Continuing with Schiel & Denver Book Publishers‘s U.S. Constitution series in modern American political life, today we consider further areas of writing appropriately about our Constitution and how to frame narrative in these sensitive contexts.

The intent of the Common Laws in America was to preserve the Sovereignty and rights of all citizens in the new Republic of America known as the United States of America. Such intent shocked the world historically, lawfully, and realistically as it challenged the heart of all previously known rights of heredity, nobility, and dominion over lands and property as well as people.Sovereign, in early Webster 1828 dictionary definitions comes closest to that understood by our founding fathers:

Supreme in power; possessing supreme dominion, as a sovereign prince. God is the sovereign ruler of the universe; also supreme; pertaining to the first magistrate of a nation; as sovereign authority; also a supreme lord or ruler; one who possesses the highest authority without control. Some earthly princes, kings, and emperors are sovereigns in their domains.

And sovereignty was defined then as “Supreme power; supremacy; the possession of the highest power, or of uncontrollable power. Absolute power belongs to God only.”

It is no accident, then, that our founding fathers claimed their sovereignty came from God’s law that all men are created equal.Sovereignty had shifted to a right belonging to man, granted by the supreme ruler of the universe.People were no longer to be considered vassals, subordinates, and slaves only to serve the pleasures of sovereign earthly rulers, who usually inherited their status or won it through force and continued to exercise it over all the people and lands under their dominion.Our Nation was founded by people who claimed their freedom and sovereignty as a right derived from God.

They wanted new lives in a new country; and although there was allegiance to the old country, the intense desire to be sovereign as man was their birthright.The Great Seal for the federal government of the United States clearly affirms on its obverse Crest: a glory Orb, breaking through a cloud proper, surrounding an azure field bearing a constellation of thirteen stars argent. And on its reverse, the eye at the top of a pyramid is the Eye of Providence with the Latin motto Annuit Coeptis in the sky above – meaning It (the eye of Providence) is favorable to our undertakings or He favors our undertakings.) – Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson were given the task of creating the seal on July 4, 1776 and it was officially adopted on June 20, 1782.

Sovereignty was an expression, then, of the natural, organic, God-given Right that man was created equal and such rights are natural as they are granted by the Supreme Authority: Providence. Thus, in 1772 at a Town Meeting in Boston, such rights although internationally a threat to the existing monarchy and ecclesiastical supremacy of many nations, were adopted and expanded to being;

“the Natural Rights of the Colonists are these First, a Right to Life, Secondly to Liberty; thirdly to Property; together with the Right to support and defend them in the best manner they can – Those are evident Branches of, rather than deductions from the Duty of Self Preservation, commonly called the first Law of Nature –“Sovereignty continues to explain such Natural Rights relating to Life, Liberty, and Property, and concludes the Rights of Colonists with the force majeure that:“no men or body of men, consistently with their own rights as men and citizens or members of society, can for themselves give up, or take away from others.”“First, The first positive law of all Commonwealths or States, is the establishing the legislative power; as the first fundamental natural law also, which is to govern even the legislative power itself, is the preservation of the Society.

Secondly, The Legislative has no right to absolute arbitrary power over the lives and fortunes of the people…

Thirdly, The supreme power cannot Justly take from any man, any part of his property without his consent, in person or by his Representative.”These, then, were the Colonists’ sovereign expression of the first principles of natural law and justice and the basic fundamental maxims of the Common Law: common sense and reason.And again, the Natural Rights are expressed as Declarations by an act of the early American Continental Congress at New York, on October 19, 1765. This time, however, the rights are expanded as “humble opinions” respecting the most essential rights and liberties of the Colonists to protest taxes, duties, and to assert as a seventh right to establish sovereignty:“That trial by jury is the inherent and invaluable right of every British subject in these colonies.”

And as an eighth right in claiming sovereignty:

“That the late act of Parliament, entitled, “An act for granting and applying certain stamp duties, and other duties in the British colonies and plantations in America, etc.” by imposing taxes on the inhabitants of these colonies, and the aid act, and several other acts by extending the jurisdiction of the courts of admiralty beyond its ancient limits, have a manifest tendency to subvert the rights and liberties of the colonies.”

All such claim for personal Rights, as a natural course, are summarized with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence and a pledge to each other of lives, fortunes, and sacred honor of the Colonists in their Declaration of Independence, as adopted in Congress on July 4, 1776 — now a matter of the historical records of “The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the United States,” compiled under an order of the United States Senate by Ben Perley Poore, Clerk of Printing Records. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1877.

