Conversations

Lifting the Veil on Oligarchic Conceptions
of Sovereignty

Part 2

Lifting the Constitutional Veil

In this issue, TML is publishing Part 2 in the series of Conversations held by the Ideological Studies Centre in May-June 2026 titled Lifting the Constitutional Veil. Integral to the work of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) on modern definitions, this four part series is published under the title Lifting the Veil on Oligarchic Conceptions of Sovereignty. Part 1, published July 7, identifies seven significant veils as an integral part of bourgeois historiography which deprives the peoples of the outlook they need to establish a modern democracy in which the "we" in "we the people" is the people, not the financial oligarchy and its factions vying to wield power in favour of their own narrow interests.

The lawlessness we are witnessing for all to see takes place because the U.S. Constitution is finished. Presidents now make law, as Trump is doing by governing through executive orders and use of regulations. The Supreme Court is making laws because it has become a political body, not a legal body. This is also something which is widely recognized. The Supreme Court operates as an arm of the executive so the fact that it is now operating to seize more power for itself also underscores the factional contention within the executive itself. For its part, Congress, which is supposed to be the representative body of the people, has no legitimacy on that front. Its refusal to in any way represent the anti-war pro-social stand of the broad majority of the people and continually provide hundreds of billions of dollars for war is making this obvious to all.

The executive is now calling for a $1.5 trillion war budget and the most recent war powers resolution blocking Trump's war on Iran failed. Such a resolution is only necessary as Congress has long abandoned its constitutional authority to declare war. This is the tenth time since February 28, 2026, such a resolution has failed to pass, thereby permitting the President to carry on acting with impunity. It is evidence that Congress has given itself permission to eliminate itself as a law-making body.

Trump openly says it is his natural right to decide law. The Supreme Court does the same. Congress claims it has a right not to make decisions concerning war and peace and critical issues the U.S. Constitution authorizes the Congress to decide.

These institutions are said to have rights because the U.S. state has rights. The issue is of significance because it not only shows that the U.S. has become a lawless state but also that whatever claims it makes are meaningless. What does it mean for a state to have rights? Any modern definition of rights stands against this, as rights belong to human beings, as individuals, collectives and the collectivity of a people. The Constitution provides for various authorities, not rights. Today, given the failure of the Constitution to regulate the struggle between factions, the conflicts among the authorities established in the Constitution have reached civil war levels.

There is an opinion that these developments represent a new phenomenon created by criminal gangsters who have usurped power. No doubt they are criminal gangsters and no doubt they have usurped power but the aim of laying the blame for all problems on what is called the existence of a "deep state," or a "national security state," as opposed to the "constitutional state," are not valid. The attempts to argue this opinion are based on the conception that states, however named, have rights. What is happening before everyone's eyes is that those usurping power are usurping authority, which is different from rights. Confusing the two brings people into meaningless debates.

There is a definite argument that the entire U.S. Constitution, as is true for constitutions worldwide, is anachronistic, out of time and space. This is true but so stating is not sufficient. It does not take into account arguments about entities called "deep state," or the "national security state." The fact is that besides being anachronistic, this is so because the democracy that is supposed to be sustained by the Constitution as fundamental law is incomplete. The democratic revolution which took society out of medievalism and facilitated the process of modernization has not been completed. Many roadblocks remain to the completion of the democratic revolution and this is what requires recognition.

Anomaly of Slavery

Beyond the U.S. Constitution being anachronistic and sustaining a democracy that is incomplete and still has many retrogressive aspects, a third problem with it is the one contained in the arguments raised by Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois in 1935 concerning slavery as an anomaly and the Constitution as an anomaly against progress. These problems were not fully developed by him at that time and their projection remained to be proven.

The work being done today to give rise to modern definitions corroborates what Dr. Du Bois put forward in 1935, stemming from its sound theoretical basis. In this regard, it is important to be guided by the analysis provided by Hardial Bains in Necessity for Change, and by CPC(M-L)'s work on human rights in the post-Cold War period. It is important to keep in mind that for history and our historiography, the time since Dr. Du Bois wrote his seminal work Black Reconstruction in America (1935) of close to 100 years is not very long.

Let us look more closely at what Du Bois had to say in his work whose full title is Black Reconstruction: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America,1860-1880. Right from the start he states: "From the day of its birth, the anomaly of slavery plagued a nation which asserted the equality of all men, and sought to derive powers of government from the consent of the governed." (Black Reconstruction, p. 3) He adds, "So long as slavery was a matter of race and color, it made the conscience of the nation uneasy and continually affronted its ideals. The men who wrote the Constitution sought by every evasion, and almost by subterfuge, to keep recognition of slavery out of the basic form of the new government," (ibid, p. 4).

Looking at slavery as an anomaly is needed for any discussion of the Constitution when dealing with consent of the governed and equality, including the rulers' concept of "all men created equal." A dictionary definition of anomaly states that it is a deviation from the common rule, type, arrangement, or form. It is something that is abnormal, that does not fit in. An odd, peculiar, or strange condition, situation, or quality. Something that is incongruous or involves inconsistency. In grammar it would be an irregularity.

