Essay #81 – The Inspiration Of The Declaration by Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)

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Guest Essayist: Charles K. Rowley, Duncan Black Professor Emeritus of Economics at George Mason University and General Director of The Locke Institute in Fairfax, Virginia

President Coolidge delivered this speech on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.  In this essay, I place President Coolidge’s speech into a relevant perspective first, by outlining two divergent visions about the nature of man and secondly by explaining how these divergent visions culminated in the progressive attack on the essence of the Declaration of Independence. Read more

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Seventh Lincoln-Douglas Debate

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Guest Essayist: Charles K. Rowley, Duncan Black Professor Emeritus of Economics at George Mason University and General Director of The Locke Institute in Fairfax, Virginia

The State of Nature has a Law of Nature to govern it, which obliges everyone: And Reason, which is the Law, teaches all Mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his Life, Health, Liberty, or Possessions”

John Locke, Second Treatise of Government. 1690

        “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, Read more

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Letter To Edward Everett by James Madison

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Guest Essayist: Charles K. Rowley, Duncan Black Professor Emeritus of Economics at George Mason University and General Director of The Locke Institute in Fairfax, Virginia

In this 1830 response to Edward Everett of Massachusetts James Madison maintains that a state does not possess the authority to strike down as unconstitutional an act of the federal government.  If you find the essay long-winded, you are correct in this assessment.  It is long-winded because James Madison was a hypocrite on the issue of nullification, supporting the notion when it suited him, and rejecting it when it did not. You may learn from this episode an important lesson about human nature.  The greatest of founding fathers does not always make a great secretary of state, a great president, or a great elder-statesman.  James Madison (and Thomas Jefferson) were no exceptions to this insight. Read more

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The Articles of Confederation

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Guest Essayist: Dr. Charles K. Rowley, General Director of The Locke Institute and Duncan Black Professor Emeritus of Economics at George Mason University

The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was an agreement among the thirteen founding states that established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and that served as its first constitution. The Second Continental Congress began to draft the Articles on June 12, 1776, and sent an approved version to the states for ratification in late 1777.

The first state to ratify the Articles was Virginia on December 17, 1777.  Read more

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Amendment IV: Protection Against Unreasonable Searches

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- Guest Essayist: Dr. Charles K. Rowley, General Director of The Locke Institute and Duncan Black Professor Emeritus of Economics at George Mason University

March 9, 2012 – Amendment IV: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. – Guest Essayist: Dr. Charles K. Rowley, General Director of The Locke Institute and Duncan Black Professor Emeritus of Economics at George Mason University

Although my assignment is to discuss the first clause of the Fourth Amendment, I cannot do so effectively without referring also to the second clause. Therefore, my Essay embraces both clauses, while focusing primary attention on the first.

Like many other areas of American law, the Fourth Amendment is rooted in English legal doctrine. Sir Edward Coke, in Semayne’s case (1604) stated: ‘The house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence as for his repose.’  In this judgment, the Court determined that the King was not endowed with unlimited authority to intrude upon his subjects’ dwellings, while recognizing that the King’s agents were permitted to conduct searches and seizures under specified conditions, when their purpose was lawful, and when a warrant had been secured.

The 1760s witnessed a significant growth in the rate of litigation against government agents using general warrants to locate and seize materials relating to John Wilkes. Wilkes’ publications attacked vehemently not only government policies, but the King himself. The most famous of these cases was Entick v. Carrington (1765) in which Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden, ruled that the forcible entry by the King’s Messenger into the home of John Entick, and the search for and seizure of pamphlets and other materials under a general warrant was unlawful.  This case established the English precedent that the executive is limited by common law in intruding upon private property.

Unlike other provisions in the ‘Bill of Rights’, however, the Fourth Amendment was grounded mainly in American colonial experience, rather than in English history.  In order to stem rampant smuggling by tariff-evading colonialists, the British parliament had conferred vast powers of search on British customs officials.  The Writ of Assistance was a general search warrant granting such officials virtually unlimited discretion to search, and was valid throughout the lifetime of a sovereign. Casting its net widely, such a writ required neither ‘probable cause’, nor any description of persons or premises, nor even a magistrate’s authorization of a particular search. The arbitrary nature and capricious application of this writ enraged many colonialists and drove post-revolutionary arguments in favor of the Fourth Amendment (Jacob Landynski, ‘Fourth Amendment’, The Oxford Companion To The Supreme Court Of The United States. Edited by Kermit L. Hall, Oxford University Press, 1992).

Despite its apparent comprehensiveness, the Fourth Amendment actually provides very little guidance concerning how to deal with potential search situations.  Its historical justification teaches us a preference, wherever feasible, for a search under warrant over a judicially unsupervised police action.  Its text requires a standard of ‘probable cause’, and a description of the persons and premises involved.  However, the text does not define ‘probable cause’, nor does it even define a ‘search’.  In such circumstances, the United States Supreme Court has played a significant role, both in construing the text, and in determining how closely to hew to the history of the amendment.

Early on, the Court construed the text strictly and interpreted history narrowly.  In a changing environment, such construction allowed many avenues for government agents to evade the reach of the Amendment.  For example, for some time, the Court determined that electronic eavesdropping did not fall within the reach of the Amendment.  Similarly, administrative inspections were exempt because they were viewed as invading ‘only’ the privacy interest of the individual rather than his security interest.  Only after the Court moved away from strict construction, was it willing to hold that these new forms of search fell within the scope of the Amendment.

The great dilemma of interpretation concerns the relationship between the Amendment’s two clauses.  The first clause bans unreasonable searches while the second clause defines the conditions for issuance of a warrant.  Three possible interpretations emerge, each of which has been sanctioned by the Court at one time or another.

The most obvious interpretation is to consider the warrant clause as explanatory of the reasonableness clause.  This interpretation has been followed in most of the Court’s cases.  In the judgment of Justice Potter, ‘searches conducted outside the judicial process are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment – subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.’ (Katz v. United States, 1967)

A second interpretation reinforces the first, by inferring that some searches are sufficiently offensive to civilized standards of behavior as to be unreasonable even under warrant.  In this interpretation, the Court in 1886 proscribed the search and seizure of private papers even though such search was authorized by judicial process.  In 1921, the Court limited a search to contraband and the fruits of crime, banning the seizure of mere evidence.  These restrictions, however, no longer apply.

The third interpretation treats the two clauses as separable, as was implied in the nature of my commission for this Essay.  The reasonableness of a search, in this interpretation, is not dependent on the existence of a warrant, but on what Justice Minton called, ‘the facts and circumstances – the total atmosphere of the case’ (United States v. Rabinowitz, 1950).  Between 1950 and 1969, this interpretation ruled and the Court sanctioned extensive warrantless searches of premises where arrests were made.

Either of the first two interpretations is faithful to the purpose of the Amendment.  The third interpretation, however, is not.  Once a standard of reasonableness is segmented from the warrant requirement, it provides no standard whatsoever.  A determination of probable cause, even in non-exigency situations is then simply made by the police, and citizen protection is completely denied.  Unfortunately, at the present time, the Court is leaning once again in favor of the third interpretation – under a Hobbesian pressure from a terrorist-infested environment – even while it continues to pay lip-service to the first.

The Amendment covers arrest as well as search, albeit with an important difference between the two.  An outdoor felon arrest is always viewed as an exigency, not requiring a warrant.  An entry into a person’s house, in order to make an arrest, requires a warrant, unless an exigency can be demonstrated.

Perhaps the most controversial feature of the Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is the rule requiring exclusion of evidence seized in violation of constitutional standards.  Suppressing evidence merely because of the wrongful manner in which it was acquired is unique to American law.  This exclusionary rule first appeared in Boyd v. United States (1886). It was made explicit for the federal courts in Weeks v. United States (1914).  It was extended to state prosecutions in Mapp v. Ohio (1961).  The exclusionary rule was rigorously enforced until 1984, when the Court retreated somewhat in United States v. Leon.  The justices ruled that ‘good faith’ reliance by police on a defective warrant does not require exclusion.

This back-track coincides with a more general retreat by the Court into the feel-good fuzziness of a living constitution.  Eventually, such a retreat may leave the Court sanctioning warrantless searches under non-exigent circumstances.  At such time, an unconstitutional Supreme Court, to all intents and purposes, will have arbitrarily repealed the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Charles K. Rowley, Ph.D. is President and General Director of The Locke Institute in Fairfax, Virginia and Duncan Black Professor Emeritus of Economics at George Mason University.  For further details see www.thelockeinstitute.org and www.charlesrowley.com

March 9, 2012 

Essay #15 

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Dr. Charles Rowley, Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University and General Director of The Locke Institute, and author of our “90 in 90” Article I, Section I Essay,

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Interview with Janine Turner on the Janine Turner Radio Show

Dr. Charles Rowley, Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University and General Director of The Locke Institute, and author of our “90 in 90” Article I, Section I Essay, visits with Janine Turner on the Janine Turner Radio Show, Saturday, July 23 on DFW’s KLIF.  Listen as they discuss Dr. Rowley’s essay on Article I, Section 1, found in Constituting America’s Analyzing the Constitution project at this link: https://constitutingamerica.org/?p=712

Which branch of the government was intended by the founders to be the most powerful? Listen to Dr. Rowley’s interview and find out!

