Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House, a Wall Street Journal Book; James Taranto and Leonard Leo, Editors; Free Press, 2004. Reprinted with permission.
Tyler understood the president’s role under the Constitution. His defense of the presidency against Congress and his own party should have earned him a more appreciated place in history.
Amendment XVII:
1: The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.
2: When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.
3: This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.
Many Americans wonder why it is that the federal government continues to expand its power at the expense of the states and local governments. As the Supreme Court observed in Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U.S. 528 (1985),“the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913 … alter[ed] the influence of the States in the federal political process.” Ironically, it was state legislatures that insisted on adopting the Seventeenth Amendment even though it virtually guaranteed their loss of power. The Seventeenth Amendment inflicted a near death-blow to federalism.
The first sentence of the Seventeenth amendment substitutes “elected by the people thereof” for the words “chosen by the Legislature thereof” in the language of the first paragraph of Article 1, Sect. 3. The amendment also provides the procedure for filling vacancies by election, but permitting states by legislation to allow the state’s governor to make temporary appointments.
Prior to the 17th Amendment, the Constitution provided for US senators to be elected by the legislature of each state in order to reflect that the Senate represented the states, as contrasted with the House which represented the people of each state. Originally, U.S. senators did represent their own states because they owed their elections to their state legislature, rather than directly to the voters of the state. The Senate, thus, carried forward the (con)federal element from the Articles of Confederation, under which only the states were represented in the national legislative body. As noted in The Federalist, the fact that state legislatures elected U.S. senators made the states part of the federal government. As intended, this arrangement provided protection for states against attempts by the federal government to increase and consolidate its own power. In other words, the original method of electing senators was the primary institutional protection of federalism.
In the decade prior to the Civil War, over the issue of slavery, and increasingly after the Civil War, some state legislatures failed to elect senators. That development, plus charges that senators were being elected and corrupted by corporate interests prompted some states to adopt a system of de facto election of senators, the results of which were then ratified by the state legislatures. Proposals for a constitutional amendment providing for direct popular election of senators were long blocked in the Senate because most senators were elected by state legislatures. Over time, the number of senators elected de facto by popular election increased. Also, states were adopting petitions for a constitutional convention to consider an amendment to provide for popular election of senators. As the number of states came closer to the number requiring the calling of a Constitutional Convention, the Senate allowed what became the Seventeenth Amendment to be submitted to the states for ratification.
A major factor promoting direct popular election of senators was the Progressive Movement. This movement generally criticized the Constitution’s system of separation of powers because it made it difficult to enact federal legislation. The Framers had done so in order to protect liberty and to create stability in government. The Progressives, on the other hand, wanted government to be more democratic and, therefore, to allow easier passage of national legislation reflecting the immediate popular will.
By shifting the selection of senators to the general electorate, the 17th amendment not only accomplished those purposes; but it also meant that senators no longer needed to be as concerned about the issues favored by state legislators. Predictably, over time, senators voted for popular measures which involved “unfunded mandates” imposing the costs on the states. Senators were able to claim political credit for the legislation, while the states were left to pay for new national policies not adopted by the states. Such unfunded mandates would have been unthinkable prior to adoption of the 17th amendment.
Ironically, more than the required number of state legislatures ratified the Seventeenth Amendment, with little or no realization that they were diminishing the power of their own states and undermining federalism generally. Many legislators apparently thought they had more important matters to attend to than devoting time to the struggles that often revolved around electing a senator. Such an attitude might have been understandable at a time when the federal government had much less power vis-a-vis the states. What those legislators did not appreciate was that the balance of power favorable to the states was due to the fact that state legislatures controlled the U.S. Senate. Over time, since adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment, the balance of power has inevitably consistently shifted in favor of the federal government.
Dr. John S. Baker, Jr. is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Catholic University School of Law and Professor Emeritus of Law at Louisiana State University Law Center.
Amendment X:
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.
THE TENTH AMENDMENT
Statements about the Tenth amendment tend towards opposing extremes. Some cite the Amendment in claiming more powers than the Constitution actually leaves in the states. On the other side, some claim that the Amendment is merely a “truism,” implying it does virtually nothing. The actual meaning of the Amendment lies in between these two one-sided views.
The Tenth Amendment reads as follows:
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.
The most important word is the one that does not appear in the text, i.e., “expressly.” It is common for those who place great weight on the Tenth Amendment to state incorrectly that the Amendment says “powers not expressly delegated to the United States…” The Amendment, however, pointedly omits the word expressly.
By contrast, somewhat similar language in the Articles of Confederation did include the word expressly.
Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled. (emphasis added)
What difference in meaning does the word “expressly” make? The difference is that which distinguishes a confederation from a government. The Articles of Confederation provides that “The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other…” (emphasis added). The Articles recognize that the States retained their full sovereignty and entered into a special kind of alliance or league. The Articles constitute a treaty involving multiple sovereignties and having several purposes. As a treaty, however, it is still a contract and each State delegates only those powers expressly written into the contract. Although “[t]he Articles thereof shall be inviolably observed by the States,” the document creates no government having the power to enforce its provisions. It provides only for states to send representatives to meet as the “United States in Congress” and to manage those powers expressly given.
The Constitution that emerged from the Convention, as all understood, was not a confederation or simply a league of friendship. Opponents of the Constitution, known as the Antifederalists, concluded that therefore the Constitution would create a consolidated or centralized government. The Federalist (written by Madison, Hamilton and Jay under the pseudonym of “Publius”) countered that the Constitution created a federal government of only limited powers and left most powers of government in the states.
Not persuaded, the Antifederalists contended that the Constitution’s limits on the federal government could and would be swept aside by its “necessary and proper clause.” Their arguments in opposition to the Constitution emphasized the document’s lack of a bill of rights. They urged that a statement of rights was necessary to protect liberty by limiting the power of the federal government and specifically to undo the effect of the “necessary and proper” clause.
The Constitution drafted at the Constitutional Convention contained no bill of rights. This was not an oversight. The Convention voted down George Mason’s proposal that a bill of rights be added. Moreover, during the Ratification period, The Federalist (#84) argued “that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous.” A bill of rights was unnecessary because “a minute detail of particular rights is certainly far less applicable to a constitution like that under consideration, which is merely intended to regulate the general political interests of the nation.” It was dangerous because it “would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colourable pretext to claim more than was granted.”