Along with a Constitution that is an anachronism and a democratic revolution that is incomplete, it is necessary to add this problem of considering slavery to be an anomaly. Doing so shows that an examination of the rule, type and arrangements of the U.S. Constitution results in those arrangements being incommensurable, not on a par – as something which cannot be measured. There are qualities put together that cannot go together; they prevent measurement.

When decision-makers make judgements, they do so to predict the near future. A decision must be taken. This requires posing a problem in a way that can be predictable. There must be a reasonable expectation that if one does x, y and z, one will resolve the problem or at least head in that direction.

Arguments are required to show that, given that the Constitution is incommensurable with slavery as an anomaly, then those human beings enslaved will not be recognized, will not be considered part of the constitutional makeup of society. It is not fundamentally an issue of race, but of enslavement of human beings and the need to end all enslavement of humans.

It is often pointed out that the framers of the Constitution were hypocrites. For instance, it is pointed out that some were slave owners yet talked about all men are created equal. Or it is pointed out that phrasing about equality is done to pull the wool over people's eyes. But this way of looking at the Constitution is limited; it is a shallow way of looking at the problem which does not go far in analyzing the Constitution and its counter-revolutionary character.

It is true that men who owned slaves promoted the phrase "all men are created equal." But saying this does not get one any closer to looking into the issues of slavery, equality and freedom which have been debated for thousands of years. It can in fact contribute to keeping the constitutional veil in place, rather than lifting that veil, as it does not get to the heart of the matter.

We are looking here at the whole Constitution, not pieces of it, and that whole is anachronistic, incomplete and incommensurable precisely because of this anomaly, this poison of slavery which makes decision-making by the polity impossible. The problem is not only slavery per se but that contending with issues of equality and freedom are turned into a matter of race and colour. What we are looking at here is also different than the concept promoted of "racialized capitalism" that mixes up distinct categories in a manner which blocks providing problems with solutions.

Recognizing the anomaly of slavery as the basis for the veil which does not permit one to penetrate the heart of the matter also points to unevenness. This is central to the arguments required for modern definitions as it is related to the law of uneven development as put forward by Lenin. Du Bois corroborates Lenin's analysis by pointing out this deviation from the common rule, this anomaly of slavery, which is abnormal and irregular and part of the inequality – of criteria based on race, colour, or any other distinction, of having human beings who are considered property, and conquered, not humans.

Problem of Representation and Slavery's Challenge to Democracy

Du Bois says that bringing Black people to the U.S. is "a central thread in the history of the United States, at once a challenge to its democracy and always an important part of its economic history and social development," (ibid, p. 3). He makes clear that, "In origin the slaves represent everything African." He argues out that bringing people to the U.S. to be enslaved is a central thread in U.S. history that challenges democracy. He elaborates how this central challenge to democracy, an important part of its economic and social development, results in endless tragedy.

The anomaly of slavery deals with the theory the framers of the Constitution had of representation, based on the Covenant Thesis put forward by Thomas Hobbes in the mid-1600s. Covenant Thesis is a critical part of the constitutional veil. When Du Bois states that "slavery represents everything African," he is speaking to this problem of representation. How are the enslaved people to be represented? And for the people enslaved, Africa is part of what they represent.

Du Bois explains that the people enslaved were all workers, but they were not all Africans. According to estimations, more than one fourth were a mix of Black, Indigenous and white blood. U.S. and state laws at the time used the measure that "one drop" of Black blood made the person a slave. Du Bois also states that there were Black people, descended from slaves, but living as "free" workers. Taken together, he explains that "a settled working population" emerged during the more than 250 years of enslavement.

There are problems with status, free or slave, and the conscience that he speaks to. A nation that continually affronted its ideals, and had this anomaly of slavery, rendered the conscience of the nation uneasy.

Du Bois asserts that, "Black labor became the foundation stone not only of the Southern social structure, but of Northern manufacture and commerce, of the English factory system, of European commerce, of buying and selling on a world-wide scale; new cities were built on the results of black labor, and a new labor problem, involving all white labor, arose both in Europe and America. Thus, the old difficulties and paradoxes appeared in new dress," (ibid, p. 5). He also speaks to an opportunity for a new democracy, as free Blacks held the right to vote in many states during the 1700-1800s, though minimum land ownership was often a requirement for whites and Blacks.

He raises the problem of political power being confined to property holders, and an "aristocracy of birth and learning," based on land ownership. "As slavery grew to a system and the Cotton Kingdom began to expand into imperial white domination, a free Negro was a contradiction, a threat and a menace. As a thief and a vagabond, he threatened society; but as an educated property holder, a successful mechanic or even professional man, he more than threatened slavery. He contradicted and undermined it. He must not be. He must be suppressed, enslaved, colonized," (ibid, p. 7).

Du Bois speaks to the Congress of Confederation, officially referred to as the United States in Congress Assembled, the national governing body of the United States from March 1781-March 1789, when the Constitution enters into force. It functioned as a continuation of the Second Continental Congress. Operating under the Articles of Confederation, it preceded the adoption of the Constitution (1787).

