The Anti-Constitution Mercenaries

In the past, I blogged at What Would The Founders Think? One of my articles was titled, “The Founders Fear.” The article asserted that the Founders architected a limited government because they feared unrestrained power. This was written way back in 2011, but I received a scolding from a troll last week. Reeve wrote: 

Why did the colonists revolt?

In the five centuries following the Magna Carta (1215), Englishmen had gradually gained individual rights, so that by the late eighteenth century, the English were beginning to exercise a degree of self-government. The King and nobility still wielded substantial power, but Parliament had gained increasing authority, especially the elected House of Commons. 

Toward the end of this period, the opinions of those outside the aristocracy were increasingly influenced by the Enlightenment, an intellectual movement of the seventeen and eighteenth centuries. Enlightenment thinkers began to challenge existing religious, government, and social norms, and pushed for additional individual liberty and the free exercise of natural rights. They argued that mankind not only had a capacity for self-government, but that it was a natural right. Through an evolutionary process, Englishmen grew to enjoy an ever-increasing say over who made the laws that governed their lives. That is, those Englishmen who lived in England. If an Englishman happened to live in one of the British colonies, he was still a mere subject of the crown with no representation in Parliament.

Benjamin Franklin  before Lords in Council in Whitehall Chapel

Our American Heritage

The colonists did not only revolt against taxes; they revolted to stop the British from taking away the self-governance they already had been exercising since the earliest colonization. The crown appointed governors for the colonies, but over three thousand miles of ocean in the day of wind-powered ships gave ordinary Americans more freedom than a minor noble living in Bristol, England. (Connecticut and Rhode Island even elected their own governors.) Americans bristled over dictates from Parliament because colonial legislatures had been exercising substantial power for well over a century.

Plymouth Plantation Today

A Time of Civil Debate

A rowdy debate consumed nearly everyone in the United States between the Constitutional Convention and ratification. The population of the country was about four million and possibly a quarter of that number were activists during the Revolution and founding. What did people think about a constitution written in secret? We don’t have to guess. A prodigious number of articles and pamphlets were published by proponents and opponents.

Can Tempest at Dawn be taken seriously?

Tempest at Dawn is a novelization of the Constitutional Convention. As a novel, it is not bound by the rigorous constraints of a nonfiction history book, but it does not deviate from the historical record except for modernizating language, re-sequencing of debates for logical presentation, and attributing a few speeches to a different delegate because that person was already established as a character. It’s confusing to tell a story with more than sixty characters, so I had to choose a representative sample and occasionally attribute to them the words or actions of others.

The real story of our nation's founding.

James Madison’s comprehensive convention notes provided a solid framework for what happened inside the locked doors of the Pennsylvania State House. The events outside the State House occurred, but literary license was used because there were very few recorded details about them. For example, Franklin’s dinner, the John Fitch Steam Boat demonstration, horse races, and George Washington having a carriage built were all outside activities during the convention.  The Fourth of July celebration happened pretty much as portrayed, and delegates did witness a two story house being moved down the street. 

Other than speeches, conversations were speculative, but based to a large degree on what must have been discussed in private meetings to shift the votes and opinions expressed in the proceedings.

How to study the Constitution

The study of the Constitution can seem daunting to those who want to gain a greater understanding of this unique document. To begin with, there are eight historic periods that shaped our Constitution. 

1. Constitutional Convention
2. Public debate on Constitution as reflected in the Federalist and Antifederalist Papers
3. State Ratification Conventions
4. First Congress and Bill of Rights
5. George Washington precedents
6. Supreme Court Rulings
7. Amendments beyond the Bill of Rights
8. Executive encroachment with emphasis on Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson, FDR, and Obama

As a constitutional conservative, I recommend starting with the convention and the Framers. Besides, it’s always a good idea to start at the beginning.

There are countless history books on the Constitutional convention. In these books, the convention is usually presented in one of two ways: chronologically or by subject.

The Atlantic Joins the Chorus: Constitution Defunct

Alex Seitz-Wald

“America, we've got some bad news: Our Constitution isn't going to make it.” That is the lead sentence in The Atlantic article: “The U.S. Needs a New Constitution—Here's How to Write It,” by  Alex Seitz-Wald, Salon's political reporter. Seitz-Wald quotes none other than Thomas Jefferson to justify his claim that “it's time to think about moving on.” Jefferson had famously written that Constitutions should be rewritten every nineteen years. Jefferson certainly qualifies as a founding father, but he had nothing to do with the Constitution. He was in Paris in the summer of 1787 and returned miffed that he had been left out. None of the actual delegates wanted to repeat the convention experience, and all believed they had written a constitution for what George Mason called “millions yet unborn.”