The Federalists and Antifederalists held opposing ideas about the best means to protect liberty. Whereas the Antifederalists gave priority to bills of rights, the Federalists distrusted the efficacy of such “parchment barriers.” Rather the Federalists drafted the Constitution on the premise that protecting liberty requires a structure of separation of powers within the federal government and a division of powers between the federal and state governments. For that reason, The Federalist said “The truth is … that the constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS.”
Predictions of both the Antifederalists and Federalists have proved in part to be accurate. As the Antifederalists feared, the Necessary and Proper Clause has been used to expand the powers of the federal government greatly at the expense of the states, a trend aided (as discussed in a later essay) by the Seventeenth Amendment. The Federalists were correct that the Bill of Rights, aided by the Fourteenth Amendment’s judicially-developed doctrine of Incorporation, has been used to expand the powers of the federal government at the expense of the states.
The foundational explanation of the Necessary and Proper Clause came in Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819). The opinion addressed the Necessary and Proper Clause as an additional, not the primary, reason for upholding the constitutionality of the Bank of the United States. Jeffersonian Republicans, many of whom had been Antifederalists, opposed this decision as an unconstitutional expansion of Congress’s powers. Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion, however, was perfectly consistent with, and generally tracked language in several essays from, The Federalist.
Over the years, especially since the New Deal, the centralizers of national power have often relied on a distorted interpretation of the Necessary and Proper clause which disregards the fundamental principle that the federal government is one of limited powers. Accordingly, they dismiss the Tenth Amendment as simply a “truism.” The defenders of state power, on the other hand, emphasize the Tenth Amendment, almost as if nothing else in the Constitution matters. They generally fail to understand The Federalist explanation – confirmed by Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion in McCulloch – that Congress has the fullness of those powers actually given to Congress and that the Constitution includes the Necessary and Proper Clause in order to leave no doubt about the fullness of the powers actually given.
When during the First Congress James Madison spoke for the Bill of Rights he had introduced, among other points he argued that they were of “such a nature as will not injure the Constitution.” Specifically, what became the Tenth Amendment did not injure the Constitution because it did not convert it to a confederation. That is to say, the Tenth Amendment pointedly did not use the word expressly.
As to any power actually given by the Constitution, Congress has the fullness of that power. Congress’s exercise of power is nevertheless limited– first by the fact that it is not given every power of government. Secondly, Congress encounters procedural limits on the implementation of its enumerated powers due to bicameralism and separation of powers. The division of powers between the federal and state governments which effectively limited Congress’s exercise of enumerated powers has been undermined by the Seventeenth Amendment’s provision for direct election of senators.
The U.S. government has over the years consolidated power to a degree feared even by the Federalists, and much more so by the Antifederalists. To point solely to the Tenth Amendment, however, as the primary limit on the expansion of federal power is to misunderstand the Constitution. The Tenth Amendment is a ‘truism” in the sense that it merely confirms that the Constitution creates a federal government with a limited number of powers, those related to national defense, foreign affairs, foreign trade, and trade among the states. See Federalist # 23 and #45. Like the Necessary and Proper Clause, a proper interpretation of the Tenth Amendment must be connected to the Constitution’s structure of divided and separated power.
Dr. John S. Baker, Jr. is the Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Catholic University School of Law and Professor Emeritus of Law at Louisiana State University Law Center.
Please leave your thoughts on our blog below! Click the Comment Button!
April 12, 2012
Essay #39
Amendment XVII
The Seventeenth Amendment, adopted April 8, 1913, provides as follows:
1: The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.
2: When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.
3: This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.
The first sentence substitutes “elected by the people thereof” for the words “chosen by the Legislature thereof” in the language of the first paragraph of Article 1, Sect. 3. The amendment also provides the procedure for filling vacancies by election, but permitting states by legislation to allow the state’s governor to make temporary appointments.
Prior to the 17th Amendment, the Constitution provided for US senators to be elected by the legislature of each state in order to reflect that the Senate represented the states, as contrasted with the House which represented the people of each state. Originally, U.S. senators did represent their own states because they owed their elections to their state legislature, rather than directly to the voters of the state. The Senate, thus, carried forward the (con)federal element from the Articles of Confederation, under which only the states were represented in the national legislative body. As noted in The Federalist, the fact that state legislatures elected U.S. senators made the states part of the federal government. As intended, this arrangement provided protection for states against attempts by the federal government to increase and consolidate its own power. In other words, the original method of electing senators was the primary institutional protection of federalism.
In the decade prior to the Civil War, over the issue of slavery, and increasingly after the Civil War, some state legislatures failed to elect senators. That development, plus charges that senators were being elected and corrupted by corporate interests prompted some states to adopt a system of de facto election of senators, the results of which were then ratified by the state legislature. Proposals for a constitutional amendment providing for direct popular election of senators were long blocked in the Senate because most senators were elected by state legislatures. Over time, the number of senators elected de facto by popular election increased. Also, states were adopting petitions for a constitutional convention to consider an amendment to provide for popular election of senators. As the number of states came closer to the number requiring the calling of a Constitutional Convention, the Senate allowed what became the Seventeenth Amendment to be submitted to the states for ratification.
A major factor promoting direct popular election of senators was the Progressive Movement. This movement generally criticized the Constitution’s system of separation of powers because it made it difficult to enact federal legislation. The Framers had done so in order to protect liberty and to create stability in government. The Progressives, on the other hand, wanted government to be more democratic and, therefore, to allow easier passage of national legislation reflecting the immediate popular will.
By shifting the selection of senators to the general electorate, the 17th amendment not only accomplished those purposes; but it also meant that senators no longer needed to be as concerned about the issues favored by state legislators. Predictably, over time, senators voted for popular measures which involved “unfunded mandates” imposing the costs on the states. Senators were able to claim political credit for the legislation, while the states were left to pay for new national policies not adopted by the states. Such unfunded mandates would have been unthinkable prior to adoption of the 17th amendment.