Speaking to the conflicts developing at that time, Du Bois brings out that "In 1778, the Congress of the Confederation twice refused to insert the word "white" in the Articles of Confederation in asserting that free inhabitants in each state should be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of free citizens of the several states," (ibid).

Du Bois is dealing with issues of representation and equality and basic forms of governance. He goes on to raise, "What did it mean to be a slave? It is hard to imagine it today. We think of oppression beyond all conception: cruelty, degradation, whipping and starvation, the absolute negation of human rights; or on the contrary, we may think of the ordinary worker the world over today, slaving ten, twelve, or fourteen hours a day, with not enough to eat, compelled by his physical necessities to do this and not to do that, curtailed in his movements and his possibilities; and we say, here, too, is a slave called a 'free worker,' and slavery is merely a matter of name," (ibid, p. 9).

This anomaly of slavery is represented as the ultimate degradation of human beings. "Indeed, the system was so reactionary, so utterly inconsistent with modern progress, that we simply cannot grasp it today. No matter how degraded the factory hand, he is not real estate. The tragedy of the black slave's position was precisely this; his absolute subjection to the individual will of an owner and to the cruelty and injustice which are the invariable consequences of the exercise of irresponsible power," (ibid, p. 9-10).

The authority from this absolute subjection was defined as policy, not law. "The law regards the negro slave so far as civil status is concerned purely and absolutely as property without a will of its own." And, "The slave owed to his master and all his family a respect 'without bounds, and an absolute obedience,'" (ibid, p. 10). Even though there were laws such as, for example, that the "willful, malicious and deliberate murder of a slave" was punishable by death – there was not any such punishment. We see this today with the crime of genocide, where there are conventions and laws against it but no punishment of those guilty. The use by the executive of such police powers, with impunity, has vastly grown today.

A crucial point here ties into the content that Marx raised in his preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) where he brings out that in the material production of life, individuals enter into social relations. We are all born to society. The second point Marx makes, which is often missed and ties into what Du Bois puts forward, is that those social relations exist independent of individual will. That is, we are not simply born to society, but also individual will exists in relation to all human relations and all the collection of wills that go with that ensemble, individual and collective. This is important because a constitution based on a civil society made up of single individual members, with single individual wills, stands against this reality. It is just such civil societies that exist today in liberal democratic countries which do not provide a model for the modern democracies needed.

As a basis for sorting out problems, Marx introduces the relation of wills to wills, a will that carries you with your given status and a will that carries you in a definite direction. There are single isolated individual wills and individual salvation, and there are collective wills and collective salvation. The ensemble of human relations necessitates that these single individual wills be formed into collectives for the strength needed to bring about the changes required.

Du Bois speaks to the condition of human slavery pointing in two singular and contradictory directions. One is the buying and selling of human labour for profit. The second is that a polity is created. When it comes to the buying and selling of human labour for profit, the argument given is that this is natural to society.

The direction human labour has gone is to the point of capitalism, which is considered an end point. But in fact, it is the starting point for what comes after; the initial condition for what comes next. That is the second direction that Du Bois raises. All the single individual wills can become a conscious collective will of the polity acting in its interests. There is a direction created for public power of the polity, empowerment of the people and their struggle for that.

There is also the question of alienation. One can say single individual wills exist in opposition to all other single individual wills. As Hobbes put it, conditions of all against all. There is a class of people who claim that social labour is there to be expropriated. The capitalist lays a claim to it. The workers' relation to what they produce is alienated from that. There is expropriation by the capitalists while for the workers that social labour is appropriated from them. There is also the alienation that exists from the ensemble of all relations, which produce the immense human productive powers of social labour. Social labour confronts that power as alienated power, power that they do not control.

Under capitalism based on buying and selling, there is not simply the immense powers created by social labour. Those immense powers become an active force. They become a social relation which is capital, or what we can call a capitalist personality as distinct from the democratic personality given rise to by the peoples. This capitalist personality is transitory based on buying and selling and not on the production of social labour. There is an inversion, a twist, as illustrated by the mobius strip. The inversion and twist are fundamental to capitalism and the first part of the contradictory direction Du Bois speaks to.

Du Bois brings out that there are position and direction to contend with, and contradictory directions within this. Theory deals with both. One is there is a position, or status of an individual in society, where you exist and the anomalies that go with that. For direction, Du Bois raises there is the direction of an endless repeat, over and over, an endless tragedy. Or, does the ensemble of human relations also give rise to the great upheaval of humanity for democratic revolution and the possibility of creating conditions for something new?

This is different than limiting discussion to the fact that capitalists and workers stand opposed to each other, which speaks to status, or only to an End of History direction, which says liberal democracy is the end point and forms of governance can go no further. Such discussion does not go beyond the limit of seeing tragedy, does not see that the direction gives rise to the New.

(Conversations, May 18, 2026)

PDF

PREVIOUS ISSUES | HOME

Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca