May 28, 2018 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
Most people ignorantly refer to our political system as a democracy although this word is not in the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, or any document given to us by our Founding Fathers. Our Pledge of Allegiance to the flag identifies our form of government as a republic.
Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1759, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” A republic has seven major components each specifically designed to keep it from becoming a democracy as democracy eventually destroys liberty.
First, the importance of majority rules is recognized but limited. Is the majority always right? No! Mother made this point when her teenager asked to smoke marijuana on the basis that everyone was smoking it. “If everyone jumped off a bridge would you?”
Second, minority rights (less than 50%) are protected from the majority. In Franklin’s analogy the lamb had the right to exist even if the majority, the wolves, said differently. A lynch mob is a democracy, everyone votes but the one being lynched. Even if caught in the act of a crime the defendant is entitled to the protection of law, a judge, jury, witnesses for his defense, and a lawyer to argue his innocence; all necessary but expensive. Then, if found guilty, hanged. Because democracy only considers majority rules it is much less expensive. A rope tossed over a tree limb will do.
Third, a republic is based upon natural inalienable rights first acknowledged in the Declaration of Independence. This document asserted to the world that we acknowledge that humans have rights from a source higher than mere man. A reference to deity is mentioned five times. If there is no God there can be no inalienable rights coming from him and we are left with man as God. What man is good enough?
Fourth, a republic emphasizes individual differences rather than absolute equality, as democracy does. We are not equal, even from the womb, and never will be if equality means sameness. One baby with a cleft pallet needs three surgeries to look normal. Some come out of the womb with a laptop, others with a basketball, and the real tough deliveries are those bringing their golf clubs. One of my first great insights in life was that everyone was better at everything than I. The second was that life is not fair and never will be. Free men are not equal and equal men are not free. Genetics makes one fat, another bald, and gives yet another terminal cancer in his youth.
Even economically it is not possible to be equal. Should I give each student a million dollars in exchange for everything they now own, shave their heads, and give them identical uniforms, to approximate sameness as much as possible, with the only requirement that they return in five years with some ledger of net worth. Would they be the same in what was left of the million? No! Why does government try so hard to do what is impossible? A republic, unlike a democracy, looks upon our differences as assets.
Fifth, limited government is also a major aspect of a republic. Centralized government is good so long as it remembers that when it oversteps its bounds it becomes the greatest obstacle to liberty as it pulls decision-making power away from the individual. Excessive government, as the cause of the American Revolution, is never forgotten. The Constitution as created handcuffed the government from dominating our lives by listing the powers of the federal government (Article I, Section 8). The Founders understood that the more government at the top the less at the bottom and that was the opposite of freedom.
Sixth, a republic has frequent elections with options. Frequent elections happen in some socialist countries, so this alone does not ensure liberty. In fact, it may be somewhat deceiving as it fosters the notion that we choose, thus deserve, our elected officers. It also assumes that the people are correctly informed, which assumes a free press and equal access to all information. The part of the phrase “with options” is the part that ensures liberty. Elections under socialism provide choices but often no options when all participants are from the same party.
Seventh, there is a healthy fear of the emotion of the masses and of its potential to destabilize natural law upon which real freedom is based, as for example the notion that some one else’s wealth belongs to them. Such destroys freedom as it had in Athens and Rome. We need a caring, sensitive, compassionate government but emotion must not be allowed to overwhelm reason and time-tested natural law constants. Aristotle taught that the poor will always envy the rich and the rich will always have contempt for the poor. A republic will not allow the poor to destroy the rich in their quest for the wealth of the rich, but does incentivize the poor to increase their wealth thus becoming the middle class, which in time become the largest body.
As explained, democracy does not protect liberty. In Ben Franklin’s analogy it would have allowed the wolves to have eaten the lamb simply because the lamb had been outvoted. No wonder our Founders rejected democracy in favor of a republic.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
May 15, 2018 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease
In electoral contests today almost everyone, in both major political parties, advocate democracy but our Founding Fathers ran from the word as fast as they could advocating instead a republic. We need to do the same if we really understand liberty. Those using the term “democracy” either intentionally use the term to undermine individual liberty or show themselves as ignorant of the basics of our government. In either case, we are wise to reject them in preference to candidates rejecting democracy.
Given our continual drift from a republic to a democracy, it might be well to review what historical philosophies most favored democracy as a form of government. The Founding Fathers and the socialists were total opposites on the word democracy, one distained; the other loved.
