things even

when they are explained, and therefore never learns how to act properly. And the

very worst mind refuses to acknowledge what it knows to be true, so that it can act

according to its own contrary, malign purposes. When the Founding Fathers wrote

the Second Amendment, they presumed that average American patriots were of

sufficiently sound, self-actuating minds that they would understand the

Amendment’s meaning without being told—in particular, that most Americans

could themselves explain what “a free State” is, why “[a] well regulated Militia” is

“necessary to the security of a free State”, and how “the right of the people to keep

and bear Arms” always forms the indispensable foundation for such a Militia. This

presumption was valid in the Founders’ era, because most free adult male

Americans were then actually serving or had served in “well regulated Militia”, in

times both of peace and of war. Unfortunately, such a presumption would be illfounded

today, because: (i) Next to no Americans have any present or historical

experience of serving in true constitutional Militia—indeed, no such Militia have

even existed since the earliest days of the Twentieth Century. (ii) Hardly anyone

proposes revitalization of the Militia along constitutional lines—proving that the

very best minds are not applying themselves to the problem of how to obtain

constitutional “homeland security”. (iii) As a result of this dearth of intellectual

leadership, the matter is not being correctly explained to common Americans,

leaving them in something of a mental void on the subject. And (iv) that void is

being filled with disinformation broadcast by proponents of “gun control” with

apparently unlimited access to the mass media who routinely label as an “extremist”

or even a “terrorist” whoever dares to advocate Americans’ participation in

anything to do with “militia”. Against this background, it would hardly evidence

paranoia to fear that, even were the matter of the Militia properly explained, the

great mass of Americans would still not understand, but instead would follow the

pied pipers of “gun control” into the political septic tank of a National para-military

police state. Yet, if there is room for doubt on one side, there must be room for

doubt on the other, too. The presumption that average Americans can learn when

the matter has been correctly explained to them has yet to be disproven. And it can

be disproved only by presenting them with the facts and obtaining no good result.

Of course, there can be no guarantee that even if Americans are fully

informed they will take the advice to heart and set their hands to work. Human

nature has not changed since the Founding Fathers’ days. Only a little more than

a generation after ratification of the Second Amendment, in his Commentaries on

the Constitution Joseph Story observed that

among the American people, there is a growing indifference to any system

of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burdens,

to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly

armed without some organization it is difficult to see. There is certainly no

small danger that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to

contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by

th[e Second Amendment.]

Nonetheless, that was then; and this is now. In Story’s era, Americans could

perhaps afford for a while to indulge the vice of “indifference”. Today, common

Americans have arrived at the point where “indifference” is no longer an option for

which the social cost in treasure—and, perhaps, blood as well—will likely be

bearable. The crisis is upon them at this very moment, intensifying with each

passing day. And unless they are willing to witness their country’s destruction, and

themselves to suffer the horrendous consequences of that débâcle, they must pick

up and put to effective use the tools the Constitution has provided for them, no

matter how heavy those tools may seem to be at first. When they do, rather than

recoiling in “disgust” and “contempt”, they will swell with admiration and give

profound thanks for the foresight of the Founding Fathers in incorporating “the

Militia of the several States” into the original Constitution, and guaranteeing

through the Second Amendment “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms”

for their use in “well regulated Militia” that can provide “the security of a free

State” everywhere within America.

The struggle that has been thrust upon Americans is not one to preserve the

uniquely American way of life, but to restore it. For most that has been and remains

worthwhile in this country has already been systematically denigrated, subverted,

corrupted, and even prohibited by bevies of rogue public officials working on behalf

of factions and special-interest groups, both domestic and foreign—so that, today,

the true America exists only as fleeting, dissipating shadows of her former self. To

restore America, though, Americans must first wrest control of their country from

the grasping hands of the usurpers, tyrants, and exploiters who have conquered and

despoiled her.

The reconquest of America cannot be successfully waged by a people whose

primary motivation is the materialistic desire simply to live a comfortable life. The

average American will endure only so much deprivation and danger for the benefit

of self-indulgence, always finding it easier in the short run to surrender a little

material ease in order to gain a respite from the travails of the struggle—until, step

by step, he finally surrenders so much that he strips himself of the means, even if he

retains the will, to continue the struggle at all. So the reconquest of America must

be envisioned and especially carried on, not as a matter of isolated individuals’

narrow economic self-interests, but as an heroic cause: the renewed assertion, by

common Americans in unison, of America’s unique character as a truly “free State”

that can serve, not only as their own prosperous homeland, but also as a beacon of

hope to oppressed and impoverished peoples throughout the world. Such an heroic

cause will require no less than an heroic effort to see it through to fruition. For

America must be rebuilt, not just economically, but politically, socially, culturally,

legally, and morally as well—in the execution of which extensive reconstruction

must be called forth labors that might tax the strength of even Hercules himself.

And this effort will call for a most unusual sort of heroism, because typical

Americans, not mythical Greek heroes, will have to perform the work.