Ironically, more than the required number of state legislatures ratified the 17th Amendment, with little or no realization that the Seventeenth amendment would diminish state power and undermine federalism generally. Many legislators apparently thought they had more important matters to attend to than to devote time to the struggles that often revolved around electing a senator. Such an attitude might have been understandable at a time when the federal government had much less power vis-a-vis the states. What those legislators did not appreciate was that the balance of power favorable to the states was due to the fact that state legislatures controlled the U.S. Senate. Over time, since adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment, the balance of power has consistently shifted in favor of the federal government.
Dr. John S. Baker, Jr. is the Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Catholic University School of Law and Professor Emeritus of Law at Louisiana State University Law Center.
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3
3: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
During the Ratification Debates, the power of Congress under Clause 3 of Article I, Section 8 “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with Indian Tribes” was not controversial. It was generally recognized that the lack of such a power in the Articles of Confederation had damaged trade and finance among the states. Moreover, without a power to superintend commerce moving from state-to-state, the United States as a confederation was hampered in negotiating trade treaties. Other nations, notably Great Britain, had experienced the inability of the Confederation to prevent States from violating treaty obligations of the United States.
Since the adoption of the Constitution, the Commerce Clause has been much more controversial. Two early foundational cases in the Supreme Court, McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) and Gibbons v. Ogden (1824, address the Commerce Clause in the context of the broad issues of constitutional structure. Later cases in the Nineteenth century, particularly following the Civil War, deal primarily with what is known as the “dormant commerce clause.” This doctrine involves the limits implied by the Constitution on the ability of the states to affect commerce, e.g. Cooley v. Board of Wardens (1852). Since the beginning of the 20th Century, the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence concerning both Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause and the limits on the states’ powers to affect interstate commerce has undergone occasional, significant shifts.
The political divide over the regulation of commerce came to the fore soon after the creation of the government under the Constitution. During the Presidency of George Washington, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton promoted federal legislation designed to develop an active commerce built around manufacturing. His most controversial success was creation of the Bank of the United States, a corporation chartered by the federal government. Hamilton and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson squared off over the authority of Congress to create a corporation.
The Hamilton-Jefferson debate was not simply one over a policy. The two men had radically different ideas about the role of commerce in the United States. Jefferson’s vision of an agrarian America opposed Hamilton’s promotion of a commercial republic, driven by finance as epitomized in the Bank of the United States. Jefferson favored a more passive commerce which served mainly as a means for selling agricultural production, especially abroad. This debate involved a fundamental disagreement about the nature and the extent of the federal government’s powers under the Constitution.
Long before the Supreme Court had the opportunity of addressing the issue, these two great statesmen publicly debated the constitutionality of the Bank. Their positions rested on opposing views regarding interpretation of the Constitution. Jefferson focused on the fact that the Constitution contained no power to create a corporation. He employed “strict construction” of the Constitution to argue that neither the Commerce Clause nor the “Necessary and Proper” Clause authorized creation of the Bank. Jefferson’s position was that Congress could rely on the “Necessary and Proper” Clause only to do that which was “absolutely necessary” to carry out one of the listed powers. Hamilton, on the other hand, justified creation of the Bank as a legitimate exercise of the federal government’s enumerated powers. His position coincided with his own explanation of federal powers laid out in Federalist #23. That is to say, the position of Hamilton and The Federalist, later embodied in McCulloch v. Maryland (to be analyzed later in the section addressing the “Necessary and Proper” Clause), was that the Constitution gives Congress a limited number of powers, but places no limit on the powers actually given.
The term “strict construction,” as used by Jefferson, differs from what the public apparently understands to be the meaning of that term. By “strict construction,” Jefferson means a narrow construction of the words in the Constitution. According to Jefferson, for example, the “Necessary and Proper” Clause only authorizes that which is “absolutely” necessary. The Constitution, however, does not include the word “absolutely” to modify “necessary.”
Today, those who refer to “strict construction” do not necessarily adopt Jefferson’s narrow construction. Generally, those who use the term mean simply this: following the text of the Constitution. For them, the term “strict construction” is the opposite of a “liberal” interpretation,” which involves going beyond the words of the Constitution. Those, on the other hand, who support liberal construction justify doing so under the banner of “a living Constitution” which they contend must be “updated” by the Supreme Court. Justice Scalia, who opposes the notion of “the living Constitution,” surprises many when he says he is not a “strict constructionist.” Rather, the Justice describes himself both as an “Originalist” and a “textualist,” a methodology he explains as one which gives to the words of the Constitution the original meaning of the particular text.
Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion in Gibbons v. Ogden (often referred to as “the Steamboat case”) definitely rejected the Jeffersonian version of “strict construction.” Rather, Marshall’s reading of the Commerce Clause involved what today could best be described as “originalist” and “textualist.” The case addressed two issues: 1) whether, under the Commerce Clause, Congress had the power to enact legislation regulating river transportation; and 2) whether a New York statute granting a monopoly on steamboat traffic was constitutional.
On the first issue, the Court analyzed the text as follows: a) the federal law “regulates”; b) river transportation falls within the meaning of “commerce”; and c) the commerce, being between the states of New York and New Jersey is “among the states.” The federal statute, thus, fell within Congress’s power to “regulate Commerce … among the Several States.” The Court accordingly held that the federal law to be constitutional. On the second issue of the state monopoly which conflicted with the federal statute, the state statute had to give way under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.
The challenger to the New York monopoly argued the power over commerce given to Congress was an exclusive one which could not be exercised by the states. Gibbons found it unnecessary to decide that issue. A later Supreme Court opinion, Cooley v. Board of Wardens (1852), addressing primarily the power of a state to regulate matters related to a harbor, decided that the Commerce power was not exclusive to the federal government. Unfortunately, Cooley did not pay particular attention to the text of the Commerce Clause, which does not give Congress power to regulate all commerce, but “commerce among the States.” Instead, the Court took it upon itself to divide commerce between what is “national” and what is “local,” a distinction not grounded in the text. As a result of Cooley and later cases, the Court followed several theories to decide when a state could regulate commerce and when the federal government could do so.
In the course of things, the Court conflated the tests for what states could do and what the federal government could do. From cases involving state regulation, the Court looked to whether the law was “affecting” or “substantially affecting” interstate commerce. If what the state did was deemed to impede “interstate commerce,” then the statute was held to be unconstitutional as a violation of the “dormant commerce clause.” While the Court’s authority to imply a “dormant commerce clause” is itself debatable in terms of an originalist or textualist interpretation, transferring that text to the Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause clearly conflicts with an originalist or textualist interpretation of the clause, which nowhere mentions “interstate commerce.”
