American conservatives are at a crossroads. We believe in the rule of law, the United States Constitution, and the founding principles that made America great. Along with that, we have a very keen sense of justice.
Justice matters, because without true, meaningful justice, we cannot achieve true, meaningful liberty.
There is a reason our pledge to our flag includes the words “liberty and justice for all.”
Our founders understood the necessity of justice in all respects—including our ability to self-govern.
The right of the people to select and prefer their leaders in a republican form of government is fundamental to the American Republic and specifically guaranteed by the United States Constitution.
As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 68, defending our system in reference to the election of the President of the United States in Article II is critically important:
“It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.
Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?”
The Framers created an election system whereby several fail-safe mechanisms were intentionally, textually placed to ensure that that the people are not disenfranchised from their choice of president, even through their own representative legislature, and that the mode of appointment of the president should be well-guarded against corruption and foreign powers.
When corruption influences any election, it is unequivocally unjust.
What the American people are feeling now is a deep sense of righteous injustice. We know that our system was corrupted and we want the full truth to come out—without the politics.
Shouldn’t every American, regardless of party or preferred candidate, want truth, transparency, and free and fair elections?
But the obvious answer is that people who don’t care about American liberty also don’t care about American justice. They are also the same people who don’t care about our nation’s founding, our heritage, our pledge to create a more perfect union, and our right to self-govern. They hate that we are a nation that has the ability to select and prefer our leaders.
They want to choose our leaders for us because they feel entitled, like they do about basically everything else. And in our system of government, corruptly installing a leader is fundamentally and unequivocally unjust.
But in our quest for truth and justice and preservation of liberty, we cannot demand justice by sacrificing the principles that also made America great—then we aren’t seeking real justice. True justice is derived from truth and is enacted in accordance with the rule of law.
Justice is not the same thing as vengeance, and in our righteous anger, we have to be true to genuine, meaningful justice. Even in the criminal justice system, justice cannot always (and often doesn’t) make the victim whole. Some bells’ ringing cannot be unsung. Justice is therefore also not the same thing as restoration, and it’s certainly not an emotional satisfaction.
One of the worst responseswe have seen in response to the aftermath of the 2020 election are those who are threatening to simply not exercise their vote “unless.” This is an emotional response from those who feel deeply the injustice, but refuse to remain principled.
If justice means anything, it has to be principled. The “progressives” routinely try to exchange meaningful justice with emotional satisfaction on all kinds of issues. Conservatives cannot do the same with elections simply because we are angry.
We have a system that is still the best government system ever designed. It isn’t perfect, and we saw clearly ways that it could be ignored, manipulated, and outright discarded in 2020.
Part of justice is holding accountable the perpetrators, but it’s also important that we do our part for justice and ensure that the perpetrators cannot victimize the system similarly ever again.
The audits are an important piece of accountability and getting the full truth. Legislation is important to safeguard elections and litigation when usurping government authorities try to manipulate their powers.
We have to carefully and stubbornly demand meaningful justice, not simple emotional satisfaction.
We want justice, because we value liberty. So we must demand true justice, while staying principled conservatives.
Jenna Ellis is a constitutional law attorney and Chairwoman of the Election Integrity Alliance. She is Special Counsel for the Thomas More Society, Newsmax contributor, and host of “Just The Truth” on Real America's Voice and Just The News podcast. Read Jenna Ellis's Reports -- More Here.
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