Moreover, heroism by itself will not suffice. Even in the hands of one of the

greatest warrior races known to History, kamikaze tactics failed, as common sense

teaches that all such desperate measures inevitably must fail. To justify their

exertions today and tomorrow, Americans will need to be able confidently to believe

in the realistic likelihood of success, because they will be applying historically proven

methods. Such confidence would be amply justified, though, were they to revitalize

and deploy “the Militia of the several States”, as the Constitution requires. The

Second Amendment, after all, does not describe “[a] well regulated Militia” as

“being necessary to the security of a free State” without abundant support in the

historical record. To the contrary: It was largely through the efforts of the

Militia—in the face of the gravest adversities, and against the determined resistance

of powerful enemies who compassed their destruction, if they refused to bend to

subjection—that WE THE PEOPLE secured their independence and established just

governments throughout America in the late 1700s. That Americans thus won their

own freedom through their own efforts was the original cause and the most

important effect of what has come to be called “American exceptionalism”.

Precisely through this aspect of “American exceptionalism” can contemporary

Americans assert once again the principles of independence, freedom,

and justice that should always define “the American way of life”. “[T]he Militia of

the several States” are not the subjects of some semi-legendary account from a long

dead past, interred within dusty tomes in the libraries of obscure historical

societies—or resurrected in the persons of reinactors in Colonial garb who parade

each year on Independence Day through the Town of Bristol, Rhode Island—but

rather the exemplars of an ever-living lesson to be applied whenever great perils

threaten this country and ordinary Americans are called to perform even greater

deeds in America’s defense. And never before have the Militia been more pertinent

to the threats confronting this country—or more capable of overcoming them.

Americans can rely and build upon the Militia’s historical tradition and legal

authority, because now more than ever before they have the incentive, the

imagination, the resources, and especially the spiritual strength to use the Militia

to restore “the security of a free State” throughout this land:

*The present danger is more serious and more pressing than any the

Founding Fathers ever faced. Each and every day, before Americans’ very

eyes, the malign forces of usurpation, tyranny, and exploitation strike one

foul blow after another at National independence, individual freedom, and

social justice—with consequences far worse than those the Founders refused

submissively to endure from the far less onerous oppressions visited upon

them. So “indifference” to the Militia now promises to prove fatal to

America’s survival.

•Yet most common Americans still instinctively appreciate what “an

American” is supposed to be, used to be, and can be—must be—once again.

With a little encouragement and assistance, they will quickly learn how,

working together in the Militia, they can bring out the essential American

in every one of their countrymen who is capable of being roused into

patriotic action.

•An objective appraisal of what strategists call “the balance of

material forces” should convince anyone that common Americans, properly

motivated, educated, and organized, can defeat the usurpers, tyrants, and

exploiters—in both public office and private station—who now plague this

country. Most obviously, common Americans constitute the vast majority

of the population, dispersed throughout the land—and, all other things

being equal, “God favors the big battalions”. Moreover, to the extent that

other things of consequence are not equal, the disparities favor WE THE

PEOPLE. First, common Americans are imbued not only with all of the

general knowledge and skills sufficient to take control of their country, but

also with the information and experience related to specifically local

conditions that will be necessary to administer it in an economically

prudent, politically honest, and legally just fashion. Second, common

Americans already exercise actual physical possession of almost all of the

real and personal property in this country. Third, common Americans

cannot easily be dislodged from this commanding position, because tens and

even hundred of millions of them are armed, and to some significant degree

familiar with the use of arms.

•Finally, “the balance of spiritual forces” tips decisively in common

Americans’ favor. In their hearts as well as in their minds and hands, true

Americans are simply better than their enemies. As the Declaration of

Independen[ce] attests, perforce of “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”

“all men are created equal” with respect to their “unalienable Rights”. The

usurpers, tyrants, and exploiters, and all of their minions, myrmidons, and

blackguards who now infest this country have intentionally set out to deny

human freedom—the exercise and enjoyment of “unalienable Rights”—to

the vast majority of their fellow men. Thus, they have enlisted in a cause so

fouled with soot from the fires of Hell that no rationalization can ever

whitewash it. With the exercise of a peppercorn’s worth of introspection,

they know themselves to be ignoble wretches, irretrievably unworthy—and

therefore ultimately incapable—of victory. On the other side, the

Constitution prohibits all titles of nobility, because the only nobility of

consequence, the nobility of freedom, is the birthright of all Americans. With

the exercise of a peppercorn’s worth of introspection, they will realize that

this is the wellspring of their strength, and draw upon it against every

adversity.

In sum, in The Sword and Sovereignty: The Constitutional Principles of “the

Militia of the several States” I have endeavored to point out the means by which

Americans can once again become the masters of their own country. Now I must

hope that my countrymen will put this advice to good use—immediately, if not

sooner.

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Edwin Vieira, Jr.

Front Royal, Virginia

27 September 2012