The ancient constitution of the United States is the real basis of law in America, and it is the basis for the Constitution of 1787. If the ancient unwritten constitution were not in place the written Constitution of the Founding Fathers would make no sense, because the principles of law it employs derive from the ancient customs and forms of the pre-Independence constitution. These customs and forms are so intrinsic to it that to remove them would be to reduce the Constitution of 1787 into a senseless collection of words. The principles of law animate the customs, and turn the idea of law into a living institution.

The purpose of the Constitution of 1787 was not to enhance the rights of individuals, contrary to popular opinion, but to restrain the ancient rights of individuals within the framework of a republican system of government that was a complete departure from customary law. Americans have been convinced that the Constitution of 1787 and the Bill of Rights are the source of their civil rights, but this is a tragic falsity that has enabled generations of American politicians to virtually nullify the ancient customary liberties of the American people at will, whenever the interests of the state were threatened by the freedom of the people. Historic instances include the Alien and Sedition Acts, which made it a crime to criticize the President; the suspension of the right to Habeas Corpus during the Civil War, which required the government to charge people with known crimes when it put them under arrest; and the Sedition laws of the 20th century, which basically enabled the state to incarcerate anyone who had ideas that were contrary to the Civic Creed that upholds the republic.

The republic of the Founding Fathers was always a garrison state, or police state, the main function of which was the guarding of their estates from the poor, and the protection of the property they possessed in their slaves. The society of early America was not a society of equals, but a society of servants, slaves and propertyless poor. The government of the republic was a device set up deliberately by the rich as a form of protection, which is why the chief responsibility of the President is law enforcement. The republic was originally designed only to represent the interests of the owners of property, which marked it philosophically. This made it the avowed enemy of any person or institution that questioned the validity of property ownership in nature. Of course, this controversy transcends the issues of communism versus capitalism, but instead goes to the heart and soul of the institution of property, because it questions whether God intended men to even possess their own bodies, to say nothing of land or minerals.

Americans are proud of the alleged heritage of the republic as a product of English precedents, but they are not educated as to where the republic is a departure from the English system, and how this operates to their detriment. Instead, Americans are encouraged to look down on the English system of Government, even though they have an innate tendency to respect the English royal family from an almost primordial bond. The First Family of the President is supposed to fill this gap, but the ceremonials of the circulating Presidency -- which was designed to enable the powerful to operate behind the scenes with impunity, while the President absorbs all the controversy -- has never fulfilled the genuine need of the American people for national symbols that transcend partisan politics.

The attempt to deploy athletes and movie and television stars as "icons," what the media drums into the heads of the masses as "America's royalty," has turned into a pathetic failure, as icon worship has degenerated when those people the media elevates, are exposed to be mere mortals. The fact that movie stars only portray genuine heroes, and the fact that they are empty icons that basically will say anything in the script put in front of them, has worked against the entire attempt to substitute tinsel icons for true royalty, because when America's movie-star "royalty" is ever compared to the real thing, the sacrifices and dedication of the genuine royals exposes the movie-star fake-royals as nothing but pampered, self-indulgent entertainers.

Americans have been literally conditioned to accept the notion that a republic is the "same thing" as a kingdom, except that a republic is supposed to be better because the citizens of a republic are supposed to be "free." The American republic, however, was not designed to make Americans free, instead it was designed to reduce their rights from the status of being endowments individuals were born with under ancient customs, into privileges accorded to them by the Bill of Rights and the Founding Fathers, which could be taken away upon "bad behavior." This is vital because it is the basic difference between the ancient constitution and the Constitution of 1787.

The following is a description of the ancient constitution of the United States, as it exists in the 20th century. It is derivative of the constitution of the Mother Country, and as a result of the implementation of the Constitution of 1787, a large part of the ancient constitution is in effect suspended, waiting for the day when the institutions of the Constitution of 1787 self-destruct. For anyone who deems himself politically knowledgeable, it should be obvious that this self-destruction is going on currently, and therefore a working knowledge of the ancient constitution should come in handy, because it represents the only legal alternative the American people possess, if they desire to continue to live in a society of law once the republic collapses.

THE ANCIENT CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES

Since Parliament, comprising the monarch, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons acting in concert, is sovereign, it has unlimited legal power, and acts of Parliament, if complete and perfect, must be obeyed by all, though the right to test in the courts the legality of various applications of that power cannot be denied to the citizen. The liberty of the subject under this flexible constitution is secured by the rule of law, based on the essential constitutional assumption that all governmental powers rest on law. The essential aspect of the constitution is characterized by the absence of arbitrary power, the subjection of officials of the government to the courts and the ordinary common law, and the fact that the constitution, being not the source but the consequence of individual rights, itself formed part of the ordinary law of the land.