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Amendment XXVII of the United States Constitution

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Guest Essayist: Charles K. Rowley, Ph.D., Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University and General Director of The Locke Institute

Amendment XXVII

 

No law varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives shall take effect until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

Congress is required by Article I, section 6 of the Constitution to determine its own pay.  Prior to 1969, Congress did so by enacting stand-alone legislation.  From 1789 through 1968, Congress raised its pay 22 times using this procedure.  Initially members were paid per diem.  The first annual salaries, in 1815, were $1,500.  By 1968, pay had risen to $30,000.  Since 1969 two other methods may also be used to increase the pay of members: automatic annual adjustments and a commission process.  By 2009, the annual salary of Congressmen and Senators had risen to $174,000.  So, even allowing for inflation, Congress has not demurred in paying itself well. The issue of constitutional constraints over the effecting of pay increases, therefore, is no minor matter.

The Twenty-seventh Amendment prohibits any law that changes – increasing or decreasing – the salary of members of the United States Congress from taking effect until the next two-year term of office for the Representatives.  This allows members of Congress to reflect on potential voter rage before dipping into the pockets of their taxpayer-electors.  It is the most recent amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1992, just shy of 203 years after its initial submission in 1789.

The long history behind the Twenty-seventh Amendment is curious and unprecedented.  Its origins lie in very early suggestions from two founding states.  During the 1788 North Carolina and Virginia Conventions – called to consider the original Constitution that emerged from Philadelphia – wordings almost identical to those ratified in 1992 were requested of Congress.

Representative James Madison presented this proposed amendment to the House of Representatives in 1789.  It became the second of the twelve Constitutional amendments originally submitted by the 1st United States Congress for ratification by the states on September 25, 1789.  The last 10 of these would be ratified as the so-called Bill of Rights by December 15, 1791.

The proposed compensation amendment did not fare well in the hands of the states.  Between 1789 and 1791, it was ratified by the legislatures of only six states – Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia – out of the ten states then required by the Constitution.  As more states entered into the union, so the ratification threshold slowly increased under the three-quarters rule.  The proposed amendment was then largely ignored for the better part of a century.

Ohio was the only additional state to approve the amendment over that time-period, when its General Assembly voted in favor in 1873.  This ratification vote was a method of protesting the so-called Salary Grab Act of that year, providing not only for a substantial Congressional pay raise, but making that pay raise retroactive.  Almost another century would then pass until the proposed amendment was ratified by Wyoming in 1978, once again as a protest against another outrageous Congressional pay increase.  The numbers required for ratification, however, remained painfully short of those required.

Young students following this invaluable educational program should be interested to note that the issue was brought to the attention of the public once again by a person very like you.  In 1982, Gregory Watson, a twenty-year-old undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote a term paper arguing the case for ratifying the amendment.  For this contribution, Watson received a ‘C’ grade from his professor.  Note that a ‘C’ grade in 1982, prior to the grade inflation that would follow, was an entirely respectable, though not a spectacular, evaluation.

Undeterred by this modest grade, Watson embarked on a one-man campaign for the amendment’s ratification.  From his home in Austin, he wrote letters to state legislators across the country, typing each one out separately on an electric typewriter.  Fortuitously his missives arrived on the desks of elected representatives, many of whom were confronting voter rage about their own budget-busting pay increases.  As symbolic gestures, primarily to immunize themselves from such voter alienation, state legislatures began to ratify the amendment, rationally calculating that the requisite threshold of thirty-eight states would never be achieved.

Their expectations turned out to be misplaced.  The tally of ratifying states began to rise.  Maine signed off first (1983), followed by Colorado (1984).  Then the ratifications began to flood, as the dam burst its banks.  Five states followed in 1985, three more in 1986, four more in 1987, three more in 1988, seven in 1989, and two in 1990.  Now the amendment was close, and the numbers slowed, as ratification became a real possibility.  North Dakota slipped across the line in 1991, apparently as the 35th state to ratify.  Under the close scrutiny of a watchful public, Alabama and Missouri surrendered on May 5, 1992.  Michigan broke the log-jam two days later, apparently providing the crucial 38th vote.

It would later be discovered that the Kentucky General Assembly had actually ratified all twelve amendments during that state’s initial month of statehood, making Missouri the 38th state to ratify.  The official record of the federal government, nevertheless, still recognizes Michigan as the 38th state to ratify.

Because the Twenty-seventh amendment had taken more than 202 years to ratify, a few self-seeking members of Congress challenged its validity.  Under the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433 (1939), any proposed amendment that has been submitted to the states for ratification and that does not specify a ratification deadline may be ratified by the states at any time.  In Coleman, the Supreme Court further ruled that the ratification of a constitutional amendment is political in nature.  It cannot be assigned to the judiciary for oversight.

On May 18, 1992, the Twenty-seventh amendment was officially certified by Archivist of the United States, Don W. Wilson.  On May 19, 1992, it was printed in the Federal Register, together with the certificate of ratification.  In so doing, the Archivist had acted under statutory authority granted to his office by the Congress under Title 1, section 106b of the United States Code.

Immediately, Tom Foley (Democrat), Speaker of the House of Representatives, called for a legal challenge and Senator Robert Byrd (Democrat) of West Virginia scolded Wilson for certifying the amendment without waiting for Congress to scrutinize its validity.  The Archivist held his ground and on May 20, 1992, under the authority recognized in Coleman, and in keeping with the precedent first established regarding ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, each house of the 102nd Congress passed a version of a concurrent resolution agreeing that the amendment was validly ratified despite the 202 years that it had taken.  Interestingly, the two versions of the resolution were never reconciled by the entire Congress.

From the perspective of public choice, difficulties in ratifying the Twenty-seventh amendment are understandable. The Federalists recognized from the outset the existence of a fundamental problem that over-shadows any constitutional or compound republic: who guards the guardians?  It is an evident fact of life that $100 bills are rarely left lying on the sidewalk.  If the representatives of the people can vote moneys into their own pockets without penalty, the expectation is that they will gladly so do.

What is true for the federal goose is equally true for the state gander.  So state politicians, called upon to constrain their federal counterparts, unless hard-pressed by their own voters, will not willingly put a money-bags constraint around necks that quickly might metamorphose into their own.  The more highly remunerated a state’s legislators are, the less likely they are to vote the federal ratification into law.  Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania have not ratified the Twenty-seventh amendment.  We do not need to strain our little grey cells to understand why this is so!

Even with the Twenty-seventh amendment in place, politicians find wiggle room around it in the form of annual cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs).  COLAs have been upheld against legal challenges based on the Twenty-seventh amendment.  In Boehner v Anderson 30 F.3d 156 (D.C. Cir, 1994) the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the Twenty-seventh amendment does not impact on annual COLAs.  In Schaffer v. Clinton 240 F.3d.876 (10th Cir. 2001) the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled that receiving such a COLA does not grant members of Congress standing in federal court to challenge that COLA.  The Supreme Court refused to grant certiorari in either case, and so has never ruled on those legal precedents.

Why should it not surprise us that the federal courts are turning a blind eye to Congressional maneuvers around the Twenty-seventh amendment?  Once again, public choice saves us from straining those little grey cells.  Federal salaries are related directly to Congressional salaries, by Congressional legislation.  It is a rare judge or justice who is prepared to challenge a maneuver that puts money directly into his or her own pocket.

The Founders strove mightily to protect the People from the potential predations of their own representatives.  Ultimately, however, only the People can protect themselves by exercising eternal vigilance at the ballot box over the behavior of the agents that they dispatch to and from Washington.

It is surely appropriate that those who guard the guardians should be the People in whose interest the Founders crafted such a beautiful Constitution, designed to protect their lives, liberties, and properties, and to allow them to engage in the pursuit of happiness as they individually define that glorious goal.

Charles K. Rowley, Ph.D. is Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University and General Director of The Locke Institute in Fairfax, Virginia.  He is author of Liberty and the State (The Locke Institute 1993), co-author (with Nathanael Smith) of Economic Contractions in the United States: A Failure of Government (The Locke Institute 2009) and the author of Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste (The Locke Institute 2010). All books are available at www.amazon.com. See also www.thelockeinstitute.org and www.charlesrowley.wordpress.com.

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Article II, Section 3, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution

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Guest Essayist: Charles K. Rowley, Ph.D., Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University and General Director of The Locke Institute

Article II, Section 3, Clause 1

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” Lord Acton, 1887

Mitch Ohnstad (reporter): “Why do you rob banks, Willie?”
Willie Sutton (bank robber): “Because that’s where the money is.”

In Worcester v. Georgia (1832) The United States Supreme Court vacated the conviction of Samuel Worcester, holding that the Georgia statute prohibiting non-Indians from being present on Indian lands without a license from the state was unconstitutional:
Response of President Andrew Jackson: “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!”

The above quotations constitute the texts for today’s essay. Readers will understand their relevance for a new century in which the United States President exercises unprecedented personal power, controls unprecedented national wealth and bestrides the separation of powers like a mighty colossus. Such a situation, unconceivable to the Founding Fathers in 1787, places the seemingly innocuous words that I here address into a significantly more worrying perspective.

So let me begin with state of the union addresses. The Founders naturally were concerned to protect the United States from the abuses associated with European monarchs, most especially, of course, King George III. One perceived abuse was the British monarch’s ritual of addressing the opening of each new Parliament with a list of policy ‘mandates’ rather than ‘recommendations. So the word ‘recommendations’ is truly significant as written into the Constitution, as are the words ‘from time to time’. Both insertions are designed to downplay the importance of the occasion.

