The United States Government has grown to essentially infinite proportions since the time of its establishment in 1787 by the Constitution, and now exercises virtually total governmental power over the domestic, internal affairs of the States, practically supplanting the State Governments. The United States Government promotes practically whatever it pleases, spends money on whatever it wants, creating money by printing it and other means (Banks) to get funds where it cannot get by taxation, and regulates and rules over practically all that counts in the country (industry, agriculture, environmental regulations, corporations, banks, science, and so on ad infinitum), relegating the State Governments to mostly minor mundane operations or the role as agencies of the federal Government - the major laws over domestic matters now being made and enforced by the so-called Federal Government or the "National Government."

In parallel with this development has been the growth in the powers of the President of the United States over the field of foreign affairs, where now the more recent Presidents of this century have assumed, and have regularly exercised, the power to make War without a prior declaration of war by the Congress, to make military Alliances and other major Treaties with foreign Nations or foreign Powers without the consent of the United States Senate, and generally to control foreign relations and all foreign negotiations, involving such gravely serious matters as nuclear weapons, and including the appointment of envoys and ministers to conduct the negotiations on behalf of the United States without the advice and consent of the Senate. Moreover, the United States Government has assumed the power to give money and war materials to foreign nations or foreign powers (so-called "foreign aid"), and to promote sales of military equipment to foreign nations, and has assumed the power to conscript men into the United States Army and send them abroad to fight in wars, and to order active members of the Militia (so-called "National Guard" soldiers and "Air National Guard" units) to go abroad for military operations, including fighting in wars.

I contend that these profound and fundamental developments in the growth of the powers assumed by the United States Government to govern the internal, domestic affairs of the States, and to grant foreign aid and promote trade with foreign nations, such as the creation of the Import/Export Bank to promote sales of military equipment to foreign nations, and of the powers assumed by the Presidents in foreign affairs, and the United States Government's conscription of men to fight in foreign wars, are all contrary to, and violations of, the Constitution of the United States - a total subversion of the Constitution. The United States Government by its all-encompassing and ever-expanding unconstitutional activities of promoting favored industries and technologies, and favored corporations and their stockholders, of chartering Banks and creating money (hence the perpetual inflation) to aid industries, to promote the buying of unlimited numbers of automobiles, to finance money-making schemes and projects of every which kind, and to supply virtually unlimited funds of money for the United States Government to "borrow" from, in order to finance its absolutely enormous military establishment and operations, and its "civilian" projects, operations, and activities domestically and abroad, and now all of outer space, of road building (the huge network of super-highways everywhere), by its airport and air line subsidies, and aircraft development promotions, by its protection of favored corporations and industries from regulation by the State Governments (government close to the People), by its agricultural regulations and subsidies and loans to farmers, to promote chemical farming and big agri-business, by its funding of "scientific research and development" of every which kind, and so on ad infinitum, has totally transformed the way of life in America from mostly a tranquil, rural way of life with modest size cities to a chaotic and heavily industrialized way of life with large congested cities (megapolises) and infinite truck, automobile, and airplane traffic with tragic environmental and social consequences of pollution everywhere, congestion, ugly cities and towns, disrepair, noise (homes near and next to super-highways), foul air, junky developments and junk yards, automobile deaths and injury of huge proportions unabated and uncared for, litter everywhere, contaminated ground water, rampant crime, drugs, alcohol, cigarette smoke, nuclear fallout, destruction of the Earth's atmosphere (ozone holes and skin cancer), widespread poverty, over-worked people (with only two weeks vacation a year), depleted soils, unemployment, perpetual inflation, constant labor strife, poor health, "day-care centers," exposures to cancer causing chemicals in the work place, boring and despoiled landscapes, toxic chemical waste dumps, polluted lakes and streams, oil spills, the now common regular use of poison chemicals in residential areas (on lawns and gardens, and the spraying of poisonous chemicals in the common air in residential areas for "pests control"), biological hazards of the possible escape of laboratory created pathogenic micro-organisms, and the imminent and ultimate danger of catastrophic accidents in nuclear power plants - the nuclear reactors and their equally lethal build-up of spent fuel storages which the United States Government in combination with its favored corporations and system of Banks have built. The United States Government is planning to build a great many more nuclear power plants, including much more dangerous types of fast breeder reactors with their huge plutonium inventories and potentials for nuclear explosions. The nuclear accident hazards are far worse than what the Public imagines, according to my analysis and calculations made over twenty years of scientific research. {See note no. 1.}