The Court’s departure from the text of the Commerce Clause has involved two wild swings. Prior to 1937, the Court declared certain pieces of federal legislation unconstitutional which it said did not actually regulate interstate commerce. In the view of the Court’s majority, the unconstitutional law had the purpose of regulating something else, e.g., manufacturing, and therefore fell within the powers of the states to regulate. The extreme case on this side was Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918), a case which held Congress could not enact a child-labor law. During the early years of the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, the Court declared unconstitutional several key pieces of New Deal legislation which created a serious constitutional conflict between the Court and the two political branches.
In 1937, however, a majority of the Court began to uphold New Deal legislation on the theory that Congress’s purpose in enacting the law was to regulate some activity which “substantially affected,” and eventually simply “affected,” interstate commerce. The extreme example was Wickard v. Fillburn (1942), a case in which the Court upheld the power of the federal government to regulate how much wheat a farmer could grow. Even though some of the wheat was for self-consumption and specifically not for commerce, it was said to “affect interstate commerce” by with-holding wheat from the wheat market. Under this approach, Congress came to expect that the Court would uphold almost any legislation that simply claimed to regulate some activity which “affected interstate commerce.”
Since the mid-1990s, and for the first time since the mid-1930s, the Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional two acts of Congress which were purportedly passed pursuant to the Commerce Clause. U.S. v. Lopez (1995) held that Congress could not enact a law prohibiting possession of a weapon within a school-zone because the activity regulated was not commerce. In U.S. v. Morrison (2000), the Court declared unconstitutional the “Violence Against Women Act.” More recently, however, in Gonzales v. Raich (2005), the Court upheld the ability of the federal government to punish the growing at home of marijuana for personal medical purposes. In doing so, the Court re-affirmed Wickard and the notion that, under the “Necessary and Proper” Clause, Congress can regulate activities otherwise beyond its power in order effectively to regulate a nationwide market.
As of this writing, the Supreme Court has not addressed the Healthcare Reform legislation enacted in 2010. When it does so, the federal government will rely on Wickard and Raich and the states and individuals challenging the law will rely on Lopez and Morrison.
Dr. John S. Baker, Jr. is Professor Emeritus at Louisiana State University Law School.
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1
1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
Article 1, Section 8 enumerates the powers of Congress. Listing those powers indicates that the federal government is one of limited powers. Unlike a unitary sovereign which has all the general powers of government, the federal government has only limited sovereignty. At the same time, the federal government possesses the fullness of any power actually given to it. As Federalist #23 makes plain, on those matters for which the Constitution has delegated responsibility to the federal government, i.e., national defense, foreign relations, regulation of national and foreign commerce, and preserving the public peace against insurrection, the federal government’s “powers ought to exist without limitation.” All of which is to say that the powers of the federal government are limited in number, not that a listed power itself is limited beyond what is stated in the text of the Constitution.
As a result, it becomes essential to determine the meaning of the text for each enumerated power. Improper interpretation through either expansion or contraction does damage to the legitimate role of the federal government. Giving the federal government a power not enumerated moves it closer to possessing full sovereignty. Limiting a given power enfeebles, at least partially, the ability of the federal government to carry out its legitimate responsibilities. Experience has also taught that the federal government can be enfeebled in the exercise of its legitimate powers because it expends resources illegitimately exercising powers not enumerated in the Constitution. The built-in efficiency of the Constitution’s federal design is that it gave to the federal government, and left to the states, those responsibilities which each level of government was best able to perform.
The federal government has in large measure been able to exercise non-enumerated power through misconstruction of the first clause in Article 1, Section 8. This clause illustrates the interpretive challenge. To understand the challenge, it is necessary closely to inspect the text of this clause which reads as follows: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;”
Notice that after the word “Power” the word “To” is capitalized. Then notice that “to” before “pay” is not capitalized. Every enumerated power thereafter begins with “To,” without repeating “The Congress shall have the Power.” In other words, each clause beginning with a capitalized “To” states a separate, enumerated power. Nevertheless, books on Constitutional Law routinely treat this first clause as having two distinct powers: to tax and to spend. Textually, however, the clause states only one power which is the power to tax (in order) to pay debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.
The Supreme Court has, at times, had to struggle with whether congressional legislation which purports to impose a tax is in fact a tax when its purpose appears to be regulatory, e.g., a tax on gambling which was illegal at the time. If the clause in fact grants a single power which ties taxes to paying debts and providing for the common defense and general welfare, then the issue changes. Rather than an issue of whether the tax is really a tax, the question becomes whether – even if it is a tax — it meets the purpose language of the text. If so read, regulatory taxes that do not raise revenue to pay government expenses would become constitutionally questionable. In other words, a reading of only the taxing language of the text – I suggest – has resulted in giving Congress regulatory powers it does not possess under a reading of the language as a single power.
Incidentally, this kind of careful attention to the text is not “strict” or “narrow” construction. It is textualism of the kind that Justice Scalia writes and practices. As he says, he is not a “strict constructionist.” He attempts to give words in the Constitution their full meaning without either narrowing or broadening their legitimate sense.
Another mischaracterization of this clause refers to it as “the General Welfare Clause.” If Congress had a power simply to legislate for the “general welfare,” there would be no need to list any other powers. Under such a construction of the Constitution, the federal government would in no way be a limited one. Few, if any, students of the Constitution, however, would openly claim Congress has such unlimited power. Nevertheless, the spending language in the clause – viewed as distinct from the taxing language –can be distorted to achieve the same unlimited power.
As discussed in United States v. Butler (1936), one of the few Supreme Court cases to address the spending language of the clause, the clause has been a matter of dispute nearly since the beginning when Madison and Hamilton disagreed over its interpretation. (The legislation addressed in Butler also involved a tax collected to fund the spending.) Madison contended that the power to tax and spend for the general welfare had to be tied to one of the other enumerated powers. Hamilton, and later Justice Joseph Story, disagreed. They said the power was a separate power, limited only by the requirement that its exercise be for “the general welfare.” Although Butler adopted the Hamilton-Story position, it declared the particular legislation unconstitutional.