The first president, George Washington, defined the meaning of ‘from time to time’. Since 1790, the state of the union message has been delivered regularly at an approximately one year interval. Whether such messages would be delivered orally or in writing, however, would depend, until FDR, on each president’s perceived role. The Federalists, Washington and Adams, personally addressed the Congress. The Republican, Jefferson strongly objected to this ritual and initiated the written address. This was continued until 1913 when America’s first Imperial President, Woodrow Wilson, reverted to the oral address, an approach followed by Harding and by Coolidge in his first address. Thereafter Coolidge and Hoover, as strict constructionists, reverted to the written model.

From FDR onwards, U.S. presidents have strutted across the stage making expansive oral addresses designed to project an image of presidential authority across an increasingly credulous national audience. Fortunately, the United States Congress has not (yet) abandoned its legislative authority. Many a presidential state of the union aspiration turns out to be dead-on-arrival once it enters the doors of the Capitol.

Section 3, Clause 1 – which imposes a duty rather than confers a power – is the formal basis of the President’s legislative leadership, which has attained enormous proportions since 1900. This development owes a lot to the rise of political parties, and to an accompanying recognition of the President as party leader, and to the introduction of the spoils system as a means of exerting presidential influence over Congress. Presidents frequently summon both Houses of Congress into special sessions for legislative purposes, and the Senate alone, for consideration of nominations and treatises. The power to adjourn the Houses has never been exercised.

The ‘right of reception’ has been interpreted to reinforce presidential authority most especially in the area of foreign affairs. The term ‘Ambassadors and other public ministers’ embraces not only any possible diplomatic agent that any foreign power may accredit to the United States, but also all foreign consular agents, who, therefore, may not exercise their functions in the United States without an exequatur from the President. The power to receive includes the right not to receive, to request their recall, to dismiss them and to determine their eligibility. These powers have the unfortunate consequence of making the President the predominant mouthpiece of the nation in its dealings with other nations, surely not something that the Founders (Hamilton was an exception) ever anticipated.

The President must ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed.’ This duty has been used as an ‘open sesame’ opportunity for unscrupulous presidents to transgress the separation of powers. Some presidents have claimed an authority under this provision to impound monies appropriated by Congress. President Jefferson, for example, delayed for over a year the expenditure of monies appropriated for the purchase of U.S. gunboats. FDR and several of his successors from time to time refused outright to expend appropriated monies. In response to such an attempt by President Nixon, the United States Supreme Court finally ruled that such attempts are unconstitutional.

Presidents have also asserted, from time to time, that ‘faithful execution of the laws’ empowers them to suspend the writ of habeas corpus – that most precious legal protection of individual liberty against the state. Article I provides that this privilege may not be suspended except during times of rebellion or invasion. The Supreme Court has determined that such suspensions fall within the jurisdiction of Congress. Yet President Lincoln regularly suspended the privilege during the civil war, albeit eventually and reluctantly succumbing to union-opposition pressures to seek congressional approval.

The Supreme Court subsequently would specifically weaken its own supervisory role in this regard. In Mississippi v Johnson 1867, the Supreme Court ruled that the judiciary may not restrain the President in the execution of laws. In so doing, the Court denied an injunction preventing President Andrew Johnson from executing the Reconstruction Acts, which were claimed to be unconstitutional. Executive acts, when performed, remain subject to judicial scrutiny.

The President’s right to commission ‘all the Officers of the United States’ is also open to serious abuse by unscrupulous incumbents. One of the most famous legal cases in early United States history was induced by such abusive behavior. John Adams, the outgoing Federalist President signed many commissions to the judiciary on his final day in office, hoping as incoming Republican President Thomas Jefferson put it ‘to retire into the judiciary as a stronghold.’ Fortunately, in his haste to complete the coup d’etat, Adams neglected to have all the commissions delivered. President Jefferson and his Secretary of State, James Madison – who knew more than a little about the nature of the Constitution – refused to deliver the remaining commissions.

William Marbury had been appointed by Adams as Justice of the Peace in the District of Columbia; but his commission had not been delivered. So, Marbury petitioned the Supreme Court to force Secretary of State Madison to deliver the documents. However, in its famous 1803 Marbury v Madison judgment, the Supreme Court, with John Marshall as Chief Justice, denied Marbury’s petition, holding that the part of the statute upon which he based his claim – the Judiciary Act of 1789 – was unconstitutional.

It is good to end this essay with an early example where a serious abuse of presidential discretion was reined in. Unfortunately, this would be a rare victory in the battle to constrain America’s increasingly imperial presidency, as the executive branch fairly systematically elbowed its way through the separation of powers in order to impose its own brand of absolutism on the American Republic.

Charles K. Rowley, Ph.D. is Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University and General Director of The Locke Institute in Fairfax, Virginia. He is author of Liberty and the State (The Locke Institute 1993), co-author (with Nathanael Smith) of Economic Contractions in the United States: A Failure of Government (The Locke Institute and the Institute of Economic Affairs 2009) and the author of Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste (The Locke Institute 2010). All books are available at www.amazon.com. See also www.thelockeinstitute.org and www.charlesrowley.wordpress.com.

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Article I, Section 08, Clause 09 of the United States Constitution

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Guest Essayist: Charles K. Rowley, Ph.D., Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University and General Director of The Locke Institute

Article I, Section 8, Clause 9

 9:  To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

There is much more to these seemingly simple words than meets the eye.  Indeed, one cannot write meaningfully about them without first advancing to Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution:  The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.  The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

 It is not my intent to deal with Article III, Section 1 more than is minimally necessary for making sense of Article I, Section 8, Clause 9.  I ask the reader’s indulgence to this end.

It is noteworthy that Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution establishes one federal Supreme Court only for the entire United States, and that it separates the powers of this court from those of Congress and the executive.  By establishing just one Supreme Court, the Founders provided for a uniformity of interpretation of the federal laws that otherwise might not have been forthcoming.  By establishing the Supreme Court as separate from the Congress the Founders benefited from the genius of James Madison who built in checks and balances as a response to the Connecticut Compromise that provided equal representation to all the States in the Senate of the United States.  Prior to that Compromise, Madison’s Virginia Plan had advocated subservience of the Supreme Court to the Congress.

Note, however, that the Constitution does not itself create judicial bodies other than the Supreme Court.  The Congress alone – not the Supreme Court not the Executive – is empowered, should it so choose, to take responsibility for such matters.  Exactly how it should do so and in what form would be subjected to close scrutiny of the precise meaning of the wording of the Constitution.

In one – and in my judgment convincing – interpretation, the power given to Congress in Article I, Section 8, Clause 9 ‘To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme court’ plainly relates to the power given to Congress in Article III, Section 1 to ordain and establish inferior Courts.  If such is the case, then Article I empowers Congress to establish inferior judicial bodies (tribunals and courts being viewed as synonyms). And Article III reaches out to the tenure conditions attached to all such judges.

Since, in practice, Article I tribunals have not been viewed as identical to Article III courts, however, a careful parsing of the relevant words becomes essential, even if only to explain unjustifiable error.

As always, in parsing the words of the Constitution, it is important to rely upon the meaning of words in 1787, not those of the early twenty-first century.  To this end, I shall rely on the written records of the Founding Fathers and of the major dictionaries of that era, such as those of Samuel Johnson and Noah Webster.

The term ‘tribunal’, to be sure, carries a distinctive historical connotation, derived from the Roman tribunate, a raised platform on which the seats of magistrates were placed.  The term ‘court’, by contrast, derives from the judiciary’s close association in England and France with the king.  However, by Blackstone’s day, the terms were viewed as synonyms in all the major dictionaries. Throughout the early deliberations of the Philadelphia Convention, the Founding Fathers also used the two terms interchangeably, as does Hamilton in Federalist No. 81. Of course, such evidence does not guarantee that the Constitution itself deploys the term ‘tribunal’ under Article I as a synonym for the term ‘court’ under Article III.

There is some support from the drafting history for the view that the Constitution distinguishes between the two concepts.  The distinction may have grown out of the mid-convention debates over the possibility of employing some non-life-tenured judges to adjudicate federal claims.  Specifically, Congress might appoint state tribunals to act as courts of first instance in deciding questions of federal law.  Madison’s notes from the debates offer support for such a change in emphasis once the New Jersey Plan and the Virginia Plan were jettisoned following the Connecticut Compromise.  For the Compromise eliminated an early provision that mandated the creation of lower federal courts and substituted a regime of congressional discretion (as confirmed by Articles I and III).  At this point, the Committee of Detail dropped the usage of the term ‘tribunals’ to describe the federal courts in Article III, and it required life-tenured judges in Article III courts, while refusing to impose any such requirement for Article 1 tribunals.

Further support for distinguishing between Article I tribunals and Article III courts may be discerned in the empowerment provisions themselves.  Article I empowers Congress to ‘constitute tribunals interior to the supreme court’, whereas Article III empowers Congress to ordain and establish courts.  This difference in description of congressional powers is suggestive that the two adjudicative bodies might arise in different ways and with different degrees of permanence.  Specifically, Congress might ‘constitute’ tribunals either by creating new bodies from scratch, or by designating existing bodies as inferior tribunals.  To ‘ordain and establish’ inferior courts, by contrast, seems to contemplate the creation of new courts established in accordance with Article III.  Such a fine distinction is in accordance with the major dictionaries of the late eighteenth century.