The consequences of Presidential usurpations of war-making powers, indeed, of unlimited war-making power, have been absolutely horrible: World War I and World War II, ending in nuclear war, Korea, Vietnam (one million Vietnamese killed, and over 300,000 U.S. soldiers - mostly conscripted soldiers - maimed, and over 50,000 killed). Then, there have been the small-scale Presidential wars of Grenada, Lebanon, Panama, and Libya, and the secret CIA "covert operations," and the secret military operations and aids all around the globe. The Presidents with their unbridled power have taken the world to the brink of all out nuclear war and annihilation on occasions, and have built up enormous numbers of nuclear weapons (and chemical and biological weapons as well) endangering mankind, and have created an absolutely enormous military establishment, which two hundred years ago, when the Constitution was made, would have been called "standing armies in time of peace" - something which the people who made our State Constitutions in 1776, and later our federal Constitution, did not want. They wrote into the U.S. Constitution a limitation of two years for any appropriation of money for Armies, to ensure against extensive standing armies in time of peace, which they viewed as a "threat to liberty." The enormous money expenditures and borrowing by the United States Government for the military over the decades (contributing to profits of business companies having military contracts and dividends for stockholder) have resulted in enormous and whole-scale neglect of the true needs and wishes of the People, including a home in a happy environment, community, and culture.

I contend that the unhappy conditions of America which exist today, and which have existed for so long, the misappropriations, the neglect, the tragic history of wars (and the casualties of our young men soldiers and conscripts), the dangers of nuclear catastrophe and cataclysm, the despoliations of the once beautiful and wondrous natural environment and ecology of the North American continent, and practically all the rest that is bad that we all know about, is a consequence of the unconstitutional assumptions of power over the whole life of the Country by the United States Government, including all three Branches, the Congress, the Executive Branch, and the federal Courts - a virtual annihilation of Constitutional Government, and the establishment of an essentially undemocratic system of Government: The People of America simply do not govern, and probably never really have, save perhaps the earlier years. They certainly have never consented to the unlimited expansion in the powers of the United States Government and the President by any amendments to the Constitution. The constitutional system of State Government close to the People and the federal Government for managing the external affairs of the States in confederation, never really developed in the democratic sense, due to the federal Government usurpations.

I contend that the way forward to pursue and obtain our safety and happiness - a happy land, an enjoyable living environment in harmony with nature and a happy culture in peace - is to return to constitutional, democratic principles and to restore the constitutional system of Government in America, including its limitations and checks on the federal Government and Presidential powers, so that the People can really govern through their State Governments close to them. (We can always improve on the constitutional system by amendments to the Constitution.) I contend that it is absolutely vital to our safety and well-being that we fully review the operations of the United States Government, and the Government's assumptions of power with respect to the States' and federal Constitutions and their principles, and correct the abuses and usurpations of power.

The essay which follows offers a "Sketch" of my analysis of the Constitution. The Sketch gives a basic demonstration of what I believe is the true meaning and spirit of the Constitution with respect to the basic division of powers between the United States Government and the States concerning the internal affairs of the States, and between the President and the Congress in foreign affairs, according to the recorded (documented) intentions of those Representatives of the People who made the Constitution and those Representatives who ratified it on behalf of the People.

Special emphasis is given in the Sketch to the U.S. Government's "civilian" nuclear power program, which has been in development since the 1946 and 1954 Atomic Energy Acts of the Congress, and to the question, Who should decide the issue of the safety of nuclear power plants? Who should decide for the society the acceptability of the risks of catastrophic nuclear accidents? My scientific calculations show the potential for catastrophic nuclear eruptions ruining, for example, most of the eastern United States with radiation fallout, making it unfit for living.