Of those who favored democracy: the most blunt was Karl Marx, the father of communism (the most violent form of socialism). He wrote, “Democracy is the road to socialism,” implying that one cannot have socialism without first having democracy.
Vladimir Lenin, the socialist revolutionary bringing it to Russia, agreed. In his 1905 work, Two Tactics of Social Democracy, he saw democracy as a strategy leading to his desired socialist revolution. “Social-Democracy, however, wants, … to develop the class struggle of the proletariat to the point where the latter will take the leading part in the popular Russian revolution, i.e., will lead this revolution to the democratic-dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.” In a letter to Inessa Armand in 1916, he added, “We Social-Democrats always stand for democracy, not ‘in the name of capitalism,’ but in the name of clearing the path for our movement, which clearing is impossible without the development of capitalism.” Class conflict and the philosophy “share the wealth” were, and remain, central to the empowerment of communism.
Those who abhorred democracy: as far as we are able to ascertain, included all the Founding Fathers. Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1759, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” Years later, when Franklin exited the Constitutional Convention, a woman inquired of him, “What form of government have you left us?” the brilliant Franklin answered, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” The phrase expressed some doubt as to whether man could understand the value of a republic enough to protect it from becoming a democracy.
So, once again, what is wrong with democracy? James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, in his Federalist Paper, No. 10, wrote, “In a pure democracy, there is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual.” Thomas Jefferson agreed but was more blunt; “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” On another occasion he reasoned that the Republic would “cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”
Alexander Hamilton, Jefferson’s supposed political archrival, saw it similarly. “We are now forming a republican form of government. Real Liberty is not found in the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy, or some other form of dictatorship.”
Now we understand why the word democracy is not found in any of our original founding documents, not even in our Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. Our system, a republic, protects us from the less informed masses, which is always the majority. This is why, until the perversion of the Constitution by the 17th Amendment, the state legislature selected their two U.S. Senators—not the people. This is why the Electoral College selects the president and why the people have no voice in the selection of Supreme Court members.
If one calls this undemocratic the Founders would agree. Their review of history showed them that democracy in Athens and Rome led to tyranny by the majority that then destroyed liberty in both places.
Recent census reports show about half of our adult population pay no federal income tax. When that number exceeds 50% we will join the fallen republics of Athens and Rome with their “bread and circuses” as examples of the majority voting to feed their wants from those who produce. When the “rich” are destroyed by socialism, as in the former USSR, and cannot provide the customary free stuff any more, the majority, who came to believe that it was owed them, take to the streets in anger. The majority will then vote for whatever tyrant promises them security. This historical record is clear.
This is why socialists and communists loved democracy and the Founders decidedly did not!! Alexis de Tocqueville, a visiting French philosopher in 1840, is alleged to have told us when our republic would fall. “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the ‘publics’ money.” We are unable to document the quote so, if not actually said by him, I now say it and am happy to be quoted hereafter. That day is today. Both parties must return to the Constitution, which preserves the republic, or we will lose both the republic and the Constitution. A good start is to avoid political candidates advocating democracy.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
May 7, 2018 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
With election signs everywhere it is well to note that it is unrealistic to expect national candidates to follow the Constitution when we did not insist that they did so in local and state elections. After all, many simply move up to higher office. Some may even view the Constitution as irrelevant at these levels.
Several years ago at a public debate for county supervisor in California the public was invited to offer written questions. I did so and watched the debate monitor, with a puzzled look on his face, sideline my question in preference to others. I presumed it was because it raised a constitutional concern, which unfortunately, is considered by many an irrelevant topic at the city, county, or even state levels. You are supposed to ask what “goodies” from taxpayer funding are you going to give me and is it more than your opponent?
So what does the Constitution have to do with local or state issues? Everything!! First, it is the only document that every elected public servant swears by oath to uphold. So the Founders must have thought it relevant at lower levels.
Second, candidates at lower levels successfully rise to higher levels because of the name recognition obtained at lower levels and eventually become members of the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, often without ever having read the Constitution they are specifically under oath to protect. When I worked as a legislative assistant in the U.S. Senate years ago, I was certain at least 50% had never read it at any level of government. Today I would be surprised if those who had read it exceeded 10%. No one asks candidates while campaigning when they last read it.
