Resolution Under Discussion In Stow, Massachusetts
PROCLAMATION DEFENDING OUR DEMOCRACY, THE U.S. CONSTITUTION AND THE RULE OF LAW
Call to Honor Democracy
WHEREAS, in the 1700s, before they filed the Declaration of Independence, American colonists sent Resolutions of Disapproval to King George. These declarations were made by towns, cities, colonial assemblies and other political groups expressing strong opposition to British laws and policies they considered unjust. Chief among these was “No taxation without representation.”
WHEREAS, in the early hours of April 19, 1775, two companies of Stow Minutemen totaling 81 men made the march to Concord to take part in the rolling battle with the British in the “shot heard round the world.”
WHEREAS, at a subsequent town meeting, Stow’s citizenry voted to support independence and to throw off the yoke of King George on July 1, 1776.
WHEREAS, these patriots pledged their "lives, fortunes and sacred honor" to create something bigger than themselves. They forged a new nation that could determine its own destiny where everyone could be free.
WHEREAS, the founding fathers in the Declaration of Independence called out King George for offenses that are in parallel to actions being taken by the current Administration today, they stated and we quote:
“The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world:
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses:”
WHEREAS, the first three articles of the U.S. Constitution establish three separate, but equal, branches of the government: the executive, legislative and judicial branches;
WHEREAS, the Attorney General of Massachusetts has joined with attorney generals of numerous other states that allege that officials and agencies of the executive branch have taken actions that are outside of their constitutional and statutory authority or that is otherwise unlawful;
WHEREAS, the federal courts of the United States have issued multiple rulings that the Administration of President Donald J. Trump is currently violating the Constitution and Laws of the United States by, among other things:
1) Overriding Congress’s spending decisions: 1) through arbitrary, wasteful firing tens of thousands of governmental employees, dismantling U.S. soft power U.S. Foreign Assistance under the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID); 2) closing agencies and programs, 3) removing existing bi-partisan oversight of waste, fraud and abuse; 4) defunding, firing and retiring scientists and experts in the CDC, NIH, NSF and NOAA; and 5) so many more partisan and illegal actions of programs appropriated through bi-partisan budgets enacted by Congress;
2) Violating Civil Service protections and replacing professional specialists with unqualified partisan personnel;
3) Failing to follow established procedures established by Congress for amending laws and changing Regulations; and
4) Failing and refusing to follow orders of the federal courts including the Supreme Court; and
5) Depriving people in the United States of the Protections of the Bill of Rights, most egregiously, the 1st and the 4th Amendments; and
6) Usurping Congress’s authority to tax by imposing and removing tariffs against dozens of countries without approval of our elected representatives.
WHEREAS, the Administration of President Donald J. Trump, the Republicans in Congress and the conservatives on the Supreme Court have betrayed the American people by failing to enforce the separation of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government and by failing to enforce the checks and balances established in the Constitution allowing the Administration of President Donald J. Trump to usurp the powers of Congress and to fail to abide by orders of the federal courts and the Supreme Court;
WHEREAS, James Madison in Federalist Paper No. 47. Stated that "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judicia[l] in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self–appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny”.
WHEREAS, the founding fathers stated in the Declaration of Independence that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,"
WHEREAS, the Administration of President Donald J. Trump and the Republicans in Congress passed the 2025 Reconciliation Bill which gutted America’s safety net and took money for programs for the poor and used that self, same money to give a tax break to the wealthiest 1% of Americans, favoring the rich over the poor, and created a massive anti-immigrant infrastructure betraying America’s fundamental nature of being a melting pot of peoples from around the world, encapsulated in the quote from the Statue of Liberty, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and pledged to create a barbaric program to remove millions of Immigrants in a horrific manner including the use of concentration camps, foreign jails, some in war torn countries, and torture.
WHEREAS, the illegal acts of the federal government are already having adverse impacts on the Town of Stow, its school, library, Council on Aging, elderly, and its disabled, disadvantaged and immigrant residents;
WHEREAS, each Stow Select Board has taken the oath of office to “bear true faith and allegiance to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and to support the Constitution thereof and the Constitution of the United States…” and therefore has a duty to act if anyone takes actions contrary to either constitution;
NOW THEREFORE, be it resolved in the tradition of our forefathers, that the Select Board of the Town of Stow recognizes that it is time for Massachusetts to once again lead the country and denounce the current federal Administration and Congress’s failures to follow the Constitution. As a result, we:
1) call on the Administration of President Donald J. Trump to return to the Constitutional principles that are the foundation of this Nation and immediately honor and uphold the Constitution, the laws of the United States, orders of the federal courts, including the Supreme court, and the goals of our forefathers to create a democracy where all people are created equal and have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; and
2) call upon the Massachusetts Congressional delegation to: 1) urge their Congressional colleagues to exercise their legislative authority to enforce the Constitution, 2) to work with the Judicial branch to restore the separation of powers, to ensure that illegal and unconstitutional acts, including acts of waste and corruption, are overturned, 3) to demonstrate in all actions that the executive branch is not above but rather only a co-equal branch of America’s government, and 4) to work to reverse recent laws to create a nation where all people are truly created equal and treated equally.
Signed this __th day of November 2025, by
Members of the Select Board of Stow, Massachusetts:
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