The federal Government's laws and money expenditures for the promotion and regulation of nuclear power plants are as good a "case in point" as any other of the myriad of unconstitutional federal Government activities and laws. The United States Government's development of nuclear power concerns the ultimate hazard of the hazards-ridden industrial/transportation system of life promoted by the Unconstitutional Government over the decades - the risks of nuclear catastrophe on an immense scale. The issue of nuclear energy is at the core of the fundamental question of what is the way of life we want for our safety, well-being, and happiness, and for our Posterity. Should we take the nuclear energy road of thousands of nuclear power plants ultimately, or change to a different way of life?

So it is appropriate to begin our review of the Constitution with a special emphasis on the United States Government's promotion of, and licensing of, nuclear power plants, which is undoubtedly the most profoundly serious industrial and technological development that has been pushed by the "federal" Government by unconstitutional means. {See note no. 2.}   However, the Sketch is not limited to a narrow constitutional question about the Atomic Energy Act. For as the reader will find, the Sketch covers the whole field of public affairs, including both domestic and foreign affairs, and considers the system of Government in general in relation to the general objects of the safety and happiness of the People, and the principles of democratic/republican government which the makers of our Constitutions subscribed, and how the present unconstitutional system of government in America can be rectified, in order to enable the People to effectively rule and work for improving the quality of life in America and cultivating peace in the world - in short, to pursue and obtain safety and happiness.

I wrote the Sketch in 1984 as part of a treatise on the accident hazards of nuclear power plants which I was preparing for publication at the time. Unfortunately, I have had to set aside the manuscript, in order to research an unending train of topics on the nuclear accident hazards which all seemed so urgent and having priority, such as (1) a near reactor explosion in a loss-of-cooling mishap in 1985 at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant near Toledo, Ohio; (2) the nuclear explosion hazards of fast neutron breeder reactors, a number of which are operating in the world (a test reactor in the United States, one in Britain, one in France, and one in the USSR, and one built but not yet operating in Germany) {See note no. 3.}   - this research resulted in the discovery of atomic bomb size explosion potentials in the fast breeder reactor; (3) nuclear explosion hazards of the British Gas-Cooled Reactors, which I discovered in a year's research and calculations in Europe in 1987-1988; (4) nuclear runaway hazards of the boiling water reactors, which is one of the two main types of reactors operating in America (also in Sweden, Germany, Japan, and elsewhere); (5) topics on the accident hazards of pressurized water reactors, which is the most widely used type reactor in the world; and (6) a mathematical analysis of the cancer mortality statistics of the Japanese atomic bomb survivors and radiation workers at nuclear laboratories, to evaluate the probability of cancer death per unit radiation dose exposure to a person, in order to evaluate the potential consequences of catastrophic nuclear accidents, including the actual Chernobyl accident. I have calculated that the probability of cancer death per unit dose of radiation exposure is 30 to 50 times greater than the value assumed by Governments who are promoting nuclear energy, which means that up to a million persons could die of cancer in Europe due to the radiation fallout from the Chernobyl accident, given the USSR's own projections of the total radiation dose to the population in the European part of the Soviet Union; and yet the amount of release of radioactivity from the Chernobyl reactor was relatively small. {See note no. 4.}   More horribly, I find that the potential catastrophic consequences of reactor eruptions in nuclear power plants in Britain, or France, where the nuclear power stations typically employ several reactors side by side, can be a thousand times worse than Chernobyl in terms of the magnitude of radiation release and fallout over the more populated part of Europe, due to a chain reaction of reactor eruptions at a station.

Also, in the period of September 1988 through December 1989 I participated in a British Government Public Inquiry on the question of building additional, U.S.-designed Pressurized Water Reactors in England, which was a forum for a public debate on my nuclear hazards analysis. With the completion of the Inquiry in Britain I have concluded that the dangers of catastrophic - indeed cataclysmic - accidents at nuclear power plants are imminent and extremely grave, and that, therefore, the root cause of our nuclear predicament, namely, unconstitutional government, must be attended to without any more delay, by issuing the Sketch of my Analysis, in order to try to promote a movement for democratic, constitutional government in America for our Safety and Well-Being.