The constitutional government has four main elements: the legislature, the executive, the judiciary, and a constitutional church. The role of the constitutional church has diminished since the Toleration Act of 1689. There is no longer any restriction on freedom of worship. In the U.S., the Universal Life Church of Ely-Chatelaine (ULC/EC) serves the role of constitutional church, the clergy of the church having authority to conduct coronations, and all other religious ceremonies of the state. The ULC, however, has no creed or dogma. The institutions of the constitutional government evolved over the centuries through necessity by thousands of men and women, and the process of law. This is in stark contrast to the Constitution of 1787, which was written hastily by slaveowners, plantation owners and lawyers suspicious of the intentions of their servants and slaves.

THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT

This inter-locking of the organs of government is a result of their common origin in the curia regis of the early kings. The curia regis (royal court) was a Norman innovation, and it was a body which performed all the functions of government without differentiating between them. It was the king's court meeting to do the king's business, and the same is true of all the descendants to which in course of time, with the multiplication and elaboration of business, it gave birth, although the sovereign long ago ceased to attend in person, save on formal occasions at his Privy Council and in his High Court of Parliament.

The American Crown was held in hereditary succession as limited and defined in the Act of Settlement of 1701. King George III was the last legal sovereign of America, and he was deposed illegally in 1776 through the usurpation of his authority. An interregnum has legally existed from 1776 to 1993, when the Crown was restored on a provisional basis as a Regency by the Cry of Stillwater Bay. The American Crown will not be fully restored until a lawful parliament is convened to enact an Act Restoring the Crown of the United States of America and Settling the Succession of the Crown, to legally invest the Regent with the full office of King of the United States of America. The constitutional influence of the monarch is quite small, but not insignificant. The monarch is kept fully informed of public policy and events, and the royal assent must be formally obtained to all legislative measures. (The Regent of the United States is His Royal Highness, Marc Eric Ely-Chaitlin of the House of David).

The Judiciary: In Anglo-Saxon times the earliest forms of customary law were administered in three sets of courts: 1) national, those of the hundred and of the shire; 2) private, those of the thegns and of the lords of manors; and 3) municipal, those of the chartered boroughs. After the Conquest (1066) the local courts were slowly superceded by central courts and judges whose power emanated from the king, and the infinite varieties of customary law thus gave place to or were welded into one common law. This process was achieved mainly by extension of the use of royal writs; by introducing and extending the use of the jury (at first employed only where royal interests were concerned); by the institution and regulative influence of itinerant justices, who provided the necessary link between central and local government; and by the evolution from the curia regis of the three courts of common law: Common Pleas, King's Bench, and Exchequer.

Since the common law developed slowly and procedure lagged behind the needs of a progressive society, the curia was still called upon to mitigate and to supplement, and there grew up, in spite of the jealousy of common lawyers, a body of equity rules alongside the common law. Most English-speaking countries, including the United Kingdom, have streamlined this, so that the administration of the two rules of law are generally now handled by a single court system. From 1873 until about 1934, the British court system had been undergoing reforms, and as a result the House of Lords became the final court of appeals from all other courts; this was further qualified by the fact that Lords had to be judicially qualified to hear cases on behalf of the House of Lords. This has made it possible, through the functions of the Privy Council, for some of the greatest legal authorities of the English-speaking world to hear cases and decide the law.

The Executive: The curia regis, composed of the tenants-in-chief, royal officials, and anyone else whom the king chose to summon, expanded or contracted according to the nature of its work. Daily routine would be left mainly to officials; the more serious the business the larger the attendance of tenants-in-chief; and on occasions of great importance the officials formed a numerically insignificant technical element in a large feudal assembly. The terms employed to distinguish the larger and smaller gatherings achieved in time a certain significance until at last the larger assembly developed into the Great Council and the Parliament, the smaller into the King's Council. The King's Council became the instrument of the crown by the reign of Henry VII, and was used by the Tudors and the Stuarts to rule without Parliament as autocrats. This led to the Civil War and the Regicide, and the supremacy of Parliament; but it also led to the dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell, which was so harsh that the population welcomed the Restoration of the monarchy. At that time the King's Council was reduced to a formal Privy Council, with nothing left of its former legislative authority, and this began the transition of power to Parliament, which resulted in the evolution of the Cabinet and Ministerial Government.