If the discussion above regarding the use of “To” and “to” means that the clause does not contain two powers, it should also establish that the clause contains a power separate from those which follow, as Hamilton and Story contended. If then Madison was incorrect, does this clause create a power so broad that it makes the enumeration of other powers superfluous? Both Justice Story and the Butler opinion recognize that there must be some limits on spending for the general welfare, but Butler did not elaborate.
The Supreme Court has since ignored Butler’s notion that the clause contains any justiciable limits. A year after Butler, the Court upheld the parts of the Social Security Act dealing with unemployment compensation, Steward Machine Co. v. Davis (1937), and old-age benefits, Helvering v. Davis (1937). In Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the Court rejected a challenge to federal spending that financed presidential campaigns, saying “[i]t is for Congress to decide which expenditures will promote the general welfare.”
It may be that the term “general welfare” has acquired a meaning that, at least in Congress, extends well beyond the interpretation of Hamilton and Story. For Hamilton who promoted infrastructure spending on canals and bridges, the spending was not for local “pet projects” or so-called “earmarks.” Rather, such spending was to promote economic development generally; it benefitted more than a single state. Underlying the term “general welfare” seemed to be the idea that the federal government could spend on matters that generally benefitted the whole country. It was assumed not only that state governments would tax and spend on projects that benefitted their own state, but that they would not and should not tax and spend on projects to benefit other states. As with the original understanding of the Commerce Clause and other provisions in the Constitution, Congress was given the taxing and spending power for the general welfare in order to do for the states as a whole what none of them individually could do.
Congress’s idea of spending for the general welfare has often been used to “persuade” states to accept policy regulations which Congress lacks any power directly to impose. Congress achieves the regulatory end through conditioning receipt of the funds. Certain conditions attached to spending are not only reasonable, but required. Accordingly, the federal government ensures the proper use of funds by imposing accounting and reporting requirements and establishing other standards for spending the money. Congress, however, also manipulates conditions in what amounts to a form of “bait and switch;” it adds new conditions after states have become dependent on federal funding for such programs as highways and Medicaid. These new conditions are ones that a number of the states likely would not have accepted when the program began because they impose burdensome obligations or infringe on a state’s legislative powers. States, nevertheless, almost always accept the new conditions because they claim to have “no choice” — that is, except to drop the program or pay for it with state funds.
Rather than raise their own state taxes, with no diminution in federal taxes, states take the money because other states do and/or they get some return on the federal taxes paid by their citizens. Thus, the states at least acquiesce in – if not lobby for – high levels of federal spending with the accompanying federal taxes and/or deficits to support that spending. With almost all states participating in those spending programs directed to the states, the Congress can claim that those programs address the “general welfare.”
States have not been successful before the Supreme Court in claiming Congress’s imposition of new conditions is unconstitutional because they “coerce” states which have “no choice” other than to agree to the new conditions. In South Carolina v. Dole (1987), the Court rejected a constitutional challenge to Congress’s direction that the Transportation Department withhold 5% of the highway funds due to a state if the state did not prohibit persons under the age of 21 from purchasing or possessing alcoholic beverages. Congress certainly had no power under which it could directly establish a national drinking age. The Constitution left such police power issues with the states. Nevertheless, the Court determined, inter alia, that drunk driving was a “national concern.” Of course, it was not a concern that each state was incapable of addressing individually. Justice O’Connor argued in dissent that the condition was an unconstitutional infringement on state powers and noted that the Court’s discussion of federal spending in United States v. Butler (as distinct from other reasoning in the case) remains valid.
The last part of the clause (“all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;”) guarantees that one region of the country having more voting power in Congress cannot use that power to disadvantage other states economically. This provision ties in with the prohibition on taxing exports (Art. 1, Sect. 9, cl. 5) and the power over commerce among the states and with foreign nations (Art. 1, Sect. 8, cl. 3). It represents one example of how the Constitution, as finally drafted, coordinates its different parts into a comprehensive and consistent plan of government.
Professor John S. Baker is the Dale E. Bennett Professor of Law at Louisiana State University.
Federalist 39 answers attacks that the proposed Constitution is not “republican” and not “federal.” In his response, Publius effectively redefines both terms.
Claiming the proposed government is not “strictly republican” is a serious charge. Publius recognizes this, saying “no other form would be reconcileable with the genius of the people of America; with the fundamental principles of the revolution; or the honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government.”
The term “republican” ( Latin “res publica,” or “public thing”) had an uncertain meaning. Common to its various understandings would have been an opposition to an hereditary monarchy and aristocracy. Republicanism referred to self-government, but proponents and opponents of the new Constitution had very different ideas about what that meant.
On the one hand, Publius acknowledged that “If the plan of the convention, therefore, be found to depart from the republican character, its advocates must abandon it as no longer defensible.” On the other hand, the vision of republicanism offered by The Federalist was quite different from that of the opponents.
Those opposing the Constitution, the Anti-federalists, generally believed that a republic could exist only within a small territory where citizens were able to know one another, live a communal life, and directly govern themselves. Their reading of the French political writer Montesquieu and the example of the ancient republics convinced them that liberty was possible only in such republics. Thus, the Anti-federalists argued that the government to be created by the Constitution would deprive the people of their liberty.
Publius had already argued in Federalist 9 that “the petty republics of Greece and Italy” leave one “feeling sensations of horror and disgust” because “they were perpetually vibrating between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy.” He also observed that opponents to the Constitution apparently were unaware that the states were already larger than the republics discussed by Montesquieu and that he praised the benefits of a larger “confederate republic.” Indeed, The Federalist contributes to political theory the idea that liberty is better protected in a large republic, as fully explained in Federalist 10.
Federalist 39 asks “What then are the distinctive characters of the republican form?” Publius finds that political writers have wrongly applied the term to states that do not deserve to be called republics. Consulting principles of government, Publius says “we may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which…” (emphasis added). In other words, he is giving his own definition of the term republic, one which corresponds to principles embodied in the new Constitution. Thus, Publius says a republic may be defined as “a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people; and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure [presidential appointees], for a limited period [members of Congress and the President], or during good behavior [federal judges].”