In any event, Congress has exploited such parsing opportunities in order to distinguish clearly between Article I tribunals and Article III courts (A fairly good guide to congressional behavior in general is that if you give it an inch it will take a kilometer).  From the outset, Congress has established some (but not all) Article I tribunals without the Article III safeguards of life-tenure and remuneration.  These tribunals consist of certain federal courts and other forms of adjudicative bodies, endowed with differing levels of independence from the legislative and executive branches.  Some take the form of legislative courts set up by Congress to review agency decisions; others take the form of military courts-martial appeal courts, ancillary courts with judges appointed by Article III and administrative judges.

As one would predict, Congress (and the Executive) does not always relish the idea that Article I tribunals should be inferior to the Supreme Court.  Yet that is an inescapable reading of the Constitution.  The specification that tribunals and lower courts must remain inferior cements the requirement of the Supreme Court’s ultimate supremacy.  The requirement of inferiority precludes Congress (and by clear implication, the executive branch) from creating free-standing courts, investing them with some portion of judicial power, and giving them freedom from oversight and control of the Supreme Court.  In this regard, the Founders were only too mindful of such abuses of executive power by the Stuart kings in England’s not-so-far-distant past.

This portrait of Article I tribunals as acting outside of the judicial power, while remaining subject to oversight and control by Article III courts is reflected in modern jurisprudence.  However much it would like to do so, Congress (and the Executive) cannot create tribunals and place them entirely beyond the supervisory authority of the federal courts.

The most pressing recent variant of this logic effectively deals with the decision by President George W. Bush to create military tribunals for the adjudication of criminal claims against individuals designated as enemy combatants.  Although the government has argued for an exceedingly restricted judicial role in overseeing such tribunals, the Constitution clearly requires that they must remain inferior to the Supreme Court and subject to judicial review, at least when such tribunals operate within the jurisdiction of the United States.

Americans should be eternally thankful to the Founders for providing us with such protections, both under Article I and under Article III of the Constitution.  Unless the parchment unravels completely, there will be no Court of the Star Chamber, no Court of High Commission, and no Bloody Assize in the Unites States of America.

Charles K. Rowley, Ph.D. is Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University and General Director of The Locke Institute in Fairfax, Virginia.  He is author of Liberty and the State (The Locke Institute 1993), co-author (with Nathanael Smith) of Economic Contractions in the United States: A Failure of Government (The Locke Institute and the Institute of Economic Affairs 2009), and the author of Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste (The Locke Institute 2010).  For further details see www.thelockeinstitute.org and www.charlesrowley.wordpress.com

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Article I, Section 01 of the United States Constitution

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Guest Essayist: Charles K. Rowley, Ph.D., Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University and General Director of The Locke Institute in Fairfax, Virginia

Article I, Section 1 : All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives

The Constitution of the United States established three separate branches of the federal government, namely the legislative branch, the executive branch and the judicial branch. Superficially, therefore, one might think that it was a matter of chance as to the order in which each branch would be outlined and defined in this founding document.  Such thinking, however, would be incorrect.  The Founding Fathers did not write the Constitution without careful reference to the prior scholarship of Great Men, and without reference to the history of all prior republican forms of government.  James Madison of Virginia, in particular, drawing heavily upon materials sent to him from Paris by Thomas Jefferson, made certain that the Constitution evolved from the past experience of all the republics that had failed, and would not be written out (as would later be the case with the disastrous French constitution) as an act of constructivist rationalism.

John Locke’s seminal book, Two Treatises of Government – the book that provided the intellectual justification for England’s Glorious Revolution of 1689 – provides the rationale for placing the legislative branch of government at the very beginning of the Constitution: ‘The great end of Men’s entering into Society, being the enjoyment of their Properties in Peace and Safety, and the great instrument and means of that being the Laws establish’d in that Society; the first and fundamental positive Law, which is to govern the Legislative it self, is the establishing of the Legislative Power;…This Legislative is not only the supream power of the Commonwealth, but sacred and unalterable in the hands where the Community have once placed it; nor can any Edict of any Body else, in what Form soever conceived, or by what Power soever backed have the force and obligation of a Law, which has not its Sanction from that Legislative, which the publick has chosen and appointed.’ (Locke, II, para. 134)

The Founding Fathers wisely embraced Locke’s argument establishing the legislature as the central pivot of any social contract through which individuals would consent to place their lives, liberties and properties under the protection of a civil or political society.  It is no accident that Article I of the United States Constitution deals first with the legislature.  Although commentators frequently describe the three branches of government as ‘separate but equal’, the Constitution is silent on that issue.  Although the Founders designed the three branches to be inter-connected, each branch checking the power of the others, they surely relied on Locke’s Second Treatise in recognizing the legislative branch as the fulcrum of the social contract.

The decision to separate the three branches, as defined in Articles I-III, by no means was set in stone when the Convention first assembled in Philadelphia. James Madison, in particular, was deeply impressed by the 1765 Commentaries of William Blackstone, who favored a single unified branch system: ‘It is highly necessary for preserving the balance of the constitution, that the executive power should be a branch, though not the whole, of the legislature.  The total union of them, we have seen, would be productive of tyranny; the total disjunction of them for the present, would in the end produce the same effects, by causing that union, against which it seems to provide.  The legislature would soon become tyrannical, by making continual encroachments, and gradually assuming to itself the rights of the executive power.’ (Blackstone, Commentaries, 1, 149)

Following up on this argument, James Madison while awaiting the arrival of other delegates, etched out a Virginia Plan that envisaged one branch only – the legislative branch.  This branch would be responsible for appointing the executive and the judiciary, although these legislative agents jointly would be empowered to veto legislative decisions under certain circumstances.  However, even such vetoes would be subject to legislative override by some unspecified super-majority.

According to the Virginia Plan, there were to be two chambers of the legislature (a bicameral legislature). Each state would be represented in each chamber in proportion either to its financial contributions or to its number of free inhabitants.  The small states perceived such an arrangement to constitute an inordinate potential threat to their liberties by some effective coalition of the more populous states.  In the Connecticut Compromise of June 29, 1787, the delegates abandoned the Virginia Plan in favor of a bicameral legislature in which the lower chamber (The House) would be based on state populations and the upper chamber (the Senate) would have equal representation.  In reaction to this Compromise, James Madison etched out an ultimately successful case for separating the three branches of government as added checks and balances against the greatly-feared forces of faction.

The question whether the legislature should be composed of a single chamber (unicameral) or two chambers (bicameral) was far from fully resolved at the outset of the Convention.  When George Mason proclaimed to the gathered delegates that ‘the mind of the people of America’ was ‘well settled’ in its attachment to the principle of having a legislature with more than one branch, he was not truly asserting that the matter was beyond contention.  True, eleven of the thirteen states enjoyed bicameral legislatures. However, the Continental Congress consisted of but a single chamber and Pennsylvania, host to the Convention (and the home of the First American, Benjamin Franklin), operated with a unicameral legislature.

Ironically, the major forces in favor of bicameralism at the Convention were the example provided by Britain on the one side and the colonial experiences of the People on the other.  On the one side – and despite the War of Revolution – there lingered a long-standing admiration for the British constitution, at least in its mythic, uncorrupted, form.  From this perspective, the vision of a truly balanced legislature, government, and society gave special authority to the British model.  On the other side, most of the colonies had already developed an upper legislative chamber out of their governors’ councils, which typically represented the concentrated power of great landlords and wealthy merchants.

For persons of property, as all the delegates to the Convention assuredly were, an upper chamber that might check the predations both of a covetous popular assembly and of an aggrandizing executive was especially attractive.  For the populist-minded, the check provided by the upper chamber on executive powers was also not without its attractions.  Thus, the case for bicameralism could be argued both from a quasi-aristocratic and from a profoundly-republican point of view.  Thus it came to pass that discussion of a second upper chamber presumed that its’ membership would be smaller, that members would hold longer terms of office, and that members would be more select, than in the case of the lower chamber.

The lower chamber (the House of Representatives) thus came to be viewed as an embodiment of the popular will, an assembly of representatives who would come close to being reflexes of the people.  Such a body was widely viewed as a necessary foundation of popular government based upon consent.  Standing alone, however, the reflexes of such a body might become as passionate, tyrannical and arbitrary as those of the people that it represented.  An upper chamber (the Senate), capable of checking the foolish or irrational impulses of the population at large, could be viewed as an essential safeguard to the lives, liberties and properties of those who otherwise might be exposed to the untrammeled excesses of the popular will.  The later descent of the French Revolution – with its over-simplified constitutional settlement – into tyranny, bloodshed, and ultimately into the dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte, would amply justify these reservations advanced so serendipitously in 1787 by delegates to the Philadelphia Convention.

Eventually, the grand design fell into place in Philadelphia and, following a great national debate, was ratified into a magnificent social contract.  Article I, Section 1 of the United States Constitution merely sets the stage.  The full play unfolds in the remainder of this most precious of all constitutional documents.

