The John Birch Society derailed the Conference of the States efforts for a stealth constitutional convention at the Federalism Summit in Cincinnati, Ohio, in which organizers had hoped to send delegates from all 50 states to Philadelphia to adopt a series of constitutional amendments, take them back to the states for approval on a piece of paper called a “states’ petition,” and then send them to Congress with demands that Congress should, at that point, proceed with the ratification process established in Article V. After exposing this plot various state legislators thanked The John Birch Society.
