In its Preamble, the Constitution unambiguously records the fact that is "We the People of the United States ...ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Although the Constitution was drafted by a group known as "The Framers", it was "We the People", through the self-enacting features of Article VII, who elected delegates to state conventions for the sole purpose of ratification, and made the Constitution the law of the land.

A careful reading of the Constitution confirms that it comprises nothing more than a limited delegation of authority by "We, the People" to various branches of the federal government. Moreover, to eliminate any uncertainty on this subject, the Bill of Rights explicitly states that:

"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." (Amendment 9) and
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." (Amendment 10)

A careful examination of history shows that the constitutionality of the National Initiative is lodged in the Declaration of Independence and the precedent set by the ratification of the Constitution in 1787 - 1789. James Madison and the Framers faced the same problem that We, the People, face today. They knew that the 13 sovereign state governments would not dilute their power by ratifying the Constitution; therefore, they chose to take the decision of ratification directly to the People via conventions with specially  elected delegates bypassing state governments, who acquiesced to being bypassed in exchange for safeguards perpetuating slavery being embedded in the Constitution. The Philadelphia II election similarly bypasses the Congress and presents the National Initiative directly to the People for the exercise of the same self-ratifying, self-enacting authority implicit in Article VII of the Constitution.

In point of fact, the Constitution can be changed in only two ways. The government, created by the Constitution, can amend it through the procedures set out in Article V of the Constitution.  The People, the constituent sovereigns of the polity, who created the Constitution, can create, abolish, or amend the Constitution under the self-enacting principle of the Constitution's Article VII. Conventional wisdom, perpetuated since our founding, holds that only the procedures under Article V can be used to change the Constitution. This is ludicrous in that it would mean that the People, the creator of the Constitution, would be subject to the will of those with limited authority who populate the government institutions the People created. That argument requires the logic that the createe can rule the creator.

This logic is unfortunately obfuscated by the failure to distinguish the important difference between We, the People, in our role as citizens of a constituency, and We, the People, in our role as an individual in residence within a constituency. Individually, as residents, we are required to obey the law. Collectively, as citizens of the constituency, we are the authority for the creation of law, therefore, We, the People, are the law. 

This distinction is the essence of the self-government exemplified by our Constitution. Alexander Meiklejohn, the great constitutional scholar, stated it thus:

"The citizens of this nation shall make and shall obey their own laws, shall be at once their own subjects and their own masters."

The genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it may have had in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems and present needs.” Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., 1985