Finally, to insure that there is no doubt, even in the new country, the United States of America, a Bill of Rights is agreed to and added as the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution when ratified on December 15, 1791.

Amendment IX expressly identifies the limitation of the new federal government and re-affirms sovereignty remains in the people.

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

And with even more specificity, Amendment X expressly identifies the limitations extending from the new federal government down through the individual States by reservation, and continues to re-affirm sovereignty remaining ultimately in the people.

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.’

Should the States not claim sovereignty power over the federal government, when necessary; then the people are the ultimate power proving that they hold the force majeure and are the master over the servant State or federal government when not specifically delegated as a national government. The claiming of sovereignty meant freedom and liberty for all.

The Liberty Bell, to announce such ideas of sovereignty, could not ring until the people were prepared and ready to form a more perfect union and ratify a Constitution for and of the United States of America.

And such ideas of freedom and liberty had to be communicated to the common man; to all the Colonists. Thus, the Federalist Papers originally written under the name of Publius, were published and distributed to all of the thirteen proposed states.

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As has now been reported widely in the New York Times and Washington media circuit, Jonah Lehrer, the disgraced writer who fabricated Bob Dylan quotes, has now had his book publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, begin running digital adverts through the Google Adwords system, telling booksellers to send back copies of the plagiarized book, “Imagine.” But how can other writers stay clear of a similar fate? One way to ensure you don’t accidentally plagiarize material surrounding the constitution is to keep a clear chronology of events in place (on a piece of paper or iPad for reference) as you unfold your storytelling narrative around famous works of literature, which in this context must include U.S Constitutional materials. Here is a simple Chronology for the early Constitutional days:

DATES & EVENTS CHANGING HISTORY

1754 Benjamin Franklin urges Colonists to unite.

1765 Parliament passes Stamp Act, which taxes Colonists on all printed items.

1770 The Boston Massacre on March 5. Five Colonists are killed.

1773 The Boston Tea Party on December 16.

1774 The First Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia in September.

1776 Common Sense by Thomas Paine sold 400,000 copies to three million Colonists. Common Sense swept across the world to introduce the Rights of Man & a Republic.

1776 The Second Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia June 7; Thomas Jefferson submits Declaration of Independence July 2 which is approved July 4 and is publicly read to all America on July 8. 1781 President George Washington’s Farewell Address reminds all Americans how to preserve the new Republic.

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It’s not a commonly asked question – just how many times do independent and self-published authors cite the American Constitution in their work; there are no reliable figures or clear guidelines on how to quote from the Constitution to be both legally accurate and grammatically correct. In this new series of posts, Schiel & Denver Book Publishers and Christian Book Publishers will examine the issues and over writing tips and advice. We start with an overview of that oft-cited, Boston Tea Party literature.

The Tea Party of 1773 wasn’t just the dumping of tea in Boston Harbor. It was the signal to the world that man was sovereign, had natural rights protected by laws in common, and that those rights were foremost amongst all nations. The local, Boston issue of taxation without representation only heightened the inalienable, organic rights of man.The chronology leading to the Tea Party of 1773 did not just happen with a bunch of rogues deciding to rebel against the English oppressors in a spur of the moment. There were many abuses of power leading to the Boston Tea Party; however, it is most important to historically note that it was not the Americans who signaled the first rebellion. It was Pontiac, Chief of the Ottawa Indians. And Benjamin Franklin, in 1754 then published the “Join or Die” cartoon.

Although the rough picture of a snake separated into eight pieces marked with the initials of New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, was first used in an attempt to unite the colonies as early as 1754 as the Albany Plan of Union, it was premature and not supported by the Colonists until revived by Pontiac’s attack upon the British in May, l763, and made a standard by the Tea Party patriots two years later when the British passed the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act, thereby allowing British soldiers to be quartered throughout the colonies.

Alarmed, the Colonists prepared to unite as they struggled to peacefully remain a colony of English rule. It simply did not work. On May 10, l773, England passed the Stamp Act claiming sovereignty over America, and resulting in Patrick Henry’s famous resolutions: the fifth summed it all.

“Resolved, therefore, that the General Assembly of this Colony have the only and sole exclusive right and power to lay taxes upon the inhabitants of this Colony.”

It was now clear: every attempt to vest such power in any…persons…other than the General Assembly would destroy British as well as American freedom. No taxation without representation. America would have to assert its exclusive rights.Suddenly, with this speech, Patrick Henry became a spokesman for the common people, and the two parties: Patriots, or Whigs; and Loyalists – those who remained loyal to England – also called ‘Tories”, were born.