So again, why does this matter? Historically, the two major enemies of freedom are: 1) it is the nature of all governments to pull decision making power upward to the seat of government and, 2) the more apathetic and indifferent the population becomes the greater the tendency of the people to push decision making power upwards to the seat of government. When these two forces work together it always leads to the central government eventually having most of the power. The Constitution is full of “handcuffs” to keep decision-making power from getting to the top thus maximizing it with the individual. The Founders overriding philosophy of government, if it could be penned into one sentence, was, “never elevate to a higher level that which can be resolved at a lesser level.”
Even a casual look at the Constitution reveals the separation of powers on the federal level into three distinct branches the legislative, executive, and judicial—each with a specific list. For Congress it was a list of the four types of law they could make (Art. I, Sec. 8), for the president it was the types of executive functions he could execute (Art. II, Sec. 2-3), and for the Supreme Court the types of cases it could adjudicate (Art. III, Sec. 2). The lists exist to both restrict them and to prohibit the concentration of power into one branch. The only type of federal government authorized by the Founders was decidedly a limited one. States, counties, and cities have all the powers not listed, as per Amendment 10.
When these limitations are not understood and protected at lower levels of government, the federal government is constantly tempted to steal authority from the states or counties as per its confiscating, environmental, health, and education issues, which are constitutionally 100% non-federal government issues. States, counties, and cities should use the Tenth Amendment to tell the federal government to “butt out.” “You have no constitutional authority.” When Congress passed, and the President signed into law, the National Defense Authorization Act, December 31, 2012, both states and counties should have written Congress and the President. “You may not void Amendments 4, 5, 6, and 8, of The Bill of Rights and the Writ of Habeas Corpus for our citizens.”
Sixty years ago it may not have made much difference if a county supervisor/commissioner, or city councilman, swore allegiance to a Constitution that he had not fully studied, or worse, even read. The federal government had not yet absorbed his area of jurisdiction. Now it has! There is hardly an area where the federal government does not have its tentacles embedded, from school lunches to cross gender bathrooms. Over thirty years ago a city councilman complained to me that a third of what he voted on was already mandated because sometime in the past the council had accepted the “free money” which now obligated him. School districts are notorious for having done the same thing.
City, county, and state leaders, you are our buffer from the federal government taking from you your areas of jurisdiction. They have done so for many years because you were complacent, or ignorant of the Constitution. Consequently you have lost a large portion of our liberty. Today your understanding of the document must be known BEFORE we place you in power.
This election let us find leaders with constitutional fire in their bellies to undo the precedents that their predecessors created. All issues on the city and county levels are directly or indirectly constitutional issues. We now expect leaders to know, and abide by, the document that they swear to uphold.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Apr 23, 2018 | Constitution, Globalism, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
Syrian civilians were reportedly gassed in April 2017, killing 80, and again April 2018, killing 70. President Trump responded to the first with 60 Tomahawk missiles on one location and to the second bombing three separate locations said to have been development or storage sites. In neither are we indisputably certain that Assad did the gassing.
Protecting our “national security interests” (wordage not found in the Constitution) is the phrase most used to justify both US attacks. Side-stepped entirely is the fact that only Congress, under Article I, Section 8, has the constitutional authority to “declare War” but globalists argue that these bombings are not “real war,” only limited war, which the president possesses under Article II as “commander and chief.” But bombing a sovereign nation twice without provocation to us is an act of war. No such argument could be made were Moscow or Beijing bombed. So, an act of war is now constitutional if the victim country is too weak to defend itself.
Unfortunately this interpretation can only come from intentionally misrepresenting Article II: “The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States,” but only Congress has the power to call the military into actual service.
Other than conducting the war once declared, all military powers are housed as common defense under the legislative branch of the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clauses 9-17). These include all power to declare and finance war, raise armies, “make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces,” and even determine the land that the military may use for training purposes. Nothing was omitted.
Under the Constitution there can never be an unpopular war as the peoples’ representative (The House of Representatives) has total power over raising and funding the army. They must consent to the war by declaration (because they provide blood and brawn for it) and they alone authorize the treasure for it. “All bills for raising revenue shall originate” with them (Art. 1, Sec. 7, Cla. 1).
Moreover, Congress was to monitor the war at two-year intervals through its power of the purse just described. “But no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years” (Art. I, Sec. 8, Cla. 12). If Congress is not happy with the progress of the war it can require the generals and the president to account for why total victory has not yet been obtained and reduce or enlarge funding, with time restraints, to keep them on a short lease with respect to the war declared.
