Big Ideas Behind the Constitution e:\history\two\big.4dp

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$Big Ideas Behind the Constitution e:\history\two\big.4dp 1. Limited Government. I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least.$

1 Big Ideas Behind the Constitution e:\history\two\big.4dp 1. Limited Government. I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least." Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience, 1849, Howard J. Langer, journalist and textbook editor, America in Quotations: A Kaleidoscopic View of American History (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2002), 82. The proper way, the American founders felt, to secure liberty was to set up a representative government, limited in scope by a statement of natural rights with which no government may meddle. Consequently, every state constitution included a bill of rights. Samuel Eliot Morison, Professor of History at Harvard, The Oxford History of the American People, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments; and even in these it is not always found. It is there only when there is no abuse of power: but constant experience [shows] us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go. Baron Charles de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, 1748, Franklin Le Van Baumer, Main Currents of Western Thought, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1964), 416. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. British statesman Lord Dalberg-Acton, There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. John Adams, Notes for an Oration at Braintree, Spring Big Government denies the great fundamental that the primary purpose of all government is to preserve liberty. By asserting that security is the chief aim of our society, it seeks to turn our people to the lotus and away from the basic truth that without working and producing we perish... Big Government gradually destroys the mainspring of our society. It offers no incentives to those who must create the goods and services, which provide the security. In the words of the ancient writer, it sings a siren song: Thomas Jefferson 1

2 "Cast thy lot among us; let us have one purse." It levels all down and throttles the source of our strength, that lies in the restless ambitions of the ten million centers of initiative in our individual business and on our farms. Governor Thomas E. Dewey, lecture, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, February 9, 1950, Howard J. Langer, 288. "There is nothing more corrupting, nothing more destructive of the noblest and finest feelings of our nature, than the exercise of unlimited power. The man who in the beginning of such a career, might shudder at the idea of taking away the life of a fellow human being, might soon have his conscience so scarred by the repetition of crime, that the agonies of his murdered victims might become music to his soul, and the drippings of his scaffold afford blood enough to swim in. William Henry Harrison, US Minister to Columbia, 1829 and future President, Howard J. Langer, 66. A government which is strong enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you've got... The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, I m from the government and I'm here to help. Ronald Reagan, US President, 1982, A properly limited federal government, according to Jefferson, was responsible merely for running a postal system, maintaining the federal courts, staffing lighthouses, collecting customs duties, and conducting a census once every ten years. Government jobs were kept to a minimum. The president had just one private secretary, a young man named Meriwether Lewis, to help with his correspondence, and Jefferson paid hint out of his own pocket. The Department of State employed only 8 people: Secretary James Madison, 6 clerks, and a messenger. The Treasury Department was by far the largest unit, with 73 revenue commissioners, auditors, and clerks, plus 2 watchmen. The entire payroll of the executive branch amounted to a mere 130 people in James L. Roark, Professor of History at Emory University, Michael P Johnson, Johns Hopkins University, Patricia Cline Cohen, University of California, Santa Barbara, Sarah Stage, Arizona State University, Alan Lawson, Boston College, and Susan M. Hartmann, Ohio State University, The American Promise: A Compact History Third Edition Volume I: To 1877 (Boston, Massachusetts: St. Martin's, 2007),

3 2. Separation of Powers. Political liberty is the absence of one dominating powers in the state, whatever its kind: the king, the aristocrats, the people. The conservation of liberty depends on the separation and balance of powers, such as the executive, the legislative, and the judicial... Montesquieu hoped to limit the central government's power by balancing it with other power centers. Baron Charles Montesquieu, a French Judge, who performed a fourteen year study of political history and comparative legislation in 1748, Mortimer Chambers, University of California, Los Angeles, Raymond Grew, The Western Experience, Fifth Edition Since 1600 (New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1991), 763, 764. An absolute monarch is indeed inconsistent with civil society. With both legislative and executive power in himself alone, there is no judge to be found, no appeal lies open to any one, who may fairly and indifferently and with authority to decide. John Locke, British philosopher, Of Civil Government, 1689, John Louis Beatty, Oliver A. Johnson, Heritage of Western Civilizations, Select Readings, Second Edition (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1958), 136. There is no liberty if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and executive. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control; for the judge would then be legislators. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with violence and oppression. Baron de Montesquieu, Franklin Le Van Baumer, ibid., 416. If the prince were to have a part in the legislature by the power of resolving, liberty would be lost. But, as it is necessary he should have a share in the legislature for the supporting of his own prerogative, this share must consist in the power of rejecting. Baron de Montesquieu, 1748, Franklin Le Van Baumer, ibid., Congress. Liberty was no vague term with our revolutionary forebears. To the Americans of 1776, liberty meant, first, freedom under laws of their own making. Second, liberty meant the right to do anything that did not harm another. John Locke said, "Where law ends, tyranny begins." Samuel Eliot Morison, ibid., 271. "Taxation without Representation is tyranny." James Otis, The Stamp Act was the biggest mistake of Grenville's career. News of it shook the colonies like an earthquake. 3

