Preamble

These pages may change often. This is a work in progress. I appreciate your input regarding the wording used. After all, this is YOUR constitution too.

Preamble

We, the Sovereign People inhabiting Illinois, being grateful to our Creator for the boundless personal liberty which he provides; and in hoping to secure such may he endow us with his blessing in forming a responsive, servile, and orderly government solely for securing and protecting the natural, unalienable rights belonging to all humanity, and thus allowing the People to be free to work towards building a peaceful, moral, and free society; and make available to the consenting governed, civil and political liberty and freedom through justice, domestic tranquility, and common defense, do hereby ordain and establish this Constitution for the state named, Illinois.

(Alternate)

We, the natural-born-free-Sovereign-People and Inhabitants of Illinois, being grateful to our Creator for the boundless personal liberty which he provides; and in hoping to secure such may he endow us with his blessing and guidance in forming a responsive, servile, and orderly government solely for securing and protecting the natural, unalienable rights belonging to all of humanity; and make available to the consenting governed, civil and political liberty and freedom through justice, domestic tranquility, and common defense, do hereby ordain and establish this Constitution for the state of, Illinois.

(Alternate)

We the People, the free-born and sovereign children of our Creator and of nature, being thankful to him for the boundless personal liberty which he provides; and in hoping to secure such rely upon the divine gifts of conscience and reason in forming a responsive, servile, and orderly government solely for securing and protecting the natural, unalienable rights which belong to all humanity; and make available to the consenting governed civil and political liberty, and freedom through justice, domestic tranquility, and common defense, do hereby ordain and establish this Constitution for the state of, Illinois.

* I disagree with the established phraseology of "We the People of the State of Illinois..." because until the constitution is ratified by the People the State of Illinois does not exist. The constitution created the State of Illinois, therefore the People cannot be "of" the State of Illinois before it exists. In reality, the People are acting in their natural capacity in forming a State. Since they create the State they cannot be "of" the State. The People, in the most simple terms, are children of their Creator, for those who aver to a higher authority, or at the least of nature. States, governments, and other constructs are not naturally occurring and need not be recognized by those who have no use for such things. It is only after an artifice has been created through fiction and recognized by those who either assist in its creation or who submit themselves to its authority that such entities manifest as reality with those willing to adopt such concepts. Some commentators and jurists claim the preamble is not an operative part of the constitution. This is disingenuous and misleading. The preamble may not be operative as a source of organic law, but it is the foundation upon which all other components of the constitution must rest. Any other article which follows the preamble, or law citing authority under the constitution which is not in harmony with the preamble is null and void. If the preamble is a cachepot for hortatory platitudes then I say either dispense with the preamble as a superfluous facade of anachronistic babble and simply state that we seek leniency and favor after abdicating all our rights to government. The rest of the proposed preamble asserts the limited purpose of government and reaffirms our adherence to accepted concepts of an orderly and peaceful society that holds the sovereignty of the individual paramount, the needs of society second, and the powers of government last.