Charles K. Rowley, Ph.D. is Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University and General Director of The Locke Institute in Fairfax, Virginia.  He is author of Liberty and the State (The Locke Institute 1993) co-author (with Nathanael Smith) of Economic Contractions in the United States: A Failure of Government (The Locke Institute and the Institute of Economic Affairs 2009) and the author of Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste (The Locke Institute 2010).  For further details see www.thelockeinstitute.org

22 Responses to “February 22, 2011 – Article 1, Section 1 of the United States Constitution – Guest Essayist: Charles K. Rowley, Ph.D., Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University and General Director of The Locke Institute in Fairfax, Virginia”

  1. Ron Meier says:

February 22, 2011 at 12:39 am

There are some excellent points in this essay to keep in mind as we watch events develop in the Middle East. We can see the passion of the people at work, but are there checks in place that will “safeguard the lives, liberties and properties of those who otherwise might be exposed to the untrammeled excesses of the popular will.” Also interesting to watch is how the checks in the state systems work to constrain the passions of the populace in Wisconsin and other states that will follow in Wisconsin’s footsteps as state budget problems are addressed. Very timely that we should be starting this study at this historical moment.

  1. Shannon_Atlanta says:

February 22, 2011 at 10:16 am

Thank you Dr. Rowley. It amazes me that these men created our government in a timely and relatively quick manner. Compare that to today where it takes months and months for our “leaders” to pass a budget; I am always amazed at what all they accomplished-filled with God’s will in my humble opinion!

  1. Susan says:

February 22, 2011 at 10:18 am

I found it interesting the evolution of the Senate. Out of the House of Lords via the wealthy to a voice of the States as a corporate entity as a counter balance to the tendency of democracies to devolve into mob tyranny.

  1. Shannon_Atlanta says:

February 22, 2011 at 11:22 am

Sue, good points. I think many of us feel that our Founders hated the British system. From what I have read, they actually admired many aspects of the government-thus they borrowed from it. They also were well read on the Anglo-Saxon political system, which England had slowly gotten away from; thus men like Jefferson wanted to get some of their ways back-free will, republican government, etc.

  1. Cutler says:

February 22, 2011 at 11:38 am

The relatively novel idea of having the legislative power invested in two distinct houses shows the genius (God’s?!) at work when the Founding Fathers created the House and the Senate.

  1. steve b says:

February 22, 2011 at 4:30 pm

I did not know Pennsylvania originaly had a unicameral legislature. Our Founding Fathers were indeed true statesman. I fear we will never again have the leadership and vision our Founding Forefathers had.

  1. Charles K Rowley says:

February 22, 2011 at 7:02 pm

It is indeed quite remarkable how well educated and knowledgable many of the Founding Fathers truly were. At a time when books were scarce, distances hard to travel, and in a country that had experienced a major internal war, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin and others somehow made the effort to read and understand why past republics had always failed. On that basis they were able to craft a Constitution that would survive at least for two centuries, though now, of course, it is tattered and torn. In 2011, when books are easily available and the internet immediately accessible, how many American politicians, from the President down, are well read in such literature. Until January 2011, how many elected politicians had actually read the Constitution? Sadly, knowledge appears to regress as the opportunities to access it expand. I am sure that Benjamin Franklin would have had an amusing way of making that point!

  1. Ralph T. Howarth, Jr. says:

February 22, 2011 at 7:52 pm

Part of the end run of the bicameral system came out of the right of sufferage. It became a grand principal that it is unjust to demand citizens to obey laws that they have no say in the writting and amending of such laws. So it was that the rights of land owning free-holders that were 90% in the majority at the time balanced against the future influx of non-land holding immigrants that was expected to come. The Founders thought it best that the bicameral system would be predominant land-holders in one house and populist commoners in the other house. This also did away with the “mixed government” feature of Parliament where the caste system of seats designated to caste members of society to represent the various interests of society. Congressmen now are elected upon full popular vote of the electorate in their district regardelss of class.

As for the presupposition that that the THREE branches of government are separate and EQUAL, the legislature is actually the most powerful branch of government. In Federalist #51 James Madison said: “But it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self-defense. In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates.”

The legislature indeed is the most powerful branch for it has more checks on the other branches of government than any other branch. First, it passes statuatory law. The executive cannot act nor the judiciary pass judgement without laws to act on. And if the judiciary makes an opinion that is in a quandary with the law, Congress simply can pass more statuatory law. Congress consents to appointments of officers in the other branches; and has the power to impeach and remove the same. Congress has the power to tax and appropriate funds and so can effectively defund any operation of government and is another form of congressional oversight on the other branches of government. At the last, Congress has the power regulate the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court such that Congress may deny the SCOTUS of hearing particular cases among the states. And contrary to popular opinion: judges do not make or repeal laws. Judges simply decide whether or not one party in a case suffers harm from another party and then gives an opinion why they decide as such. Court decisions are not law therefor they are called OPINIONS.

  1. Debbie Bridges says:

February 22, 2011 at 9:01 pm

It is interesting to watch the three branches of Government in today’s political arena. Health Care for instance. This was originally passed in the Legislative but with the change of political power in the House and the will of the people the House has voted to defund it. Hopefully the Supreme court will hear the case and rule it unconstitutional. At the same time though, I worry because the President seems to circumvent the Legislative Branch through Executive Orders and appointing Czars not subject to the normal Advise and Consent process of the Senate.

  1. zac allen says:

February 23, 2011 at 12:11 am

This is an interesting discussion at this very moment in time in this country. We have educators, media pundints, and all sorts of people talking about democracy in action. Our Founders knew through the lens of history, that true democracy , mob rule, was no way to run a government. It eventually destroys the individual, as does collective bargaining.
Representative democracy with a republican form of Government is what they created…. and now we have Progressives trying to undermine that principle. Bi-Cameral houses with each a distinct role. Incredible… isn’t it….. sorry for the skipping around

  1. Charles K. Rowley says:

February 23, 2011 at 8:00 am

Ralph, Debbie and Zac all make great points on the issue of checks and balances and the role of the legislature. Before FDR, the constitution worked well. Then the legislature began to divest regulatory powers to the President and the Supreme Court buckled under the threat to increase its numbers with progressive appointees. In consequence, the balance shifted. Now the President is far more powerful than was ever envisaged, and the Supreme Court offers excessive deference to the legislature when reviewing laws for their constitutionality. Yet, save for a few bad amendments, the Constitution’s wording has not changed. That is the problem. How can America move back to the true Constitution under such circumstances?

  1. Janine Turner says:

February 23, 2011 at 11:45 am

Dr. Rowley, I thank you for your most informative essay!
It is worth noting how our founding father’s based their decisions, regarding the drafting of the Constitution, on two basic principles: knowledge and history.
They were well read and acquainted with what had worked and what had not, in regard to government, in the past. They also were well acquainted with superb political and philosophical works of great minds throughout history. Their prudence was based on practical precedents.
The checks and balances and bicameral legislature are of brilliant design and most relevant to today as we: 1) still practice it today 2) need to vigilantly maintain these principles.
Only with a keen knowledge of our Constitution’s contents can we preserve our liberties. I thank you for your generosity of time, as it helps me to understand more clearly my call to action!

  1. Ron Meier says:

February 23, 2011 at 11:54 am

re Dr. Rowley,
And, add to that the significant increase in the number of Czars in the current White House. This seems to be adding even more power within the office of the President. Should the Congress do something to disallow power to these czars?

  1. Jon says:

February 23, 2011 at 2:24 pm

May I offer a few items in response to “How can America move back to the true Constitution under such circumstances?”
Thomas Jefferson, 1825 in response to William B. Giles who expressed his concern over encroaching federal power.

“I see, as you do, and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch of our Government is advancing toward the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power. Take together the decisions of the federal court, the doctrines of the President, and the misconstructions of the constitutional compact acted on by the legislature of the federal branch, and it is but too evident, that the three ruling branches of that department are in combination to strip their colleagues, the State authorities, of the powers reserved by them…”
“And what is our resource for the preservation of the Constitution? Reason and argument? You might as well reason and argue with the marble columns encircling them. The representatives chosen by ourselves? They are joined in the combination, some from incorrect views of government, some from corrupt ones, sufficient voting together to outnumber the sound parts…”

“We must have patience and longer endurance then with our brethren while under delusion; give them time for reflection and experience of consequences; keep ourselves in a situation to profit by the chapter of accidents… meanwhile, the States should be watchful to note every material usurpation on their rights; to denounce them as they occur in the most peremptory terms; to protest against them as wrongs to which our present submission shall be considered, not as acknowledgments or precedents of right, but as a temporary yielding… This is the course which I think safest and best as yet.”

William B. Giles took Jefferson’s advice; he ran for and won the Governorship of Virginia in 1827.

Jefferson alluding to our success, the law of nature IE; Locke.
“A great revolution has taken place at Paris. The people of that country having never been in the habit of self-government, are not yet in the habit of acknowledging that fundamental law of nature by which alone self government can be exercised by a society. Of the sacredness of this law, our countrymen are impressed from their cradle, so that with them it is almost innate. This single circumstance may possibly decide the fate of the two nations.”. 1800 Thomas Jefferson

Adam’s regarding education, including the law of nature IE; Locke
“Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write. Let every order and degree among the people rouse their attention and animate their resolution. Let them all become attentive to the grounds and principles of government, ecclesiastical and civil. Let us study the law of nature…” John Adam 1765

  1. Ray Simoneaux says:

February 23, 2011 at 2:45 pm

Janine, I found out about Constituting America by watching Freedom Watch. Thank you and your organization taking on the project. I am truly amazed of just how many people I talk with daily, who have never read the Constitution ( I personally have three pocket size editions; home, office and vehicle). I look forward to learn more of the analysis of OUR Constitution!