The other reason for issuing the Sketch now, and the one which is equally compelling and urgent, is that the United States is again at War, decided by the President and other high Executive Branch officers without a prior declaration of war by the Congress and thus in violation of the Constitution; and therefore, there is the urgent need to promote somehow a return to the Constitution and its principles - to try to stop this unconstitutional war, and the possibility of it erupting into a full scale horror - and to establish the constitutional, democratic process for deliberating on what the United States policy should be toward Iraq and on what measures should be taken to cultivate peace and good relations with all peoples involved in the turmoil in the Middle East - turmoil in which the United States is involved, and in large measure causes, by aiding particular sides in the Middle East conflicts through unconstitutional alliances - alliances and treaties of military and financial aid made by the Presidents over recent times without authority of the Senate, and by outright making war in regions on occasion (the shelling of Lebanon and the attacks on Libya, for examples).

I began my constitutional law studies in 1965 with the Vietnam War, and wrote my first paper on the Constitution then, contending that President Johnson's attack against North Vietnam by the bombing of Haiphong in August 1964 was unconstitutional. In 1967 I published a booklet setting out my proof: "The Vietnam War and the Responsibilities of Congress." In 1970 I published a lead article in the Ohio State Law Journal, "Treaty Making and the President's Obligation to Seek the Advice and Consent of the Senate with Special Reference to the Vietnam Peace Negotiations," and filed briefs in the federal Courts, including the Supreme Court (Webb v. Ambassador Porter, later adding the President's "national security advisor," Henry Kissinger, to the complaint), contending that President Nixon's making of the United States policies with respect to the Vietnam peace negotiations without the Senate's Advice and Consent of the policies was unconstitutional, and that Nixon's commissioning of Ambassador Porter and Henry Kissinger to conduct the negotiations were also unconstitutional, as the Senate had not confirmed their appointment as ministers or ambassadors to represent the United States in those dishonest negotiations. I also drafted two proposed Senate resolutions which sought to reassert the Senate's power and responsibility over the foreign relations and foreign policies of the United States - resolutions which were formally submitted to the Senate by Indiana Senator Vance Hartke, though the Senate let them lie. I believe that these works to promote the return to the Constitution had materially contributed, along with countless other efforts of fellow citizens across the country, to the movement in the Congress to stop that war, beginning with the Senate's resolution asserting its advice on the Vietnam peace negotiations that the United States' policy should be that the United States would withdraw from Vietnam provided only that North Vietnam would return all captured U.S. soldiers who were being held as prisoners of war - advice which President Nixon disregarded - and ending with the Congress cutting off the funds for the war.

In 1969 my constitutional law studies were broadened to include the domestic affairs powers assumed by the United States Government (Congress, the Executive Branch, and the federal Courts), especially the assumed authority to develop nuclear power plants and issue licenses to building and operate the reactors. In 1970 I published my initial analysis of the Constitution with respect to the Atomic Energy Act, titled "The Unconstitutionality of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act." Shortly thereafter in 1972, I challenged the constitutionality of the Atomic Energy Act in the federal Courts in a civil case against the United States Atomic Energy Commission, Webb v. United States Atomic Energy Commission. The federal district Court in Columbus, Ohio refused to take up the case and adjudicate the constitutional and nuclear hazards issues which I submitted to the Court in my bill of complaint; and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati upheld the district Court's ruling. Thus, the federal Judiciary turned away from their constitutional duty to apply the judicial Power "to all Cases arising under this Constitution," failed to discharge its duty to administer Justice and to support the Constitution, and failed to enforce the right of the People to have their constitutional government. {See note no. 5.}   My only recourse then was, and still is, to try to publish my analysis and appeal to my fellow citizens of America.

In 1976 the University of Massachusetts Press published my Book, The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants, which contains a fairly in-depth legal brief proving that the Atomic Energy Act is unconstitutional (see chapter 13, titled "Who Should Decide?"). Of course, I urge that this chapter be studied in conjunction with the Sketch that follows. The Sketch complements my analysis of the Constitution given in Accident Hazards, as it is more comprehensive and exposes more fully the meaning and the spirit of the Constitution with respect to the distribution of powers between the States and the federal Government.