Finally, Federalist 39 contends that the language in the Constitution explicitly prohibiting titles of nobility and guaranteeing the states will have a republican form of government proves the republicanism of the proposed government.
This large republic was also to be a (con)federal republic. But the Anti-federalists also charged that the Constitution violated the federal form. Publius did not actually deny this particular charge. Rather, he contended that “a just estimate of [the argument’s] force” requires first ascertaining “the real character of the government.” Before explaining that the real character is only “partly federal,” he added that the argument’s force also depended on the authority and duty of the Convention. In the following essay, Publius will argue that the authority of the Convention, as well as its duty to the people, justified creating the form of government proposed by the Constitution.
Given the common understanding of “federal” at the time, the Constitution did violate the federal form. Prior to adoption of the Constitution, the words “federal” and ‘confederal” meant the same thing, just as “flammable” and “inflammable” currently have the same meaning. The Federalist, itself at times, used these terms interchangeably. Clearly, however, the Constitution proposed to create something different from the existing confederacy.
Federalist 15 had identified the great vice of a confederacy as the attempt by a league of states to legislate for state governments, rather than for individuals. The Articles of Confederation did not directly govern individuals, but the Constitution would do so – within its limited list of powers. The new government’s ability to reach individuals and the “necessary and proper clause” prompted the Anti-federalist fear that the Constitution would completely consolidate power in a national government.
Publius had to explain that the Constitution would not create a consolidated national government. Federalist 39, therefore, explained the mixture of federal and national elements among five essential aspects of the Constitution: its ratification or foundation [national], the sources of its ordinary powers [partly federal –the Senate; partly national-the House], the operation of its powers on individuals [national], the extent of the powers, i.e., limited [federal], and the method of amendment [neither wholly federal nor national]. Based on this mixture of elements, Publius concluded: “The proposed constitution, therefore, …is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both.”
This “compound republic” created by the federal Constitution came to be known as “federalism.” As a result, the “federal” form became distinguished from the “confederal” form existing under the Articles of Confederation. This new form of federalism involved a residual – rather than complete – sovereignty in the states. Indeed, as a limited Constitution, neither the federal nor the state governments were “sovereign” in the true sense of the word as a supreme power answerable to no other power. Rather, under the Constitution, “We the people of the United States” are the political sovereign and the Constitution is “the supreme Law of the Land.”
Some argue that the Anti-federalists correctly predicted the consolidation of power in the national government. Such an argument, however, overlooks the critical shift of power caused by the Seventeenth Amendment. That amendment took the election of US senators from state legislatures and gave it to the voters. As a result, the key federal, i.e. state, protection against the concentration of power was lost. That is to say, the Seventeenth Amendment deprived the states of their direct representation in the federal government. As long as the state legislatures elected senators, the states had the ability to pressure enough senators, even if only a minority, to prevent incursions on state power. State legislatures no longer have that ability.
John S. Baker, Jr., the Dale E. Bennett Professor of Law at Louisiana State University, regularly lectures for The Federalist Society and teaches courses on The Federalist for the Fund for American Studies.
Monday, June 21st, 2010
Although mentioned in previous essays, Publius formally began to address separation of powers in Federalist # 47. Together with ## 48 and 51, #47 explained the unique understanding of that principle as built into the Constitution. The Federalists and Anti-Federalists agreed that separation of powers was essential to liberty, but disagreed on what that required in a constitution. Unfortunately, over the last century, the term “separation of powers” has almost disappeared from the civic vocabulary in the United States and been replaced by the term “checks and balances,” a term with an overlapping, but different meaning.
Federalist #47 affirmed the principle upon which the Federalists and Anti-Federalists agreed: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” Thus, the Founders did not believe that voting alone guaranteed liberty.
It must come as a surprise to many Americans to learn that the Federalists and Anti-Federalists emphasized separation of powers as an absolutely essential guarantee of liberty. For many — if not most – Americans, the protection of liberty is primarily accomplished through the Bill of Rights. The Federalist and Anti-Federalists agreed on the need for separation of powers, but not for a bill of rights. The Anti-Federalists criticized the proposed Constitution for a lack of a bill of rights, but the Federalists actually contended “that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous.” Federalist #84.
Instead of mere “parchment barriers,” i.e. paper protections, the Framers presented a “well constructed Union.” Federalist ## 10 and 39 laid out the plan and purpose of the extended, (con)federal republic. Without separation of powers, however, that structure would have been insufficient to prevent the consolidation of power in the central government. Both parts of the structure came under attack as contrary to fundamental principles of liberty. In #39, Publius admitted that if the plan of the Constitution actually did depart from the republican principle, it would be indefensible. He did likewise in #47, admitting that if the Constitution ”really [were] chargeable with this dangerous tendency to such an accumulation, or with a mixture of powers, having a dangerous tendency to such an accumulation, no further arguments would be necessary to inspire a universal reprobation of the system.”.
For separation of powers, as for the extended confederate republic, see Federalist # 9, Montesquieu was the authority appealed to by both Federalists and Anti-Federalists. As with the extended (con)federal republic, Publius explained in # 47 that the claim that the Constitution violates the principle of separation of powers is mistaken. Montesquieu relied on his understanding of the British Constitution to explain separation of powers. Publius correctly observed that in the British Constitution “the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments, are by no means totally separate and distinct from each other.” Indeed, the British Constitution actually involved a “checks and balances” system, rather than one of separation of powers as understood by both the Federalists and Anti-Federalists. That is to say, separation of powers as understood by Montesquieu and the Founders included a separate, co-equal judiciary. Under the British (unwritten) Constitution, the judiciary has never been a separate, co-equal branch of government. Rather, at the time of our Founding, the British government involved a traditional governing system in which the one (the king), the few (the House of Lords), and the many (the House of Commons) checked and balanced each other.
Publius concluded that Montesquieu “did not mean that these departments ought to have no partial agency or no control over the acts of each other.” (emphasis in the original) Rather, he said Montesquieu’s meaning “can amount to no more than this, that where the whole power of one department is exercised by the same hands which possess the whole power of another department, the fundamental principles of a free constitution are subverted.” (emphasis in the original). He demonstrated the point by examining aspects of the British constitution, Montesquieu’s model.