Dr Rowley, your reply to Ralph, Debbie and Zac is exactly how I feel about the Constitution! I really get frustrated when talking with friends or co-workers who “believe everything the see or hear on the news.” I often get strange looks/comments when those people close to me, hear me make the statement, “Where in the Constitution does it give them (the politicians) the authority to do that?” I have come to the conclusion that they have never read/understood the Constitution, therefore they don’t know what our politicians can/can’t do. Thank you for your assistance to the Constituting America Organization in their project.

  1. Shelby Seymore says:

February 23, 2011 at 4:41 pm

Again, I agree with Cutler. They actually set up this government out of the Bible in Leviticus. This wasn’t a just a remarkable appearance of a government that worked. It’s not the big bang theory! There was Divine Providence and they knew it.

  1. Charles K Rowley says:

February 23, 2011 at 4:47 pm

The insights offered by Janine and Jon are very important at this time. The checks and balances written into the Constitution serve a great purpose in slowing down the popular impulse. But this works both ways. When the political situation becomes bleak, as it surely was prior to November 2010, the checks and balances slow down constitutional recovery. The good constitutionalist acknowledges this and bides his time. Any true reversal of fortune must await November 2012, a change in President and a change in Senate majority. This can only occur if key actors understand the Constitution and work cautiously to reinforce constitutionalism rather than to skirt around it. This will irritate the impatient, but the long-run objective must always be kept in mind. In the meantime, some Republican Governors are performing well in their attempts to re-assert states’ rights.

  1. Ralph T. Howarth, Jr. says:

February 24, 2011 at 5:08 am

Chares K Rowley said: How can America move back to the true Constitution under such circumstances?

Tom Woods has an answer to the question: State Nullification
http://www.tomwoods.com/learn-about-state-nullification/

The premise of the State of Virginia ratifying the U.S. Constitution was on the very question of what if the general government department assumes powers not given in Art 1. Sec 8? The answer was that the State of Virginia is a sovereign state free to disregard such federal acts.

  1. Charles K. Rowley says:

February 24, 2011 at 10:54 am

Ralph’s point is exactly correct. But the principle was overriden by the War of Northern Aggression and the victory of the North over the South. Since then nullification has not proved to be an attractive option for States even when the rights of their citizens have been seriously eroded by the federal government.

  1. Ralph T. Howarth, Jr. says:

February 24, 2011 at 5:20 pm

@Ray Simoneaux,
My new favorite phrase for townhall meetings is:
“3/4ths the states never ratified such a measure!” More astonished looks.

@Charles K. Rowley,
Another remedy is another Constitutional Convention. Three times we came rather near to having one. Just the imminence of a ConCon can make Congress react. There is a lot of anxiety about having one as there really is no agenda that can be enforced on a ConCon. On the other hand, much of the “horse and buggy” provisions in that 1787 instrument is exploited by political graft no matter whose administration is in office. I have a draft instrument coined “Congress 2.0″ of nearly two dozen amendments which includes a confederate vote measure where a 1/5 dissent on germaneness of a bill, or a bill riding measure, in both federal houses then remands the measure to the states for a confederate vote of 2/3rds majority. A compact soveriegnty of states measure. I also have a lame duck provisional legislation and adjournment/recess appointment and pocket veto bypass amendments, and measures to assure members of Congress spend more time with their constituents; and for Senators, the constituency is the state capitol, affording remote visual conferencing be allowed for members to vote. It sure could use more scrutiny and maturation with tweaks and polished.

  1. Seth Richardson says:

February 25, 2011 at 9:52 pm

This section, in conjunction with Article II, Section 1 and Article II, Section 3, delineating the powers and duties of the President are of particular interest at this moment, what with the President deciding all on his own that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is “unconstitutional” and his directing Attorney General Eric Holder not to further defend it in court.

The question of a President’s authority to refuse or fail to enforce duly-enacted laws of Congress is a serious one which I address in some detail at my blog, The Broadside.

The essence of the problem is that if the President has authority to decide for himself what laws are constitutional and what laws are not, he is usurping both the legislative authority of Congress and the judicial authority of the Supreme Court.

It is my view that this comprises an impeachable offense. This very matter was the subject of an impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868. Johnson only survived removal by the Senate by one vote.

As for Holder, he is employed by the United States, which is the People, to represent our interests in court, and to zealously defend ALL laws duly enacted by the Congress, not just the ones he wants to defend or that the President tells him to defend.

He should therefore be disbarred and fired.

  1. Charles K. Rowley says:

February 26, 2011 at 11:35 am

Ralph’s suggestion about a constitutional convention has been discussed recently with respect to the balanced budget amendment proposal. As yet, it falls short of the number of states (two-thirds) required to call the convention. Ralph is correct that even the threat of such a convention tends to bring Congress to heel. The risk is whether a convention – once called – can be constrained to the issue it is supposed to address. After all the 1787 convention ignored its mandate, which was to reform the Articles of Confederation.

Seth’s concern about Presidential overreach is really important. If the United States enjoyed an independent judiciary that is precisely where the federal courts should intervene. But they are filled with inadequates who will not challenge a President. Impeachment is now an entirely political issue and the Congress does not have the votes to impeach and convict a Democratic President. So, such an attempt would be a huge waste of time. Holder holds his position pretty much at Obama’s discretion. And there is not a snowflake’s chance in Hell that Obama will remove a carefully selected ‘brother’ at this time.

 

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Federalist No. 52 – The House of Representatives, From the New York Packet (Madison or Hamilton)

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Guest Essayist: Charles K. Rowley, Ph.D., Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University and General Director of The Locke Institute in Fairfax, Virginia

Let me commence this discussion with an important caveat.  There are two ways in which to evaluate the contributions of the Founding Fathers in drafting and pursuing the ratification of the various Articles and Sections of the United States Constitution.  The first way is by reference to the circumstances of the emerging nation and the knowledge available to the Founders.  The second way is by reference to the circumstances of our time and the accumulated knowledge that is now available.  I shall focus primarily on the first way, given the exigencies of space.

The Federalist, No. 52, written by Hamilton or Madison, explains and justifies Article I, Section 2 of the draft Constitution, with particular regard to the qualifications both of the electors and of those elected to the House of Representatives, and to the length of term for which the representatives were to be elected.  These are centrally important considerations for any Constitution that seeks to establish a Federal Government of strictly enumerated powers, to ensure that elected representatives will faithfully reflect the preferences of a majority of their constituents and yet will not be overly tempted to discriminate against vulnerable minorities.  If the People are to govern, then a suitable definition of the People, and how the People are to impact on government, is of crucial importance.

A key circumstance influencing the Convention was recognition that any shift from the existing Confederation to a new Federation inevitably constituted a fundamental challenge to States’ rights, and must be perceived as a threat to the less populous states.  In order to ratify the Constitution, those issues must be addressed effectively by PUBLIUS.

Naturally, therefore, PUBLIUS emphasized the good sense in requiring that the qualifications of the electors would be the same as those required by each State’s own Constitution for the most numerous branch of that State’s legislature.  Of course, this implied that electoral qualifications might vary across the several States.  Yet, individual States could not manipulate the suffrage by simple legislation to gain advantage in the House of Representatives.  If they engaged in high cost constitutional manipulation, they could do so only by imposing upon their own State legislature any inherent disadvantages of such a manipulation.

Inevitably, norms of the day governed the extent of the suffrage.  For the most part, only propertied male citizens qualified.  Non-citizens (which of course included slaves), male citizens without property, and women need not apply.  This restricted the electorate to some twenty-five percent of the adult population.  But remember that the United States was one of only two emerging democracies.  And Britain, albeit without the taint of slavery, similarly limited the suffrage at that time to a suitably-propertied male minority.

The qualifications of the representatives were a different matter.  They were much less clearly defined by the State Constitutions and more susceptible to uniformity.  PUBLIUS defended the proposal by the Convention that a representative must be at least of the age of twenty-five years, must have been seven years a citizen of the United States, must, at the time of the election, be an inhabitant of the State he was to represent, and, during the time of his service, must be in no office under the United States.  This left the door widely open to would-be candidates, including women and persons without property.  Of course, slaves could not be citizens and, therefore, were excluded from candidacy.

The Convention had decided that the House of Representatives should be composed of Members chosen every second year by the electorate.  This was a truly important judgment, defended by PUBLIUS.  The Founders were well aware of a British history, where monarchs not infrequently had failed to call Parliament for several years when threatened by its fractiousness towards their objectives.  So the regularity of the election would avoid any such deviance on the part of fractious States.  They were also aware that some long-lived parliaments had lost significant contact with their electors, and had culminated in widespread corruption and inefficiencies.

A two-year term was deemed appropriate, in that it would maintain a close linkage between individual representatives and the People without imposing an excessive urgency on their deliberations.  The Founders were not disposed to introduce direct democracy into the federal legislature, recognizing its high cost and limited effectiveness in a geographically dispersed country with a rapidly increasing population of potential voters.

With respect to the two-year term, my judgment is that the Founders were correct.  The House of Representatives would become the engine of the legislature and the Senate, with its six-year staggered terms, would become the brake, especially when transient passions were running high.  Sadly, the great expectations of the Founders regarding the linkage between the People and those that they elected to office would be disappointed.