The Cabinet evolved in the 17th century from a committee of the Privy Council as the effective national executive, and was composed of an inner ring of confidential advisers of the crown. The king at first presided, but, when George I for lack of English ceased to attend, his place was taken by a minister, usually the first lord of the Treasury, who in time became known as the prime minister. The prime minister is normally the head of the party commanding a majority in the House of Commons, appointed by the sovereign, with whose consent he in turn appoints the rest of the ministry and decides, though his choice is in practice narrowly restricted, which of them shall be members of the Cabinet (which usually has about 20 members). All ministers are normally members of one or other house of Parliament and they are individually and collectively responsible to the crown, prime minister, and Parliament. There is no official public list of ministers, which can include ministers not in the Cabinet, and junior ministers who assist the full ministers. The size of the Cabinet, the number of ministers who are privy councilors, and the order in which their names are listed rest on nothing stronger than convention and the will of the prime minister.

The Legislature: Parliament was originally a periodic public assembly of the curia regis at its fullest expansion. It was therefore competent to perform all functions of government. But the one mainly stressed was the judicial function, for law declaring precedes lawmaking. Any citizen might present a petition, and Parliament acted as a clearinghouse for such petitions, referring the suitor to the appropriate court and reserving for its own consideration in full assembly only such cases as were particularly difficult, protracted, or important.

In the 13th century the practice of summoning occasionally and experimentally certain delegates from formerly unrepresented places began, such as from shires or boroughs, for particular purposes. One of these was the granting of money. In response to the demand for money, the Commons began to reply with a demand for the granting of the petitions they brought with them from the shires and boroughs. Consideration of these common petitions came to occupy so much of Parliament's time that it was obliged more and more to leave the private petitions to be dealt with by the King's Council or Chancery after Parliament had broken up. In other words, it was abandoning the righting of individual wrongs -- a judicial function -- in favor of the righting of the wrongs of the nation, a legislative function. By the time of the Revolution Settlement of 1688 the Parliament had the supreme legislative function, and the monarchy's role was limited.

Elections and Popular Representation: The Parliamentary system of representation is widely recognized as more democratic and representative than the system of representation that exists under the Constitution of 1787. The Electoral College itself is the best evidence that the American system of voting does not represent the popular will, as only the Electoral College has the authority to elect the President, and the popular vote is completely insignificant. Currently, the Federal Government is attempting to nullify the election results in Arizona and California, because the voters adopted measures which the Federal Government opposed.

Popular representation has been accepted since the convening of the first House of Commons, which ultimately won control over the right of Parliament to initiate measures having to do with the financing of the Government. This effectively made the elective and representative part of the Parliament the genuine power, as authority shifted from the crown to the parliament. The first elective representatives were the knights of the shire, from about 1429 to 1832. The Reform Act of 1832 began the process by which the electoral franchise was extended by stages, culminating in universal suffrage. This made the House of Commons representative of practically all adults in the kingdom except the individuals who sit in the House of Lords.

(The House of Lords is made up of persons bearing peerages, which were honors conveyed to persons and their families for performing heroic acts on behalf of the nation, especially in hours of desperation. The actual power of the Lords has declined in recent years, to an advisory capacity, as the electoral functions of the House of Commons have become more representative and democratic).

The idea that the constitution is not the source of civil rights, but that instead it is made necessary by the existence of the rights of individuals, is the core of the difference between the ancient constitution and the Constitution of 1787, with its Bill of Rights. The basic mindset of the Federal Government is that the American people owe it gratitude for their freedom; whereas, the traditional outlook would require a legal Government to feel gratitude that the people allow it any power to exist.

The Federal Government basically views the rights conveyed by the Bill of Rights as privileges it can revoke, like the privilege of a driver's license. This basic viewpoint has enabled it to conduct the republic as a tyranny for over 200 years, while taking credit for the freedom of the people. The reality, however, is that the traditional freedom of the people pre-dated the Constitution of 1787 and the Bill of Rights, and both of those instruments were really meant to limit the traditional liberties freemen were entitled to under the common law since at least 1215.

The only hope America has is if the people actually educate themselves as to the real history and law of the United States, so that a restoration of law can become possible. The republic is falling apart at this moment, and to replace it with another republic is to do nothing but enable the existing bureaucratic autocracy to continue, under the guise of a new regime. The existing Federal Government is out of control, from the county to the White House, and only the legal dissolution of the Federal Government, and the inauguration of a legal government stands even a remote chance of saving this nation.

The institutions of a constitutional government that are outlined here should give the individual some insight as to how the Constitution of 1787 was designed to short-circuit the legal process sufficiently to de-rail the law, and justice, and enable the country to be exploited. Without the anchor of a legal government providing the state with a ballast, there can be no other outcome than what we have today: Out-of-control politicians and bureaucrats pilfering the national treasure with impunity, while the national interest is sacrificed and lost.

SOURCE: Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 10, (1971) Pg. 736-739