Henry’s words became the general outcry for the Tea Party and was the beginning of the revolutionary movement in the American colonies.

The Patriots were the backbone of the Republic. The Boston Tea Party formulated between 1773 and 1776. Our country is that Nation uniting all of the colonies into one nation: the United States of America embracing a Republican form of government wherein man, the citizen, was to become the ultimate law of the land possessing original ordained rights.The Boston Tea Party was known as the “Destruction of the Tea”; but when the Patriots, as Mohawk Indians marched into town, with axes and tomahawks on their shoulders, a fifer playing by their sides, within a few days, a Boston street ballad called: “The Rallying of the Tea Party” not only identified the two leaders—Warren and Revere—by name, but gave the Tea Party its origin and history in protecting common rights.

It is no wonder, then, that this is the hallmark of liberty and freedom for every man as foreseen and upheld by our forefathers when creating the ninth and tenth Amendments to our Constitution.

“The enumeration In the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

The people, again, were the ultimate beneficiary of all rights and powers within a Republican form of government. They were protecting their voice and guarding the limited powers to be relinquished to a federal government after granting it federal authority to govern, and to become a nation subservient to the desires and wishes of the sovereign states, ultimately, represented by the people as: sovereign man.

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, or prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

The Tea Party of yore is very much alive today. All over America the strong desires and morals which our founding fathers clearly laid down in 1776 return for all mankind to re-assert and claim once more.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that amount these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

The expression reverberated in the hearts and minds of all men then, and needs to be restored today. Its effect, as expressed by the concluding paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, is as much alive in meaning and intent for all mankind as when expressed in 1776. The Spirit of ’76, which was so near exhaustion at Valley Forge, was kindled by such resolve.

“We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these United colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved, and that as Free and Independent States they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things, which Independent States may of right do — and for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

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1. “It was a serious distraction and threat to more meaningful reform efforts.”
Something is wrong with this sentence. To diagnose the problem, remove one of the noun phrases from the beginning of the sentence and determine whether the remaining statement is still correct, then replace it and remove the other one. “It was a serious threat to more meaningful reform efforts” is correct, but “It was a serious distraction to more meaningful reform efforts” is jarring because the preposition is not idiomatically appropriate. The noun phrases are supported by different prepositions, so they cannot share the word to; assign the correct preposition to each one: “It was a serious distraction from and threat to more meaningful reform efforts.”

Should the word threat be preceded by the article a to make it parallel with distraction? No, because serious applies to both nouns, and an additional article would isolate threat from the shared adjective. Also, the phrase “and threat to” appears to be parenthetical, but it’s not necessarily necessary to set it off by commas, parentheses, or em dashes.

However, enclosing it in parentheses suggests a whispering insinuation, and using em dashes would signal a provocative interjection, so the context might merit either parenthetical strategy. In either case, though, threat should be assigned a repetition of serious — “It was a serious distraction from (and a serious threat to) more meaningful reform efforts” — or a distinct adjective (“It was a serious distraction from — and a grave threat to — more meaningful reform efforts.”)

2. “Elected officials and activists representing forty-five environmental groups attended the event.”
When two or more nouns or noun phrases follow one or more adjectives (as in the previous example), the assumption is that the modifying word or words applies to each noun. In this case, however, the subject consists of the elements “elected officials” and “activists representing forty-five environmental groups” linked by a conjunction, not “elected officials (representing forty-five environmental groups)” and “(elected) activists representing forty-five environmental groups” joined by and. To clarify this distinction, recast the sentence: “Activists representing forty-five environmental groups, as well as elected officials, attended the event.”

3. “He has to be, if not the, one of the stupidest people in TV news.”
The basic statement here is “He has to be one of the stupidest people in TV news,” but the writer has failed in an attempt to suggest the superlative as well, awkwardly implying also that “he has to be the stupidest person in TV news.” (The superlative is the ultimate form of an adjective, more extreme than the basic form — stupid, in this case – and the comparative, stupider.)

But “if not the” collides with “one of the”; the unstated — and incorrect — complete thought is, “He has to be the stupidest people in TV news.” To smooth out this disjointed sentence, introduce the superlative first in a complete thought, and then retreat to the milder criticism in a following modifying phrase: “He has to be if not the stupidest person in TV news, then one of the stupidest.”

