Analyst's note: Our friend and associated William J. Dell scores yet another "direct hit" with this article. It can only be rated as absolutely must read. I also strongly recommend Will's book entitled "Our Constitutional Republic" where he points out:
In the Preamble of our Constitution, our Founding Fathers stated one of its purposes as being to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Have you felt lately that the “Blessings of Liberty” are slipping away from “ourselves and our Posterity?”
His book was written as a primer to help the reader discover the “Seeds of Birth” of our Constitutional Republic. It briefly outlines how we became a Constitutional Republic and the elements of “Liberty” placed in our Constitution by our Founding Fathers. It then helps the reader discover the “Seeds of Destruction” that have and are conspiring to deny those “Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
If you have a love for our Republic and would like to have a fundamental understanding of these topics, this is the book for you. As the reader becomes familiar with the basic knowledge within these pages, they will be able to recognize the perils that confront “We the People” as a nation. With this knowledge the reader will then be able to join in the effort to preserve the American Dream for succeeding generations. Semper Fidelis
“Our Liberties, Our Lives, Are in Danger!” Cato 63 BC
It is now the Year of our Lord Two Thousand Twelve and, in three days, of the United States of America 236, the “checks and balances,” granted to We the People by our Constitution have been greatly eroded through neglect and complicity. These “checks and balances” were placed in the Constitution by our Founding Fathers to ensure the perpetuity of our Constitutional Republic. They were placed there so that our Constitutional Republic would not fall prey to tyranny by our own federal government.
The Founding Fathers based our federal government upon “checks and balances” contained in two concepts of separation of powers which they learned from writers, such as Locke, Montesquieu, and Smith. These concepts have come to be known as the “horizontal” and “vertical” separation of powers. Horizontally they separated the government into three branches, the legislative, the executive and the judiciary. Vertically they separated the government into the federal, state, local and We the People. Along with the great minds that they studied they found these concepts also in Anglo-Saxon Law and Judeo-Christian principles.
With regards to Judeo-Christian principles, the horizontal separation of powers can be seen in Isaiah 33:22 which reads: “For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us.” The vertical separation of powers can be seen in Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, as he counseled Moses regarding governing the children of Israel in their sojourn to the promised land. This can be found in Exodus 18:13 – 26 wherein Jethro instructed Moses to setup “rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, and rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.”
You may ask how have these principles been eroded? Let me explain.
Today we have a Congress which does NOT jealousy guard its mandate from We the People under Article I Section1 of the Constitution which grants them EXCLUSIVE power to enact laws. A Congress that has allowed Executive tyranny because:
1. It will NOT stand up against Executive Orders used to bypass the legislative process.
2. Nor will It stand up against Bureaucratic regulations being inserted into the Federal Register and given the weight of law.
Additionally, we have a Senate that allows the President to make Executive Department appointments of significance; e.g., Czars, without their advice and consent as required by Article III Section 2 of the Constitution. This Section requires a Law to be enacted before such appointments can be made without the Senate’s advice and consent.
We have an Executive, the President, that permits Congressional (Legislative) tyranny through Social Justice Programs, Political Correctness and Excessive Debt. In fact instead of protecting We the People from the Congress, the President can often be found as a co-conspirator in the destruction of our unalienable rights granted from God to Life, Liberty and Property and our freedoms retained by We the People within the Bill of Rights of our Constitution.
Lastly, we have a Supreme Court established to be the Guardians of our Constitution against the other two branches, who for more than a hundred years has abrogated their responsibility as they have bowed to “political correctness” and forgotten the spirit and intent of our Founding Fathers in favor of JUST the letter of the Constitution. The most recent example of this is the ruling on the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). In their ruling rather than just striking down the law based on the Commerce Clause as unconstitutional, they determined to rule based on severability. They committed Judicial Tyranny through Judicial Activism and stated the Act could be considered a tax which it was never intended to be when presented to We the People. Why didn’t they just send it back to the Congress which is supposed to write the laws? Again rather than just rule on the constitutionality of ObamaCare, they because of “political correctness” tried to make everyone “feel” good and let everyone “win” something.
Right is right even when nobody is doing it. Wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.
Each of these branches of government needs to remember what their mandate from We the People is limited to what is stated in the Constitution. So what are the limits placed on Constitutional Law imposed by the Founding Fathers on the federal government [our servants] as granted by the States and We the People [the rulers]? Basically, Constitutional Law is limited by six purposes specified in the Preamble:
We the People of the United States,
• in Order to form a more perfect Union,
• establish Justice,
• insure domestic Tranquility,
• provide for the common defense,
• promote the general Welfare, and
• secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution of the United States of America.
The first of these “in Order to form a more perfect Union” was accomplished when the Constitution was ratified by nine of the States in accordance with Article VII. The remaining five, as further explained in the Articles of our Constitution, are ongoing responsibilities of the Congress and President. Beyond this the federal government has NO power as stated in our Bill of Rights and more specifically in the Tenth Amendment:
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.
Under the Founding Fathers vision of “checks and balances” the Supreme Court is responsible for ensuring that the Congress and the President do NOT exceed the limited powers granted to them by the States and We the People for accomplishing the five remaining delineated responsibilities. The Congress is responsible to ensure the Executive and Judiciary do NOT exceed their limits. The President has the primary responsibility to VETO all unconstitutional laws.
The federal government needs to remember that our Constitutional Republic is a union of fifty sovereign States come together to deal with external (international) conditions collectively and certain interstate, but not intrastate, commerce issues. The federal government was never intended to interfere with the internal affairs of the several States.
In parting, given the previous outline of responsibilities, can any federal law that provides for the healthcare or welfare of the citizens of the several States be Constitutional? It is my considered opinion that it can not. The federal mandate from We the People ONLY extends to “promoting” and NOT “providing” the general Welfare. It would seem then that ALL Social Justice legislation belongs to the several States by virtue of the Tenth Amendment.
After all, to “provide” is to do and to “promote” is to encourage. I personally believe the Founding Father used these two words advisedly for a reason. They meant to create a difference of responsibility concerning the “common defense” and the “general Welfare” when undertaken by the federal government! The federal government was to “provide for the common defense” of the Union but it was only to encourage or “promote the general Welfare” of We the People through the governments of the several States.
May we, as a nation, return to limited federal government. For it is only then that we, as a nation, will be able to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
May God Bless and Save the United States of America
Our Constitutional Republic !
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