Why did the president get none of these powers? Because he “had the most propensity for war,” James Madison argued in the Constitutional Convention. Kings traditionally had sole war power. Not so under the Constitution. One man would never have such power. A declaration of war gave clarity to a wars beginning and victory or defeat its only ending. It could never be a casual thing as it has become.
Both major architects of the Constitution, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, were clear on this subject. Madison wrote Hamilton, “the executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.” Hamilton wrote in The Federalist #69 that the president’s powers are confined to “the direction of war when authorized or begun.”
Constitutionally the military functions under Congress, not the president. The president’s power to make war (outside immediate self-defense as in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor) can only follow the legislature’s power to authorize war. Congress declared war on Japan the following day.
World War II was the last declared war so how did we lose such constitutional clarity allowing us to denigrate from invasion to justify war to “national interests,” which could be almost anything. They did so incrementally. It is the old adage one perversion justifies another. Both the Korean and Vietnam wars were United Nation’s Wars wherein the globalists argued we needed no declarations, being a part of a higher authority, the UN.
When the UN was not the major justification for war, globalists next favored working through coalition forces, which inferred that agreement among participating nations that a country was deserving of punishment justified acts of war. Requiring congressional approval for limited war would stifle flexibility. This could be made constitutional in public perception provided they enlarged the concept of “commander and chief” well beyond original intent, while simultaneously excluding constitutional wordage “when called into the actual service” and dismissing entirely all the war powers listed for Congress. Who really reads the Constitution anyway, the few who do could be “drummed” out by the ill-informed majority?
Coalition forces were employed in Kosovo, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf Wars, then ISSIS, but coalition countries too eventually grew tired of perpetual war and began declining participating to the point that only Great Britain and France were willing to provide warplanes against Syria. War technology also advanced sufficient to administer punishment without boots on the ground. Such was the case with Syria last weekend. None of this changes the fact that there exists no constitutional authority for the president to bomb another country without congressional approval.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Mar 5, 2018 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
The present assault on the 2nd Amendment reminds us of the 2013 Western States Sheriff’s Rebellion stopping cold President Barack Obamas’s new 23 executive orders further restricting the right of gun owners without authorization from Congress. But today Republicans need to be reminded that neither the executive branch, through executive orders, nor the legislative branch, through laws, can constitutionally legislate away an amendment of the Bill of Rights, so banning AR-15’s or bump stocks is unconstitutional. Only a new amendment with 3/4ths support of the states, as outlined in Article V of the Constitution, can alter an amendment.
Many may not remember their basic U.S. History courses as to why the Second Amendment exists in the first place. Certainly, when enacted, there was no thought of restricting type of firearm, or where, or who could carry. So its placement as the second most valued freedom in the Bill of Rights had nothing to do with personal safety or even hunting, these were already assumed. It was specifically placed right after freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly to make certain that these freedoms were never taken from us. It was aimed (pun intended) squarely at the government. But certainly we need have no fear of the government today?
One must remember that the early patriots did not ask the existing British government if they could revolt against them. They argued in The Declaration of Independence, that they were “endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” coming from a much higher source than mere man and that “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.” God is referenced five times in this document and thus, they believed, He sanctioned their rebellion. They were expected to suffer evils while sufferable, “but when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariable the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”
The right of revolution requires the means of revolution and this is why the Second Amendment exists. Normally the ballot box is the only self-correction needed but they had no intention of giving up the same right that they exercised to give us freedom in the first place. Nor were they pious enough to assume that their correction would stay in place and that future generations would never need the more serious self-correction they used.
The wordage of the 2nd Amendment was stronger than any other sentence in the Constitution. “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” They saw this right as essential to freedom and specifically forbade the federal government any authority with respect to arms because historically it was always a government that took away liberty.
An armed populace had twice proved its value to liberty in the Revolutionary War. Many do not remember why Lexington and Concord were so important. The Americans learned that the British planned to go door to door to confiscate their firearms so they gathered and hid them in these two villages. Now the British night gun raid, and Paul Revere’s desperate midnight ride warning the Americans en-route, make sense. The Battle of Saratoga preventing British conquest of the northeast by General Johnny Burgoyne was stopped, not by the military, but by angry farmers with their own military styled assault rifles. This American victory encouraged other countries, notably France, to come into the war on our side. It is doubtful that we would have won the war without an armed citizenry.
