Subject: Right to travel 1/7

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 95 21:46:23 -0700

ARTICLE #1: What is Sovereign Citizenship?
by Scott Eric Rosenstiel

     What is Sovereign Citizenship?  Sovereign Citizenship is the status
held by our forefathers.  George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and
everyone else who won their freedom from the British Empire had this
status.  It was the birthright of all Americans, and we were generous in
extending this most important right to foreign-born persons through the
naturalization laws.  With this status, our unalienable rights of life,
liberty, and property couldn't be infringed.  During the Civil War a method
was discovered by the leading attorneys, financiers, and politicians of the
day to deprive us of this status.  Fortunately, we can get it back.
     This brings us to the question, "What are we getting back?"  What does
it mean to be a Sovereign Citizen?
     The word "sovereign" is defined in the 6th edition of Black's Law
Dictionary, published in 1990, as being, "A person, body, or state in which
independent authority is vested; a chief ruler with supreme power; a king
or other ruler in a monarchy."  Prior to the War for American Independence,
the British king was the sovereign and the American people were his
subjects.  The war's outcome changed all this:

          The sovereignty has been transferred from one man to the
     collective body of the people - and he who before was a "subject of
     the king" is now "a citizen of the State."
          State v. Manuel, North Carolina, Vol. 20, Page 121 (1838)

     Thus, the people became Citizens of their respective states.  But more
importantly, for the first and only time in recorded history, the people
were recognized as being the true sovereigns:

          It will be sufficient to observe briefly, that the sovereignties
     in Europe, and particularly in England, exist on feudal principles. 
     That system considers the prince as the sovereign, and the people as
     his subjects; it regards his person as the object of allegiance... No
     such ideas obtain here; at the revolution, the sovereignty devolved on
     the people; and they are truly the sovereigns of the country, but they
     are sovereigns without subjects... and have none to govern but
     themselves...
          Chisholm v. Georgia, Dallas' Supreme Court Reports, Vol. 2, Pages
     471, 472 (1793)

     Each individual, at least so far as respects his unalienable rights is
his own sovereign.  These rights weren't given to any government.  In fact,
they can't be.  Perhaps you can give up all of your rights, if you so
choose, but who has the power to give your rights up for you?  In America,
no one can, because we're all equal.
     In American this principle of popular sovereign is recognized by all
governments - state and federal.  When the states became independent, the
state governments were formed, all of them based on the authority of the
people, and not the will of one man or a small body of men.
     The federal government as we know it today was created in 1789 when
the federal constitution went into effect.
     The constitution mentioned something previously unknown in American
law: Citizenship of the United States:

          The term, citizens of the United States, must be understood to
     intend those who were citizens of a state, as such, after the Union
     had commenced, and the several states had assumed their sovereignties. 
     Before this period there was no citizen of the United States...
          Manchester v. Boston, Massachusetts Reports, Vol. 16, Page 235
     (1819)

     Thus a Citizen of a state is, by the federal constitution, made a
Citizen of the United States.  This means the following:

          A citizen of one state is to be considered as a citizen of every
     other state in the union.
          Butler v. Farnsworth, Federal Cases, Vol. 4, Page 902 (1821)

     A Citizen of any one of the states is considered and treated as being
a Citizen of all of them.  The phrase "Citizen of the United States" does
not refer to a separate class of citizenship:

          A citizen of any one of the States of the Union, is held to be,
     and called a citizen of the United States, although technically and
     abstractly there is no such thing.  To conceive a citizen of the
     United States who is not a citizen of some one of the States, is
     totally foreign to the idea, and inconsistent with the proper
     construction and common understanding of the expression as used in the
     Constitution, which must be deduced from its various other provisions.
          Ex parte. - Frank Knowles, California Reports, Vol. 5, Page 302
     (1855)

     Because of the principles enunciated in the above cases and others
like them, it's correct to say that the American people are Citizens of our
respective states.  But we're more than this.  We're in a very real sense
Citizens of all the states.  We are, in the greatest sense, and proudly so,
Citizens of the several United States.
     This brings us to what are considered as being the rights inherent in
Citizenship in America:

          When men entered into a State they yielded a part of their
     absolute rights, or natural liberty, for political or civil liberty,
     which is no other than natural liberty restrained by human laws, so
     far as is necessary and expedient for the general advantage of the
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