Seitz-Wald  writes, “If men (and, finally, women) as wise as Jefferson and Madison set about the task of writing a constitution in 2013, it would look little like the one we have now.” I suspect those wise men and women would all be required to think in lockstep with Mr. Seitz-Wald.  Again, not true of the 1787 delegates who possessed myriad ideas and perspectives.

Time Magazine: “Does It Still Matter?”

“Let us not make it a blank paper by construction. ... If it is, then we have no Constitution.” Thomas Jefferson

“Can it be of less consequence that the meaning of a Constitution should be fixed and known, than a meaning of a law should be so?” James Madison

The cover of the 10th Annual Time Magazine History Issue from a couple years ago shows the Constitution being shredded under the title, “Does it still matter?”

Richard Stengel, Time’s managing Editor, opens his essay with these words, “Here are a few things the framers did not know about. World War II. DNA. Sexting. Airplanes. The atom. Television. Medicare. Collateralized debt obligations. The germ theory of disease. Miniskirts. The internal combustion engine. Computers. Antibiotics. Lady Gaga."

Commentary: Is the Constitution’s purpose to advance life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

Conor Friedersdorf published an article that reflects the thinking that has gotten us so far away from constitutional government.

The title of the article is illustrative: “Preserving Liberty Is More Important Than Making a Fetish of the Constitution: Though important, the document isn't an end in itself—advancing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is the end.” The title could have as easily read, “The Constitution should never stand in the way of lofty goals.”

James Madison

Conor Friedersdorf

(I trust my liberty to the guy on the right.)

As a writer, I’m familiar with the effect of selecting emotion-laden words. For example, the article would have been different if titled, “Preserving Liberty Is More Important than Adhering to the Constitution.” The change from fetish to adhere makes the argument clear and allows the opposing side a measure of respect. Now, readers would dig into the article to find out whether adherence to the Constitution is dangerous to liberty.

(By the way, at the risk of being accused of “making a fetish of the Constitution,” it annoys me when someone uses a quote from the Declaration of Independence to make an argument about the Constitution.)

The Heritage Guide to the Constitution

A reference Book for Every American Home

Many Americans have taken to carrying a copy of the Constitution. No one will want to lug around The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, but the book is an indispensable reference companion. The first words in the book read, “The Heritage Guide to the Constitution is intended to provide a brief and accurate explanation of each clause of the Constitution as envisioned by the Framers and as applied in contemporary law.” It achieves this goal admirably.

As you would expect from the Heritage Foundation, this is an Originalist reference book, and the editors have done an excellent job of explaining the Constitution as envisioned by the Framers. But it also explains the Constitution as applied in contemporary law, which means the book describes how courts have interpreted the Constitution.

Commentary—As California Goes, so Goes the Nation?

If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted. — Noah Webster

My wife and I are vacationing in Southern California. The warm and sunny weather has made a perfect respite from the storms lashing our home in Nebraska. We both grew up in California, but moved out-of-state twenty-five years ago. We weren’t fed up with the place. A quarter century ago California was still livable. Actually, California is still livable, as long as you have piles of cash and a fondness for government.

Beltway elites like to fixate on a couple botched 2010 Senate races, but in truth that election was a rout for progressives. Republicans captured an additional 63 seats in the House of Representatives to win the majority, the largest midterm seat change in seventy years. Republicans gained 6 seats in the Senate, but not enough to gain control. Republicans won a record 680 additional seats in state legislatures. Five states saw both chambers switch from Democrat to Republican. In four additional states, Republicans flipped one of the chambers to give them control of both chambers. In three more states, Republicans increased their control in both houses, and in four states they picked up one chamber to split control of the legislature. Republicans also saw a net increase of six governorships to gain a national majority.

The Founders on Limited Government

Governments govern … which means they exercise power.

James Madison wrote, “The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.” 

Fear of an overly powerful government was a basic principle of the Founders. They firmly believed liberty could not exist with unrestrained government.  Many modern Americans find this belief odd or quaint. After all, a powerful government is needed to right all the wrongs in this world. And there are so many wrongs. Certainly benevolent rule is preferable to wrongs perpetuated on innocent people. Except all-powerful government has been the norm throughout history … and people have been duped, subjugated, robbed, imprisoned, and even murdered by governments.

The Founders weren’t paranoid; they came by their fear of power through personal experience and their study of history. They believed governments oppress and liberty depended on decentralized authority and potent restraints on the abuse of power.

To prevent the government from becoming overly powerful, the Founders used a number of techniques:

• Enumerated powers
• Three branches of government with power balanced between them
• Each branch was given checks on the exercise of power by the other branches
• A federal system with the states acting as a check on the national system
• Different terms of office for elected and appointed officials
• Limited taxing authority (Superseded by the 16th Amendment)
• A list of things the government could not do ... commonly called the Bill of Rights