4 Americans disagreed about many things, but this united them as never before. The amount to be charged was not the problem; their own assemblies often taxed them more heavily. Their own assemblies! That was the point. Americans were used to electing those who taxed them. If they disliked the taxes, they voted the taxers out of office and elected those who d change the law. It was that simple. Albert Marrin, a Professor of History at Yeshiva University, The War for Independence, (New York: Athenaeum, 1988), 15. 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... For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, July 4, Judiciary. The judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, as both should be checks upon that. John Adams, Second Letter to Abigail Adams, July 3, 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... He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, July 4, Within these limits the power vested in the American courts of justice of pronouncing a statute to be unconstitutional forms one of the most powerful barriers that have ever been devised against the tyranny of political assemblies. Alexis de Tocqueville, French philosopher, It shall not be lawful for any freedman, free negro, or mulatto to intermarry with any white person; nor for any white person to intermarry with any freedman, free negro, or mulatto. Any person who shall so intermarry, shall be deemed guilty of felony, and on conviction thereof shall be confined in the State penitentiary for life. Mississippi law, 1865, Howard J. Langer, ibid.,

5 5. Judicial Review. It is emphatically the province and the duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each. This is the very essence of the judicial duty. John Marshall, Supreme Court Justice, Madison v. Marbury, (1803). The object of the [14th] Amendment was to enforce the full equality of the two races before the law. But this could not have meant complete social equality, as distinguished from political equality. Laws permitting, and even requiring, the separation of blacks and whites do not necessarily mean the inferiority of either race to the other. Such laws have been recognized as part of the police power of the state. The most common instance of this is the establishment of separate schools for white and colored children, which has been upheld even by courts of States where the political rights of the colored race have been longest and most earnestly enforced. Plessy v. Ferguson, U.S. Supreme Court (1896), Howard J. Langer, ibid., 166. Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of Negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racially integrated school system... We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Chief Justice Earl Warren, unanimous opinion, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, (1954), Howard J. Langer, ibid., 299. We regard the decision of the Supreme Court in the school cases as a clear abuse of judicial power. It climaxes a trend in the Federal judiciary undertaking to legislate, in derogation of the authority of Congress, and to encroach upon the reserved rights of the States and the people. The original Constitution does not mention education. Neither does the 14th Amendment nor any other amendment... [The original "separate but equal"] interpretation, restated time and again, became a part of the life of the people of many of the States and confirmed their habits, customs, 5

6 traditions, and way of life... It [the Supreme Court s decision in Brown] is destroying the amenable relations between the white and black races that have been created through 90 years of patient effort by the good people of both races. It has planted hatred and suspicion where there has been heretofore friendship and understanding. Southern Manifesto Statement by 19 U.S. senators and 81 representatives from the South, March 11, 1956, Howard J. Langer, ibid., 302. In 1963 new Alabama governor George Wallace said in his inaugural address, "In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny. And I say, Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" Wyn Craig Wade, The Fiery Cross, The Ku Klux Klan in America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 321. Discussion. A. What prevents the Congress from passing a law, which says that, all red headed men over six feet tall shall be killed? John Adams B. What makes the Separation of Powers work? Factions that check each other. Madison. Faction counters faction. John Adams. Different Backgrounds Different Opinions 6

7 Diversity of Opinion Structural College, more liberal, more educated, more liberal Culture. A culture of consensus concerning the loyal opposition. C. Did our Founding Fathers assume that there was harmony in society? D. Did they propose to leave all political decisions to the experts? Why or why not? E. What roles were the people supposed to play in this new government? 2. Evaluate this argument. a) We can impose the structure of a democracy in Iraq. We can make them hold elections, and we can make them sit down at a table and discuss these issues. b) What we cannot do is make them adopt the loyal opposition culture that is necessary to make a democracy work. c) Therefore, whenever we pull out, be it in nine months or ninety years from now, Iraq will revert to a sectarian/civil war like they have been doing for hundreds of years. 7

The Federalist Papers

Questions What did the Federalists believe in? Name two important Federalist leaders. Why did they write the Federalist Papers? What were the Federalist Papers? The Federalist Papers Written from 1787-1788