The Founders failed to anticipate the emergence of powerful political parties that would demand loyalty from their members even when such loyalty conflicted with constituents’ interests.  They failed to anticipate the gerrymandering of districts that would provide incumbent re-election probabilities as high as in many dictatorships.  They failed to anticipate the growth of political action groups and other special interests that would flood political campaigns with funding designed to distort election results away from the interests of the People.  They failed to anticipate the willingness of the United States federal courts to loosen the strictly enumerated powers of the Federal Government by inappropriately redefining key Articles of the Constitution designed to limit the range of collective actions that might impact adversely upon the People.  These developments, however, were products of changing circumstances and advancing political acumen unavailable to the Founders in the dying years of the eighteenth century, and at the very beginning of a great experiment in constitutional republicanism.

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

Charles K. Rowley, Ph.D. is Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University and General Director of The Locke Institute in Fairfax, Virginia.  He is the co-author (with Nathanael Smith) of Economic Contractions in the United States: A Failure of Government. The Locke Institute He blogs at www.charlesrowley.wordpress.com.

 

 

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Federalist No. 73 – The Provision for the Support of the Executive, and the Veto Power, From the New York Packet (Hamilton)

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Guest Essayist: Charles K. Rowley, Ph.D., Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University and General Director of The Locke Institute in Fairfax, Virginia

Federalist # 73 continues with a discussion of the President, dealing particularly with the independence of the executive branch of government and the relevance of the veto power.  As readers will know, Hamilton, more than any other Founding Father, believes in the importance of centralized authority within the federal system, even to the extent of flirting with monarchy.  Although he is writing as PUBLIUS, and reflects to a certain degree, the views of his colleagues, John Jay and James Madison, let me forewarn readers of concerns that most particularly should exercise our minds when reviewing the powers of any centralized presidential authority.

“In constraining any system of government, and fixing the several checks and controls of the constitution, every man ought to be supposed a knave, and to have no better end in all his actions, than private interest” (David Hume, 1752).  “It is better to keep the wolf out the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and claws after he shall have entered” (Thomas Jefferson 1782).  “The very principle of constitutional government requires it to be assumed that political power will be abused to promote the particular purposes of the holder; not because it always is so, but because such is the natural tendency of things, to guard against which is the especial use of free institutions” (John Stuart Mill 1861). So we have been warned!

Now let us review Hamilton’s reasoning in Federalist # 73 in the light of subsequent experience.  As to the issue of support, I have no problem.  Hamilton correctly defends Article II, Section 1, clause 7 of the proposed constitution confirming that the President’s compensation for his services shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he has been elected, and shall constitute his sole emolument from the United States or any individual state.  This protection and constraint is essential to avoid excessive pressure being placed on the President by Congress to pursue goals that others are determined to achieve.  What could not be foreseen, in the late eighteenth-century, is the degree to which the promise of high post-presidential monetary returns may influence the behavior in office of any sitting president.  Presidential libraries, for example, play a significant role in determining the evaluated legacy of any president.  Such libraries are exorbitantly expensive to establish and to maintain.  And no United States president, in recent times, has died in relative poverty – this in sharp contrast to many prime ministers in parliamentary systems of government.

Hamilton’s discussion of Article 1, Section 7 of the proposed constitution is much more interesting.  For here Hamilton balances the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed qualified negative (or veto) power of the President with respect to acts or resolutions of the two houses of the legislature.  In defending this power, Hamilton walks a tight-rope between his belief in strong central authority and his recognition that all political power must be checked and balanced if a republic is long to survive.

In rejecting outright any notion that the president should serve devoid of veto power, Hamilton displays – not without considerable justice in the light of subsequent events – his grave misgivings about the potential for bad behavior of any legislative branch of government.  Instinctively, he recognizes that a largely self-serving legislature would succumb to the temptation to impose its will upon a defenseless president in the absence of presidential armor.  The question, for Hamilton, is only whether that armor should be absolute or qualified.

At this point, in my judgment, Hamilton blinks when confronting the likely true nature of a president’s political role.  Surely he acknowledges some force in the argument that it is ‘not to be presumed a single man would possess more virtue and wisdom than a number of men; and that unless this perception should be entertained, it would be improper to give the executive magistrate any species of control over the legislative body.’  However, he dismisses this concern on the ground that the more significant danger emanates from the predatory ambitions of the legislature.  At the time, the Founders had in mind the name of George Washington, as their most preferred first president.  And few would deny that George Washington was a man of wisdom, impeccable personal integrity, and high honor.  But would one feel as comfortable in making those suppositions about a Ulysses S. Grant, an Andrew Jackson, a Franklin Roosevelt, or a Richard Nixon?  I do not think so.

In any event, thankfully, Hamilton comes down in favor of a qualified-over an absolute-veto, albeit by faulty analysis, and almost certainly because he is writing as PUBLIUS and not as Hamilton.  Hamilton’s concern is not at all over the prospect that an absolute-veto power would be sorely abused – which surely would have proved to be the case – but rather that such a power might be under-utilized by presidents whose scruples might hold them back from exercising powers of such a magnitude.  History advises us that homo politicus pervades the executive branch of government just as much as he pervades the legislative branch.  Presidents would have deployed absolute-veto power quite unscrupulously, as if to the manner born.

The central issue in Federalist # 73 thus centers on the degree to which the veto power is to be qualified.  Hamilton defends the requirement of a two-third majority in each house of the legislature to override a presidential veto and to pass a vetoed-bill into law.  This super-majority, of course, is arbitrary, but, in principle can be justified.

In viewing the legislative process from an economic perspective, it is useful to reflect upon two expected costs of any kind of collective choice.  On the one side, are aggregated expected external costs that collective actions may impose on individual electors.  Expected external costs decline as the requisite vote super-majority increases.  On the other side, are the expected costs of reaching legislative decisions.  These costs increase as the requisite vote-majority increases.  A rational vote-mechanism will try to minimize the joint expected external and decision-making costs.  Evidently, as the salience of an issue rises, so the super-majority vote-requirement should increase.  If, in general, presidents contemplate the veto more with respect to major than to minor bills, then the qualified majority rule is economically justified, because expected external costs are higher in such a situation.

The debate over Hamilton’s defense of the qualified-negative naturally focused on analogies with the British monarchy, with many commentators noting that the unjustifiable rights and privileges of the British monarch should vehemently be denied to any United States president.  For the most part, Hamilton claimed that the veto power was defensive in nature, allowing the president to defend the People against excessive legislative zeal, not to allow the president to impose his own will on the People.  Such arguments prevailed in the ratification process.

With hindsight, however, Hamilton was wrong in this assessment.  The qualified-veto power has provided presidents with considerable opportunities to exercise a third-chamber role in the legislature.  The knowledge, ex ante, that a president will veto an unacceptable bill, forces the legislature to logroll with the president when formulating major bills, in order to anticipate and to frustrate the application of a veto.  Increasingly, unscrupulous presidents have taken advantage of this recognition to shift from defense into aggression in the legislative process not always, by any means, to the advantage of the People.

As the regulatory authority of the executive branch increased – most notably since the Civil War – so the legislative powers of the presidency have advanced, to the extent that, arguably, they now exceed those enjoyed by any British monarch even at the peak of the Divine Right principle.  Health care reform, fiscal stimulus, cap and trade, card-check, and immigration policies have been driven and fashioned, since January 2009, much less by the Democrat-controlled Congress, than by the administration of President Obama.  These policy initiatives, in many respects, may turn out to be inimical to the underlying interests of the People.

Predictably, public officials imbued with power constantly ask for more.  That is the true nature of homo politicus.  Instinctively, therefore, the People – who by nature cherish their lives, liberties and properties – should recoil instinctively from any attempt to extend such power.  The line-item veto is just such an example.

The line-item veto, or partial veto, is the power of an executive authority to nullify or cancel specific provisions of a bill – usually a budget appropriations bill – without vetoing the entire legislative package.  Such line-item vetoes are usually qualified by legislative override provisions.  In 1986, President Ronald Reagan, in his State of the Union Address, asked the Congress for such an authority: “Give me the authority to veto waste, and I’ll take the responsibility, I’ll make the cuts, I’ll take the heat.”  The Congress refused this overture, not least because the Democrat-majority in the House of Representatives sensibly anticipated that much more than waste would be vetoed by this president on the social side of the budget.

In 1995, President Bill Clinton repeated this request in his State of the Union address.  An unwise Congress granted his request in the Line Item Veto Act of 1996.  President Clinton deployed this power 82 times in 11 budget bills, until the United States Supreme Court correctly determined, in 1998, that unilateral amendment or repeal of only parts of a statute violate the Presentment Clause of the Constitution.  Ambitious presidents ceaselessly search for such additional authority.  President George W. Bush once again requested a line-item veto power in 2006, this time setting out a complex process designed to avoid the Supreme Court ruling.  Fortunately, the loss of any Republican-majority in Congress intervened to deny him this dangerous privilege.

The executive branch currently enjoys excessive power in the United States political process, threatening the replacement of the separation of powers by the imposition of an Imperial Presidency.  The People will be wise indeed to constrain, rather than to extend, the powers of the executive branch – not least by revisiting the expansive interpretations of the General Welfare and the Commerce clauses by the Supreme Court – if our precious constitutional republic is long to survive repeated attempts to subvert its original design.