Since 1976 I have been methodically researching all relevant constitutional questions, scholarly treatises on constitutional law, and Presidential and Congressional opinions and analyses of the Constitution, and, of course, the federal Court opinions, especially the Supreme Court, in preparation of a full Treatise on the Constitution, focusing on the usurpations of powers by the Congress, the Executive, and the Judiciary, and supplying the full proof. The planned Treatise will cover essentially everything: Banks, the system of Money, Corporations, public works projects of the Federal Government, various major civilian technology programs of the federal Government, roads, labor regulations, jurisdictions assumed by the federal Courts in the domestic affairs of the States, regulations and promotions of agriculture, manufacturing, and other industries (nuclear power, airline and airport subsidies, recombinant DNA research - gene splicing, etc), and so on.

The other great development in the United States Government operations has been the build-up of the military, and especially the nuclear weapons, and also the chemical and biological weapons, and the President's assumption of power to make nuclear war, including preemptive first strikes with nuclear weapons against another country. In 1983 I sought to write a special treatise on this topic and the danger of nuclear war, pulling together all of my research since 1965. I have made a detailed outline for such a treatise with the title, Presidential War-Making, Nuclear Weapons, and Unconstitutional Government. With the United States military attacks on Libya in March and April 1986 I put my full attention to trying to write this treatise, including an analysis of the law with respect to the Libya crisis. I published a short essay in Toledo, Ohio giving a synopsis of my analysis of the United Nations Charter, the Law of Nations, the international Law of the Seas, and the Constitution with respect to the Libya crisis. This essay is appended to this Sketch. In addition, I issued a paper analyzing the United States war acts against Libya with respect to the international law, Summary Analysis of the Questions of the Legality under the Law of Nations, the United Nations Treaty (Charter), and other Treaties between nations, and of the Constitutionality of the United States' offensive War (Military Attacks) against the Nation of Libya, which I sent to a number of Senators and to the Libya Ambassador in the United Nations, through the legal advisor for Libya at the UN. However, I soon had to put aside the work in order to investigate the Chernobyl nuclear accident, which occurred two weeks later.

Fortunately, the people of Europe have since intervened in the matter of the nuclear arms race between the United States and the USSR, and demanded withdrawal of the intermediate range nuclear missiles; and the people of eastern Europe have risen up to throw off the yoke of the large (super state) central Government, in this case, the USSR headed in Moscow, and have caused the now-felt lessening of the danger of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union, which gives time to attend more to the nuclear reactor dangers.

The danger of nuclear war still exists, however, despite the much improved relations between the two "super powers" - the undemocratic government of the super-State USSR, and the American super-State created unconstitutionally by the United States Government. [Since this essay was written, the USSR, of course, was dissolved.] (My own view is that these improved relations, which, of course, is good, came about because of the demands of the people of Europe for democracy and self-government, and elimination of the risks of nuclear holocaust - that is, they came about not so much or at all on the initiatives of the U.S. Executive and the ministers of the USSR Government.) The lessons of history show that relations can always worsen in the future, however; and so it is always vitally important to establish a constitutional, democratic system of government to manage the affairs of foreign relations, to cultivate peaceful and happy relations with foreign nations. Indeed, now with President Bush's declaration of War against Iraq, and his war operations (his blockade of Iraq), the imminent danger of nuclear war is suddenly upon us again - plus a nerve gas warfare as well and with long a reach (long range rocketry). [This "Introduction" was written in November 1990, before the United States attacks on Iraq began (January 17, 1991).]

As this Introduction tries to show, I have since 1965 been making a full analysis of the United States Constitution with respect to most important matters of public affairs in America. The Sketch of my analysis which follows is a preview of this work. It is offered without major alteration since it was drafted in 1984, except for the part on the Military and Foreign Affairs (Presidential war-making, etc.), which has been greatly expanded, in order to publish without further delay the basic ideas of my Analysis. These ideas really are the ideas and principles developed and adopted by those who made our Constitutions - ideas which I believe are vital to the safety and happiness of the People of America.

Postscript:

Since this Introduction was written, I wrote and issued a treatise on the Iraq War, before the January 17 attack on Iraqi territory by the United States forces, titled: Analysis of the Constitution with respect to the Authority to make War and Alliances, and the Employment of Force against Iraq by Presidential Acts, dated January 11, 1991, plus an Addendum on the January 12, 1991 "use-of-force authorization" Resolution of the Congress, dated January 15, 1991; and later I issued a Supplement, in the form of a 36-page letter, dated April 6, 1991, to Congressman Dante Fascell, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the U.S. House of Representatives. This Supplement includes a supplemental analysis of the January 12th resolution, plus a detailed account of two debates with the President's legal advisors. The Supplement also submits to the Congress a polite demand for a full investigation of the Iraq War, including the question of the unconstitutionality of the President's actions to make war and the January 12th Resolution of the Congress.
 

