The Seventeenth Amendment:
A Cancer on our Constitutional Republic
Crushing the Rights of the Sovereign States
of the Union

1913 - worst year

Destroying the checks and balances between the states and the federal government:

UPDATE (March 2010): The documents obtained at the National Archives in Washington, DC in 2009 are now scanned and posted; click here.

How to restore states’ sovereignty:
Exclusive: Devvy Kidd challenges ratification of 17th Amendment

Federal Jurisdiction and treaties:


James Madison

New items:

Republican Candidates Call for Repeal of Seventeenth Amendment

Tearing down walls

NATRONA COUNTY TRIBUNE, 1911

Still chosen by legislatures — “DIRECT ELECTION OF SENATORS.

“Nobody will be surprised that the [U.S.] senate rejected the proposition for an amendment of the constitution for the election of senators by direct vote, but that it lacked only four of the two-thirds will be decidedly surprising. Thirty-three republicans and twenty-one democrats supported the proposition, while twenty-four republicans and nine democrats opposed it. Moreover, most of those democrats were against it because it was coupled with a clause which would give the national government a large measure of control over the elections in every state."


Outstanding book:

Federalism, the Supreme Court, and the Seventeenth Amendment: The Irony of Constitutional Democracy


S.J. 35 - 2004 - 108th Congress

Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment

A Real Separation Of Powers

Rethinking The 17th Amendment

Senate president wants 17th Amendment repealed

Lawmaker believes Legislature should select U.S. senators [AZ]

Idaho State Rep. Seeks Repeal of 17th Amendment

Should the 17th Amendment be repealed?


Senate, Madison 62 & continuation at 63 - The Federalist Paper

While you can't repeal a law that doesn't exist (so many don't know it was not ratified by enough states), but this is well done:


REPEAL THE 17TH AMENDMENT By John MacMullin

Also by MacMullin:

"Amplifying the Tenth Amendment," 31 Ariz.L.R. 915 (1989)


Per historywiz.com: Chaplain Jacob Duché leading the first prayer in the First Continental Congress at Carpenter's Hall, Philadelphia, September 1774: mezzotint, 1848.- Granger Collection - artist unknown

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