Publius then considered the state constitutions. He noted “that, notwithstanding the emphatical, and some instances, the unqualified terms in which this axiom has been laid down, there is not a single instance in which the several departments of power have been kept absolutely separate and distinct.” He addressed the constitutions of all but two of the states and quoted the “emphatical” language from a couple of them. While looking at the state constitutions in order to rebut the charge that the proposed Constitution violates separation of powers, Publius was not indicating that the state constitutions are an appropriate model for the new Constitution.
The last paragraph of #47 opened, stating “I wish not to be regarded as an advocate for the particular organizations of the several state governments.” Indeed, the Framers created a government radically different from that of the state constitutions. In part, the differences were due to the fact of the federal constitution being one of limited powers, while the state constitutions have more general powers. In addition, however, the form of separation of powers in the federal Constitution differed significantly from that of the states.
In distancing himself from the state constitutions, Publius attempted to avoid giving offense by first offering a modicum of praise and an excuse for their deficiencies. (“I am fully aware, that among the many excellent principles which they exemplify, they carry the strong marks of the haste, and still stronger of the inexperience, under which they were framed.). Nevertheless, Publius was clear that the state constitutions provided for separation of powers “on paper,” but not “in practice.” (“It is but too obvious, that, in some instances, the fundamental principle under consideration, has been violated by too great a mixture, and even an actual consolidation of the different powers; and in no instance has a competent provision been made for maintaining in practice the separation delineated on paper.”)
Thursday, July 1st, 2010
Professor John S. Baker is the Dale E. Bennett Professor of Law at Louisiana State University.
The states had strict separation of powers in theory, but a dangerous mixture of powers in practice. Taking the opposite approach, Publius undertook “to show, that unless these departments be so far connected and blended, as to give each a constitutional control over the others, the degree of separation which the maxim requires as essential to a free government, can never in practice be duly maintained.” Theory guided writing of the Constitution; but the text itself is a practical — not a theoretical — document. As Federalist #48 states, “After discriminating, therefore, in theory, the several classes of power, as they may be in their nature be legislative, executive, or judiciary; the next, and most difficult task, is to provided some practical security for each, against the invasion of the others.”
The Constitution does not even mention the term “separation of powers.” Rather, the constitutional text formally establishes separation of powers by setting out the powers of each branch in a separate article: Article I (“All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress”); Article II (“The executive Power shall be vested in a President”); and Article III ( “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court and such inferior Courts as Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.”). Omitting the term “separation of powers,” into which different persons — especially lawyers — might pour their own meanings, the Constitution instead implants into the text the elements of separation of powers necessary to make it operate in practice, e.g. the President’s qualified veto power.
Rather than “the parchment barriers” on which the state constitutions “principally relied,” the Framers consulted experience and concluded “that some more adequate defence is indispensably necessary for the more feeble, against the more powerful members of the government.” In other words, because the three branches are not naturally equal, simply separating them will not protect the weaker branches. Experience has shown that the legislative branch will dominate the other two. According to Publius, “The legislative department is every where extending the sphere of its activity, and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.” It may seem surprising to many Americans that the Framers considered the legislative branch to be the most dangerous. Such an attitude is nothing new because it was prevalent at the time of the Constitution’s adoption. As Publius observed, “founders of our republics,,,,seem never to have recollected the danger from legislative usurpations, which, by assembling all power in the same hands, must lead to the same tyranny as is threatened by executive usurpations.”
Then and today, there are those who view the President as the greatest danger to liberty. “But in a representative republic,” Publius writes, “the executive magistracy is carefully limited, both in the extent and duration of its power.” Compared to Congress, the President may appear to be more powerful due to the unitary character of the Presidency. Later, in Federalist 70, 73, and 74, Publius explains the unitary executive as a protection of the liberty, particularly in time of war.
Publius tells us “where the legislative power is exercised by an assembly, which is inspired by a supposed influence over the people, with an intrepid confidence in its own strength; which is sufficiently numerous to feel all the passions which actuate a multitude; yet not so numerous as to be incapable of pursuing the objects of its passions, by means which reason prescribes; it is against the enterprising ambition of this department, that the people ought to indulge all their jeolousy, and exhaust all their precaustions.. (emphasis added).
If today the President seems to have more power than the Constitution, it can only be because the Congress has delegated that power and, in most instances, the Supreme Court has upheld those delegations. Since the 1930’s, the three branches of the federal government have generally cooperated in building “the Administrative State,” dominated by bureaucratic agencies. While apparently building the President’s power, however, the Congress has 1) avoided accountability and 2) disguised in its de facto influence over executive agencies. Driving this consolidation of power is an opposition to separation of powers.
The Administrative State incorporates certain “checks and balances,” which as discussed in the last essay differs from separation of powers. Federalist #9, which refers to “legislative balances and checks,” indicates that the term “checks and balances” has a different historical meaning. The Constitution’s version of separation of powers does include a checking function of each branch on the other. Federalist 48 explains the concern to give checking powers to the weaker branches, i.e., the President and the Judiciary. The Administrative State has grown because the Supreme Court has approved legislation giving Congress additional checking powers against the President, thereby weakening the Executive Branch. Congress, for example, has created so-called “independent agencies,” which are independent of the President’s control, but under the de facto control of Congress’s power over agency budgets.
Congress’s enhancement of its own powers through the Administrative State confirms the observations in Federalist 48 about the deviousness of legislative bodies. “The legislative department derives a superiority in our governments [because] [i]ts constitutional powers being at once more extensive, and less susceptible of precise limits, it can, with the greater facility, mask under complicated and indirect measures, the encroachments which it makes on the co-ordinate departments.” (emphasis added).
Publius’s indictment of legislative bodies drew “on our own experience.” The Virginia constitution, for example, required separation of powers; but as Jefferson wrote in his “Notes on the state of Virginia,” quoted by Federalist 48, “no barrier was provided between these several powers.” Publius approved Jefferson’s remark that “An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.”
Federalist 48 concluded “that a mere demarcation on parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments, is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands.”
Friday, July 2nd, 2010
John S. Baker, Jr. is the Dale E. Bennett Professor of Law at Louisiana State University.
Federalist #51 is the most important of the essays in The Federalist, after #10. It completes the discussion of the general structure of the Constitution before Publius turns to a consideration of its particular elements. It ties together the main points of the previous essays.
