What has been denied?

"All of this ink and time being spent on giving the residents of the District of Columbia a 'full voting representative' in the House of Representatives. What exactly have the residents of the District of Columbia been denied as a result of not having such a representative?"

Simple answer: They have been denied their inalienable (innate, inherent, intrinsic) rights as citizens of this nation to participate equally in this participatory form of government which all other citizens enjoy. They are Governed Without Consent. They seek Equality, Nothing More, and will settle for Equality, Nothing Less.

They are denied recognition and respect for their inalienable right (which cannot be sold, traded, or taken away, an arbitrary, anachronistic, and artificial provision of the Constitution notwithstanding) to Consent to the laws under which we all must live, to be heard in the national consensus which we develop via our national legislature.

Denying DC the opportunity to either grant or withold Consent over the laws under which we all must live (as exercised by all other citizens in the fifty states) leaves the power exerted by Congress over the District both illegitimate and tyrannical. Recall that our Constitution, as originally written, denied these same fundamental rights to blacks and women, too. We have corrected that over time as we strive for "a more perfect Union." The task is not yet complete.

Founder George Mason said,

"No free government, or the blessings of liberty can be preserved to any people, but by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."

James Madison said,

"The people were in fact, the fountain of all power, and by resorting to them, all difficulties were got over. They could alter constitutions as they pleased. It was a principle in the Bills of rights, that first principles might be resorted to."

Our Constitution is a document written in an attempt to "form a more perfect Union". One of the basic, bedrock fundamental principles upon which participatory government such as democracy and its variations (such as a democratic republic) are based is "Consent of the Governed". Consent is determined by majority consensus, with special protections afforded to the rights of minorities. One of the most basic implications of this approach is that "the people" consist of ALL of the people. If a minority of the people are excluded from even participating in the process of decision making by the majority, that exclusion tends to erode the legitimacy of the entire system. Such is the situation of the long-suffering residents of the District of Columbia. Excluded from participation in the national decision making process nearly from the beginning of the Republic by the tyranny of the majority (those living in the fifty states), their exclusion (along with the now-corrected one-time exclusion of blacks, women, and young adults under the age of 21) has tended to erode the legitimacy of the rule of law, under self-evident, bedrock, fundamental democratic principles such as Consent of the Governed. Consent of the Governed has not been afforded denizens of the District since 1801. The current Constitution is hardly even their Constitution today, since they have not been afforded an opportunity to participate in decision making that resulted in Amendments 12 through 27 (since 1801). The Courts, likewise, are hardly even their courts, since they have not had representatives with an opportunity to participate in decisions (advise and consent) regarding their staffing and operation, since 1801. Finally, the Congress is hardly even their Congress, since they have had no vote, and precious little voice, in either chamber, since 1801. The denizens of DC, as part of the original thirteen colonies, are unrebuttably the same posterity, the same progeny, as those currently residing in the fifty states, for whom, as an indivisible Nation, the Founders pledged their "Lives, their Fortunes, and their Sacred Honor" to secure Liberty. Of that there can be no argument. Other territories (Puerto Rico, Pacific Islands, etc.) have a more tenuous claim on that position.

The Declaratory Act of 1766 was an attempt by the British nation to arrogate to itself an Absolute Power over an unrepresented minority "in all cases whatsoever". Similarly, the District Clause attempts to arrogate to the American nation Absolute Power over an unrepresented minority "in all cases whatsoever". Both cases are highly rebuttable, since both seek Absolute Power by the majority (and we know what Absolute Power does) over an unrepresented minority. The bedrock principle of "Consent of the Governed" is violated by such unwarranted assertions.

"VI. That elections of members to serve as representatives of the people, in Assembly, ought to be free; and that all men having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with and attachment to, the community, have the right of suffrage, and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property for public uses without their own consent, or that of their representatives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not, in like manner, assented for the public good."

Virginia Declaration of Rights,
June, 1776


The consistent, insistent, and persistent violation of this fundamental, bedrock, first-principle of modern participatory government undermines and erodes the very legitimacy of the rule of government over those excluded from participation in our representative, democratic, republican system of government. As a citizen of this nation, I urge my fellow countrymen to address this deficiency in our Constitution, with the goal of forming a More Perfect Union.