By Robert Godwin

Today, almost every country on the planet has ratified the convention -- except the United States. The Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), formally known as the Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was adopted in 1982. Its purpose is to establish a comprehensive set of rules governing the oceans and to replace previous U.N. Conventions on the Law of the Sea, one in 1958 and another in 1960.

The Law of the Sea Treaty has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate. President Ronald Reagan did not sign the treaty in 1982, citing national security and sovereignty. President Bill Clinton signed the treaty in 1994 and sent it to the U.S. Senate for ratification, but it has not been voted on by the full Senate. It has been left in Senate limbo since that time.

Many conservative political think tanks, such as the John Birch Society, The Heritage Foundation, The Cato Institute, etc. have spelled out the dangers to our national security and sovereignty should this nefarious and odious treaty be ratified by a treasonous U.S. Senate. Would it be a valid Constitutional treaty? Could individual sovereign states nullify LOST as an unconstitutional treaty? Do state governments have the Constitutional power under the Tenth Amendment via the supremacy clause of Article Six to declare LOST null and void?

Article Six, section two states: "This Constitution ... shall be the supreme law of the land." The States in the exercise of their reserved powers of the Tenth Amendment as a dual sovereign are just as supreme as the federal government when acting within the authority of the federal constitution, therefore the States can legislate and enforce their laws as the supreme law of the land against LOST.

In Federalist No. 45 James Madison stated: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. ... The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people; and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State." Is this not a declaration by Madison that State governments have that legal authority of the Constitution to nullify and make void Senate ratification of LOST? Chief Justice Joseph Judge Story, Section 1508, says, "but though the power is thus general and unrestricted, it is not to be so construed as to destroy the fundamental laws of the State."

"The treaty making power of Article Six cannot be used to deprive Congress, or the Judiciary, or the President, of their powers, how can it be claimed that it can deprive the States of their powers? State powers are either secured by the Constitution or they are not. If secured, in their sphere they are supreme under the 10th. Amendment; if not secured therein, they remain the original powers of Sovereign States. Are State powers less protected under the Constitution than those granted to Congress, the Judiciary, and the President?" Judge Henry St. George Tucker, The Treaty Making Power Under the Constitution of the United States, section 9 and 10, The North American Review of April 1914.

In the Commonwealth of our Israel America, our unalienable rights are ultimately secured politically by our State governments and a virtuous people. For the astute student of American government of the Jeffersonian school of thought, the conclusion is this: The reserved powers of the Sovereign States are never given up by the Constitution in the Tenth Amendment.

The United Nations and all of its communist conventions and proposed treaties of any sort will always be a corrupt bargain, with corrupt Presidents and corrupt U.S. Senators who will entertain treasonous acts against our representative republican form of government. The Tenth Amendment stands in defiance to federal tyranny and international tyranny.