Allegiance to Democracy

The United States Constitution defines the crime of treason in somewhat broad terms in Article III Section 3, the main focus being on levying war against the U.S. or adhering to enemies of the U.S. by giving the nation's enemies aid or comfort. Even these charges had to be substantiated by the testimony of two witnesses or by the accused's confession in open court. The power to declare punishment for treason was invested in Congress.

Since this original definition of treason by the nation's fathers, Congress found it crucial at different times to add to the list of offenses that contribute to undermining of the national government or in regard to actions that threatened national security. Examples of passed statutes were the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts, and in 1917 the Espionage Act. Neither of these revisions requires the testimonly of two witnesses, and acts of treason are defined more explictly than in Article III of the Constitution.

Democracy--equality for all--was the founding fathers' ideal, and in that intention the Constitution does not create the offense, choosing instead a loose definition of treason and authorizing Congress the duty of establishing the offenses to be prohibited through legislation by Congress.

There have been less than forty federal prosecutions for treason in the nation's two-hundred-thirty-years-plus history, and of those brought to trial for the charge only a small number were ever convicted. Even the 1807 treason trial of Aaron Burr, for example, resulted in acquittal. After the Civil War, although numerous Confederate leaders such as Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee were indicted for treason they were granted amnesty in 1869 by out-going President Andrew Johnson to strengthen the relationship within the family of states. So treason has always carried a narrow characterization with national concern focusing primarily on acts of espionage. Thus has the United States sought to avoid the abuses of treason laws that those in power in other nations (most of them church dominated) used through the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.

Still the term "treason" suggests any serious act of disloyalty to one's sovereign or nation. Within Oran's Dictionary of the Law (1983), part of the definition of treason includes the intention to "...seriously injure (one's parent nation)." With this in mind, how should we interpret the movements operating for decades in the United States under the banner of religion that loudly bray that they stand for "moral values" while openly seeking to dismantle the U.S. Constitution in hopes of establishing what they term "a government based on timeless biblical values"?

In other words, their holy mission is to undermine the existing democratic form of government by indulging in inappropriate actions in an attempt to establish a theocratic regime.