Federalist #47 and #48 outlines the challenge of keeping the departments of government within their proper bounds; then Federalist #49 and #50 considers and rejects the suggestion of occasional or regular appeals to the people for that purpose. Federalist #51, therefore, begins with the question: “To what expedient then shall we finally resort, for maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments, as laid down in the constitution?”
Importantly, the answer is NOT a bill of rights! Rather, Publius writes, “[t]he only answer that can be given is, that as all these exterior provisions are found to be inadequate, the defect must be supplied by so contriving the interior structure of government, as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places.” (emphasis added).
As elsewhere, the analysis of the problem and the solution rest on an understanding of human nature. Each department must have a “will of its own,” which requires having “the means and personal motives” to defend its powers. Why the emphasis on power rather than “the common good.” Isn’t this just a cynical approach to government? Publius explains that enlisting private interests to protect the public good is the only method actually of achieving the end of government, which is justice.
The “preservation of liberty” requires “that each department should have a will of its own and consequently should be so constituted, that the members of each should have as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the others.” Rigorous adherence to this principle “would require that all the appointments for the supreme executive, legislative, and judiciary magistracies, should be drawn from the same found of authority, the people, through channels having no communication with one another.” (emphasis added). The federal judiciary, in particular, does not meet this test. Publius says this deviation is justified because the mode of choosing judges ought to be the one best designed to produce the peculiar qualifications required of judges. He also presciently observes, as so many later presidents have learned to their dismay, that lifetime appointments for judges “must soon destroy all sense of dependence on the authority [i.,e., the President] conferring them.”
This passage reminds us that a republic, as defined in Federalist #39, “derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people.” The judiciary, along with the President and the Senate (prior to the 17th Amendment’s substitution of popular election for election by state legislatures), draws its powers “indirectly” from the people because judges are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The judiciary and the President — who is actually elected not by the people, but by the Electoral College — are both somewhat removed from the people and in need of protection from the legislative branch. Thus, if as to their salaries they were “not independent of the legislature in this particular, their independence in every other, would be merely nominal.”
What follows are some of the most insightful and widely quoted observations about the relationship between human nature and government. With so much packed into one paragraph, each thought deserves to be separated out for separate consideration.
The notion that, at its core, the Constitution is a structure to control the self-interested tendencies of both the people and those in government may be a new idea for many Americans. To those who think that the citizenry and government require no restraint other than popular elections, Publius responds that “experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.” The Constitution reflects the “policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives.”
Federalist #51 then reiterates and extends the argument of Federalist #47 and #48 concerning legislative dominance and the practical implementation of separation of powers. Besides strengthening the weaker branches, Federalist #51 makes clear the need to weaken the legislative branch. “The remedy for this inconveniency is, to divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes of election, and different principles of action, as little connected with each other, as the nature of their common functions, and their common dependence on the society, will admit.” That explains the phenomenon that even when the same party controls both houses of Congress, the two bodies nevertheless do not cooperate very well.
It is often said in the media that the American people want the branches of the Federal government to work together. The Constitution, however, guarantees conflict among the branches and between the federal and state governments in order to protect the liberty of the people. Federalist #51 emphasizes the Constitution’s “double security” of separation of powers and federalism.
In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people, is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other; at the same time that each will be controlled by itself. Federalist #51 then ties the constitutional structure back to the fundamental argument of Federalist #10. For it is necessary “not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers; but to guard the one part of society against the injustice of the other part.” The way to avoid the “oppressions of factious majorities” is a federal system which encourages the multiplication of factions. As a result, in the United States, “a coalition of a majority of the whole society could seldom take place upon any other principles, than those of justice and the general good.” Thus, change is intended to be difficult as demonstrated by the fact that legislation cannot pass simply on the basis of “the majority” in Congress. A vote in the House of Representatives reflects one majority and a vote in the Senate represents a different majority. So, too, the President, who represents yet another majority, has the opportunity to sign or veto legislation.
The original Constitution operates on the basis of producing a legislative consensus through conflict and compromise. This reflects the Framers’ view that structured conflict among the departments of government, rather than simple majorities, is more likely to produce a just consensus protective of minority interests. In such a system, there must be less pretext also, to provide for the security of the [the minor party], by introducing into the government a will not dependent on the [majority]; or, in other words, a will independent of the society itself.” (emphasis added).
This structure of “double-security” has been changed in important ways. The initial addition of the Bill of Rights did not actually change the structure, as Madison explained it would not do so when he introduced the amendments for adoption by the first Congress. The Bill of Rights applied to the federal government, not to the states. The post-Civil War amendments did immediately change federalism by abolishing slavery and imposing important and just limits on the states. Nevertheless, federalism remained largely in tact as long as states continued to have a direct voice within the federal government by virtue of the election of U.S. senators by their state legislatures. See Federalist #62. The Seventeenth Amendment, however, changed that by requiring popular election of senators. Not that long thereafter, the Supreme Court became much more deferential to Congress and less so to the states.
One of the effects of the Senate no longer representing the residual sovereignty of the states, see Federalist #62, has been that the Court has had a relatively free hand – and indeed encouragement from some in Congress – to erode federalism. While there have been struggles among its members over federalism, the Court certainly has affected federalism through the manner in which, through the Fourteenth Amendment, it has applied the Bill of Rights to the states. In the course of doing so, the Supreme Court has arguably become “a will independent of the society itself” as it tends to prefer the minor party as against the states. As a result of these constitutional amendments and judicial interpretations, the states no longer offer much security against the federal government.
For Publius, “the enlargement of the orbit” through federalism (see Federalist #9 and #10) made republicanism possible. The Anti-Federalists, on the contrary, argued that such a large country was incompatible with a self-governing republic and would grow into imperialism. Despite “contrary opinions,” Publius concluded “that the larger the society, provided it lie within a practicable sphere, the more duly capable it will be of self-government.” As Publius predicted, self-government has flourished in the United States because “happily for the republican cause, the practicable sphere may be carried to a very great extent, by a judicious modification and mixture of the federal principle.” Publius’s prediction, however, became a reality because predicated on the premise of the double-security of separation of powers and federalism.
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
Professor John S. Baker is the Dale E. Bennett Professor of Law at Louisiana State University