Note that a comma does not follow be, because doing so would imply that two commas are necessary to set “if not the stupidest person in TV news” off from the basic sentence “He has to be then one of the stupidest,” and that’s a faulty grammatical analysis. This sentence is constructed from a simple “if, then” foundation, so use a single comma to separate the two propositions.

4. “He kept a house there as well as homes in rural Oxfordshire, England, and Miami.”
This sentence implies that the subject kept three additional homes: one in Oxfordshire, one in England, and one in Miami. (It also incorrectly suggests that, as in the second example above, a single adjective applies to all nouns that follow.) What the writer meant, as we determine momentarily — which is one moment too late — is that one additional residence is located in Oxfordshire, England, and another is in Miami.

When one or more “city, state” or “city, nation” constructions are associated with a “city” reference, the sentence must be revised to clarify the hierarchy of referents. One solution is to distance the two objects with proprietary prepositions: “He kept a house there as well as homes in rural Oxfordshire, England, and in Miami.” Another, clearer choice is to do so but also place the simpler referent first: “He kept a house there as well as homes in Miami and in rural Oxfordshire, England.”

5. “The company was to be paid between $300 and $400 million.”
This “you know what I meant” bungle is inoffensive but incorrect, and should be corrected on principle because a similar but more egregiously ambiguous construction would definitely merit revision, so why be inconsistent and excuse one but not the other? The two figures in question are $300 million and $400 million, and for the sake of clarity, the first instance of million should not be elided: “The company was to be paid between $300 million and $400 million.”

The same principle applies if the range is separated by the word to: “The company was to be paid $300 million to $400 million.” However, when the sentence does not apply to orders of magnitude — “Compliance ranged from 50 to 75 percent” — the operative word need not be repeated, because no ambiguity about the relation of the first number to the second one exists.

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Original Post: 5 Problems with Parallelism

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Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for July 07, 2012 is:

bruit • \BROOT\  • verb
: report, rumor — usually used with about

Examples:
Word of his imminent dismissal was bruited about.

"In Iraq, the mission of the remnant of U.S. forces — the number 3,000 has been bruited — will, [Leon] Panetta says, include counterterrorism actions ‘working with the Iraqis.’" — From an editorial by George Will in The Washington Post, September 18, 2011

Did you know?
Back in the days of Middle English, the Anglo-French noun "bruit," meaning "clamor" or "noise," rattled into English. Soon English speakers were also using it to mean "report" or "rumor" (it applied especially to favorable reports). We also began using "bruit" as a verb the way we used (and still occasionally do use) the verb "noise," with the meaning "to spread by rumor or report" (as in "the scandal was quickly noised about"). The English noun "bruit" is now considered archaic, but the verb lives on.

“Batman: The Black Glove” hits enters the list at No. 2.

For your weekend reading pleasure, here are our top stories of the week, including disappearing books, a Wal-Mart library and Tom Cruise playing Lee Child‘s thriller hero, Jack Reacher (video embedded above).

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1. Tom Cruise Plays Jack Reacher in New Trailer
2. Wal-Mart Converted into a Library
3. Free Sites to Promote Your eBook
4. CJ Lyons Sweeps Self-Published Bestseller List with 99-Cent Sale
5. Twitter Cheat Sheet for Writers
6. Book That Disappears As You Read
7. The Lost History of Fifty Shades of Grey
8. 5 Ways to Promote Your Book Right Now
9. J. K. Rowling eBook Will Cost $19.99
10. Jennifer Weiner on Social Media, Blogging & Writing About Controversial Issues

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The latest addition to our Reviews Section is joint review by Sarah 2 and Quantum Sarah on Alessandro Baricco’s Emmaus, which is translated from the Italian by Mitch Ginsburg and is available from McSweeney’s.

Here is an excerpt from their review:

Alessandro Baricco’s latest novel, Emmaus, centers on the friendship of four working-class Catholic adolescents and their shared love for a tragic, sexual young woman named Andre. The plot of the novel follows the trajectory of a classic loss of innocence story, but Baricco immediately complicates this definition. What distinguishes Emmaus from other narratives of this archetype is its ambiguous stance in respect to Catholicism and sin. It would be a grievous oversimplification to say that the boys live in a world of repression and then find truth, or that they are innocent, pure souls in childhood and are subsequently corrupted in adolescence. To the contrary, Baricco distinctly avoids this simplistic dichotomy of good and evil: the narrator and his friends possess constant awareness of promiscuity and violence, but they don’t label it as such.

Click here to read their entire review.

The biographer will write about how he came to tackle Lyndon Johnson and Robert Moses as his subjects.