This essay, "Introduction," was written spontaneously in November 1990 following a discussion I had with President George Bush's legal advisor on the "National Security Council" regarding the question of the (un)constitutionality of the Presidential order of August 16, 1990 to blockade Iraq - the employment of force against Iraq, hence an act of war - the making of war. Alarmed by that discussion and the ominous continued build-up of U.S. armed forces in the Persian Gulf, I realized then that the U.S. Government - particularly the Executive Branch - was bent on making all out war; and so the essay expressed my strong feelings against the runaway, unconstitutional power of the United States Government.

1. I refer to my Book, The Accident Hazards of Nuclear Power Plants (University of Massachusetts Press, 1976), and a recent paper, "The Risks of Catastrophic Accidents at Nuclear Power Plants," given in Spain, April 25, 1990.  [Return to text...]

2. I should mention the U.S. Government-sponsored research and development of micro-organisms through gene splicing, which raises the question of the possibility that a pathogenic organism might be created that could wipe out the human race. On this subject I am no expert, of course, but biologists have asserted warnings of such kind; and therefore, I have questions and fears as any of us have. Why do the U.S. Government sponsored biological laboratories have to have "highly reliable containment systems" for containing the organisms and preventing their escape into the human environment? Is there not some risk of pathogens escaping? Like for example, an AIDS-like virus? Who should make the laws about this research?  The U.S. Government is not vested by the Constitution with any general power to support research and development in the interest of Science and Technology, nor does the Constitution assign to the federal Government any power or responsibility to care for the public health, hence no implied power to support such research for reasons of public health protection, nor any regulatory power over the States to prevent a State from prohibiting recombinant DNA research and development? [In my latest studies I have determined that the U.S. Government has brought about this new dimension of biological hazards by its massive support of molecular biology research over the years.]   [Return to text...]

3. 90% of nuclear power reactors in the world will be fast breeder reactors, according to the industry/government plans.   [Return to text...]

4. The fact that most radioactivity was still retain in the core debris of the Chernobyl reactor is evident by the fact that the concrete enclosure that the Soviet engineers built around the destroyed reactor to encase it is now disintegrating due to the heat of the radiation inside, according to official reports, which threatens further releases of radiation four years since the accidents. Europe has much to be thankful for the fire fighters and helicopter pilots who gave their lives (killed by radiation exposure) to smother the reactor inferno and thereby limit the release of radioactivity into the atmosphere. Recently one helicopter pilot died of leukaemia.    [Return to text...]

5. I should add that in 1973 I published an article proving that President Nixon's firing of the Watergate Prosecutor over the issue of the White House tape recordings was unconstitutional and a felony offense of obstructing justice - both impeachable offenses. The President, I found, has no inherent, general power by the Constitution to remove officers without the advice and consent of the Senate (with two exceptions). If the President thinks that an officer should be removed, he must submit to the Senate a nomination of a new person for the office. Upon the Senate's consent to the nomination the President then would be empowered to appoint the new person to the office, and thereby displace the person who the President thinks should be removed from the office. (The express "Removal" power in the Constitution is lodged only in the Congress - the Impeachment by the House of Representatives, and the Trial of the Impeachment and Conviction by the Senate.) The exceptions are the implied removal power of military officers, as the President under the Constitution is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, and those "inferior Officers" of the federal Government for which the Congress may vest in the President alone the power of appointment (Article II of the Constitution). A power to over-rule an officer, and even remove him from office, seems plainly implied in the President's constitutional duty "To take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." For application to the Watergate affair, the President had no constitutional right or power to remove the Special Prosecutor simply because the prosecutor demanded the audio tapes of the President's oval office conversations, since the Courts ruled that the prosecutor is by law entitled to the tapes.   [Return to text...]
 

Studies in Nuclear Hazards
and Constitutional Law
 

Richard E. Webb
November 8, 1990

(postscript Jan.19, 1995)

Present Address, 29 August 1999:
 

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