Friday, August 6th, 2010

Charles K. Rowley, Ph.D. is Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University and General Director of The Locke Institute in Fairfax, Virginia.  He is co-author (with Nathanael Smith) of Economic Contractions in the United States: A Failure of Government. The Locke Institute (#).  He blog s- at #.

 

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Federalist No. 85 – Some Final Thoughts, From McLean’s Edition, New York (Hamilton)

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Guest Essayist: Charles K. Rowley, Ph.D., Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University and General Director of The Locke Institute in Fairfax, Virginia

In writing about Federalist No. 85 – the final paper in a lengthy series of defenses of the proposed Constitution for the United States of America – it is entirely appropriate that I have just returned from a several day visit to Colonial Williamsburg.  For that historic site epitomizes better perhaps than any other location in America – even perhaps than Philadelphia – the Spirit of Revolution and Reform that swept through the 13 colonies immediately prior to July 4, 1776, and that governed the constitutional discourse, both immediately following victory over the British Empire, and in the wake of the evident failure of those Articles of Confederation that had led the former colonies on their first nervous lap on the road to a full Union.

To hear once again those now-treasured words of Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington, in the very location where they were heard for the very first time, within the context of torn loyalties and divided families, is to recognize that a rare constitutional moment occurred during those immediate pre-revolution years between the passage of the Stamp Act and the military engagements to the North at Lexington and Concord.  To watch as dedicated 21st century young American visitors reenact key events, eagerly volunteering to serve in General Washington’s miniscule, rag-tag army, in the face of almost certain death and, as bravely defiant Williamsburg citizens, jeering at the Traitor, Benedict Arnold, following his military investment of the capital city of independent Virginia, is to feel pride, even as an Englishman, in the Spirit that will take George Washington’s army to its key victory over the British army of General Cornwallis at Yorktown, on October 19, 1781, and that eventually will make the United States exceptional in the eyes of the world.

So now it is May 28, 1788, almost 12 years since the Declaration of Independence, and 7 years since Yorktown.  Alexander Hamilton, on this, day accepts the honor, and the enormous responsibility, of firing up that Constitutional Spirit in one concluding paper, in what has proved to be a lengthy, and occasionally rancorous, debate between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists that he had formally initiated in Federalist No. 1, almost one full-year earlier, on October 27, 1787.  Evidently, this is a moment that demands statesmanship of the highest order.

Will Alexander Hamilton fulfill that awesome destiny that he has shouldered so willingly?  His task is delicately balanced between firing up the spirit of his readers by soaring rhetoric, while yet holding their feet to the glowing embers of political reality that evidently confront the emerging nation.  For, this is not a fairy-tale, where everyone may expect to live happily ever after.  On the other side of the fateful constitutional decision, there will be losers as well as winners, though not every one will yet know on which side of that divide he will eventually fall, or for how long he will so remain.

Hamilton rises brilliantly to his task, blending persuasive rhetoric with common-sense realism in a masterly contribution full of insights for those who would lead their state governments to a final judgment, yet written with a clarity that would be greatly appreciated by the People.  His opening words focus succinctly on the two remaining issues under serious contention:

“According to the formal division of the subject of these papers, announced in my first number, there would appear still to remain for discussion, two points, ‘the analogy of the proposed government to your own state constitution,’ and ‘the additional security, which its adoption will afford to republican government, to liberty and to property.”

Even these issues, Hamilton recognizes, have been fully anticipated and discussed in the progress of the debate.  He dispenses with these remaining concerns in two paragraphs that you can quickly embrace and which I shall here bypass.

The remainder of Federalist No. 85 focuses attention on what I shall call the ‘constitutional spirit’ that ought to govern the People and their state representatives in deciding whether or not to endorse the draft constitution.  At a time well before the emergence of public choice, and extrapolating from a history of failed constitutions, Hamilton asks each individual to appeal to his better angels in approaching the constitutional decision, to raise himself above the level of politics as it is, to a meta-level of rules that will delineate the very nature of the politics that must play out within its limitations:

“Let us now pause and ask ourselves whether, in the course of these papers, the proposed constitution has not been satisfactorily vindicated from the aspersions thrown upon it, and whether or not it has been shown to be worthy of the public approbation, and necessary to the public safety and prosperity.  Every man is bound to answer these questions to himself, according to the best of his conscience and understanding, and to act agreeably to the genuine and sober dictates of his judgment.  This is a duty, from which nothing can give him a dispensation.  ‘Tis one that he is called upon, nay constrained by all the obligations that form the bands of society, to discharge sincerely and honestly.  No partial motive, no particular interest, no pride of opinion, no temporary passion or prejudice, will justify to himself, to his country or to his posterity, an improper election of the part he is to act.”

These are powerful words of persuasion.  But Hamilton does not rely on rhetoric alone.  He knows instinctively, well before a relevant public choice literature has emerged, that individuals require little prodding so to behave.  If the constitution is adopted, together with the amendment process that it prescribes, it will be of long duration, it will survive, indeed, well beyond the life-span of any individual.  Even though each individual may be well aware of where he stands at this time, what he expects to lose and to gain by his actions, he cannot foresee the future.  He cannot know what will transpire for his offspring, and for their offspring, into an indefinite future.  As such, the edge of narrow self-interest is naturally blunted, and a nudge rather than a shove is all that is required for man to rely upon his better angels in the constitutional moment that he immediately confronts.

So what now is left?  The proposed constitution, as Hamilton well understands, is a compromise carefully constructed by a dedicated convention at Philadelphia.  It will not be perceived as perfect, perhaps, by any man, surely not by many.  The urge to make perfect in a naturally imperfect world must be contained, because unattainable perfection must always prove to be the deadly enemy of the feasible best.  Hamilton addresses this issue transparently and to powerful effect, distinguishing between the writing of an entirely new proposed constitution and the amending of a constitution that has been agreed-upon.  Writing again well in advance of public choice insights, Hamilton seizes on the essence of this difference:

“We may of course expect to see, in any body of men charged with its original formation, very different combinations of the parts upon different points.  Many of those who form the majority on one question may become the minority on a second, and an association dissimilar to either may constitute the majority on a third.  Hence the necessity of moulding and arranging all the particulars which are to compose the whole in such a manner as to satisfy all the parties to the compact; and hence also an immense multiplication of difficulties and casualties in obtaining the collective assent to a final act.”Hamilton does not have to remind his readers of the great fortune of the convention in Philadelphia in meeting in a building carefully protected from all external interference – the streets themselves were covered with straw to deaden the sound of passers-by – in meeting under the magisterial leadership of George Washington, in meeting under the brilliant intellectual guidance of James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, with the energetic presence of the First American, Benjamin Franklin.  Such favorable circumstances surely would not be replicated in any second attempt.  In their absence, chaos might well be expected to ensue.

So, Hamilton reminds his readers of how much simpler the Article V amendment process is designed to be, focusing as he anticipates, on one issue at a time, with qualified majority, rather than unanimity, its prescribed mechanism, and with the convention route available to bypass any danger of Congressional resistance to state initiatives.  Hamilton is aware that 7 out of the 13 states are already committed to the great enterprise.  His final paper is a brilliant and ultimately successful exercise to bag the remaining 6.  The threat of anarchy, should the venture fail, proves to be sufficient to mollify dissent and to complete the Union.

Because this is the final Federalist Paper, and I have the advantage over Alexander Hamilton of being able to look back on the constitutional achievement of the Founders, let me close with some brief thoughts on what has transpired over the two centuries and more of its existence.

The Constitution itself is a triumph, a remarkable document forged by brilliant political philosophers.  Foremost among the Founders was James Madison, who, prior to the Philadelphia convention, studied what was wrong with republics, old ones and new ones, how they failed and why they were failing.  He studied what was wrong, and why they failed, so that he could create a republic that would not fail.  For the most part, he was successful.  The parchment of the constitution is as good as it could be.

It is now badly tattered, not because the Founders failed, but because their successors too often have twisted its meaning.  The Founders for the most part were devout Christians who understood that man’s creation operated under Divine guidance.  The United States prospered and grew in freedom under Divine Providence.  It has fallen on darker days as secular notions of Manifest Destiny have replaced those of the Divine.

The United States prospered and grew in freedom when the checks and balances of the Constitution each played their designated role in preserving a strictly limited government of enumerated powers, and when states rights were honored according to the Constitution.  It has fallen on darker days as Congress has relinquished many of its powers to create an Imperial Presidency; and has stretched across the constitutional divide to seize powers that do not exist; and as the Congress and the Presidency, acting in concert, have crushed states’ independence.

The United States prospered and grew in freedom when the Judiciary honored the words of the Constitution and construed the words of the parchment in accordance with original intent.  It has fallen on darker days since the Judiciary has rendered the words of the parchment meaningless in an attempt to pursue social and economic agendas never contemplated for the federal government by the Founders.

That is why this project on Constituting America is so important at this time of grave uncertainty for the future of this nation.  It is for the youth of America to reaffirm the Spirit of America that has been so sadly disregarded by its elders, and to return the United States to the Divine Providence that is the life-spring of its People’s greatest achievements.

Charles K. Rowley, Ph.D. is Duncan Black Professor of Economics at George Mason University and General Director of The Locke Institute in Fairfax, Virginia.  He is co-author (with Nathanael Smith) of Economic Contractions in the United States: A Failure of Government. The Locke Institute (www.thelockeinstitute.org).  He blogs at www.charlesrowley.wordpress.com.

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