The Founders’ attitude regarding guns—even military issue— was clear. Thomas Jefferson wrote: “No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.” And George Washington said: “A free people ought not only to be armed,” but also, “they should promote such manufacturies [sic] as tend to remind them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies” (Gun Control, Freemen Report, May 31,1975, p. 1).
The Utah Sheriff’s Association letter to Obama was the most vocal in the Sheriff’s Rebellion of 2013. It read in part, “We respect the Office of the President of the United States of America. But, make no mistake, as the duly-elected sheriffs of our respective counties, we will enforce the rights guaranteed to our citizens by the Constitution. No federal official will be permitted to descend upon our constituents and take from them what the Bill of Rights—in particular Amendment II—has given them. We, like you, swore a solemn oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and we are prepared to trade our lives for the preservation of its traditional interpretation.”
This is commendable but will Congress, under Republicans, remember that an amendment, unlike a law, may not be altered to destroy or weakened—it “shall not be infringed?” The 2nd Amendment can only be altered by 3/4th of the states with a new amendment and this is not likely to happen when so many Americans fear their own government.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Feb 19, 2018 | Constitution, Economy, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease, Ph. D
Avoiding national debt was one of George Washington’s greatest admonitions yet neither liberals nor conservatives have paid much attention to it. It would be well to reflect on his advice this President’s Day.
The trillion dollar Republican proposal will raise overall spending caps by about $300 billion over the next two years and will make interest on the debt the largest growing part of the federal budget. This expenditure of the people’s hard-earned taxes purchases nothing—simply vanishes.
This prompted Senator Rand Paul to say, “When the Democrats are in power, Republicans appear to be the conservative party. But when Republicans are in power, it seems there is no conservative party.” He added, “The dirty little secret is that, by and large, both parties don’t care about the debt.” We borrow “a million dollars every minute.”
On Sept. 19, 1796, just prior to leaving the presidency, President George Washington issued his famous Farewell Address. He warned posterity of possible pitfalls that could undermine or destroy liberty. His warnings may well be timelier 222 years later as we near his birthday February 22.
In strong terms he asked that we avoid debt. “As a very important source of strength and security cherish public credit… use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasion of expense… [Use the] time of peace, to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.” Unavoidable wars?
Today our national debt sits at over $20.5 trillion—the highest in our history. I once viewed a CNN clip, “How Much is a Trillion Dollars,” that showed a trillion dollars stacked atop one another the combined thickness going 68,000 miles into the sky—a third of the way to the moon. Applying this formula to our twenty-plus trillion dollars debt would take us to the moon and back, $6 trillion, to the moon and back a second time, 12 trillion, to the moon and back a third time, 18 trillion, and 2/3rds of the way to the moon a fourth time. Obviously today neither party has taken Washington’s advice. Presently the debt per taxpayer is over $170,370. We are spending our way into oblivion (See USDebtClock.org real time).
But Washington gave other unheeded advice as well. He pled that the nation kept religion and morality strong. He said: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports…. Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” The Founding Fathers never supported the notion of separation of religion and government—only the separation of an organization of religion from government. What would Washington say of the immorality that prevails today?
But the warning about foreign aid was especially good. He told us that gift giving in foreign affairs is a good way to be universally hated. He said it placed us “in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more.” Today there is hardly a nation in the world that does not have its hand out and when, after once giving, the amount is reduce or terminated, we are hated all the more for it.
He warned against the origin of “combinations and associations” whose intent was to suppress the desires of the majority in favor of the minority. He called them artificial power factions. What would he say of the influence of the Deep State in our government today or of the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission or Bilderbergers? Would not this include Clinton’s foundation to pedal political influence for millions or Hillary’s rigging the DNC against Bernie Sanders or against Donald Trump with a fake dossier?
Such factions, he said, “May answer popular ends and become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government….” The antidote for this, Washington explained, was “to resist with care the spirit of innovation” upon basic constitutional principles or premises no matter how flowery, appealing or “specious the pretext.”
Washington worried about posterity not holding their elected officials strictly to the limits imposed by the Constitution. He knew many would seek to undermine that document by twisting it to give power they could not acquire without the distortion. Sound familiar? He said: “But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.” Today much of what the federal government does is not even mentioned in the Constitution.
But patriots are not likely to be popular, as for instance Rand Paul. Washington explained, “Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.” One need not look far for the “tools and dupes” they seem to be everywhere and in both parties.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
