This is the first of five segments of a speech by Maclin Davis. Prepared Remarks On July 4, 1776, the thirteen American colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence, declaring that they were free and independent states, with no longer any allegiance to Great Britain. In this Declaration, they stated that all rights inherently belong to the people, and that government has no just powers, except those given to the government by the consent of the people who are governed. Then the War of Independence began, and the colonies defeated the armies of Great Britain in 1780. In the Declaration of Independence, the colonies stated that they should be free and independent states, with the right to do all acts which independent states may do. On September 17, 1787, after almost four months of meeting at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, delegates from the states created the Constitution of the United States. Article VII of the Constitution provides that it would be established by the ratification of the conventions by nine of the states ratifying it. The first ten amendments to the Constitution are called the Bill of Rights. They were drafted because some of the states were unwilling to ratify the Constitution without those ten amendments. The Constitution and Bill of Rights were ratified by all states, effective December 15, 1791. The most discussed provision in the Constitution is the First Amendment. That amendment does not give any rights to people, since the people already had all rights that were not given to the government in the Constitution. This is made absolutely clear by the Tenth Amendment, which expressly provides that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are reserved to the states or to the people. The Constitution is a written document, consented to by the people, and worded so as to establish a government by consent of the governed: a government of laws, and not of men. It contains a procedure for changes by the amendment process. It was clearly the intention of the people who ratified the Constitution, that the original meanings in the Constitution could be changed only through the amendment process, which is how amendments are consented to by the governed. Never have the people consented to judges having the power to change the meaning of the Constitution from its original meaning. If that is allowed, then the government is no longer a government by consent of the governed, and becomes a government of men, not of laws. If judges are allowed to bring about changes in the meaning of the Constitution after the governed people have consented to the written Constitution, then the Constitution means only what current judges say it means, and not what it meant at the time the governed people consented to it. And the meaning could later be changed at any time by the same judges, or subsequent judges, without ever obtaining the consent of the governed.