Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

Amending the Constitution Without Amending the Constitution

Article V of the United States Constitution describes that the only lawful methods, of amendment, are by its keepers, the American people. While that may have been the Framers’ intent, an unlawful method of amending the Constitution, through judicial activism, for example, usurps the legislative process of the American people when the courts are used as a legislature. Black’s Law Dictionary defines “judicial activism” as a “philosophy of judicial decision-making whereby judges allow their personal views about public policy, among other factors, to guide their decisions.”[1]

When the Supreme Court renders an opinion about a constitutional provision, that opinion–it is called an “opinion” and not a “law”–has traditionally assumed the status of the Constitution itself; since the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land (see Article VI), the American people and the federal government have given federal court opinions the same status: the law of the land. Nothing in the U.S. Constitution requires this, but that is the way America has operated as a people since the Constitution was ratified. Many distinguished men over the years have warned against this approach:

Thomas Jefferson: “[T]o consider the judges the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.

Andrew Jackson: “The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Congress than the opinion of Congress has over the judges.”

Abraham Lincoln: “[I]f the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court…the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.”

Is the U.S. Constitution “Alive?”

President Woodrow Wilson is credited with originating the concept of a “Living Constitution,” the idea that the Constitution must constantly be updated to reflect changes in the culture and mores of an evolving society. Who best to guide the “evolution” of the Constitution but the legal “scientists” of the federal courts? Why go through the arduous process of amending the Constitution through Article V when the Supreme Court is willing to issue an opinion which will have the same effect as a desired amendment? The Supreme Court has often been viewed as the “legislature of last resort.” Policies which have failed to gain majority acceptance in the Legislative Branch, whether state or federal, are instead “enacted into law” by the Judiciary.

The Anti-federalist called “Brutus”[2] warned: the “power in the judicial, will enable them to mould the government, into almost any shape they please.”

James Madison mentioned in Federalist 51 that the Constitution requires the government “to control itself.”[3]

Congress last proposed an amendment to the Constitution fifty-two years ago, in 1971, the Twenty-sixth Amendment. Scores of proposed amendments are introduced in Congress each session; a handful may make it out of committee; none have achieved a two-thirds vote on the floor in either chamber, or both chambers, since 1971.

Article V of the United States Constitution, on amending the Constitution, states that when two-thirds (34) of the state legislatures apply to Congress for an amendment convention, Congress shall convene one. Nothing in the Constitution describes how such a convention must operate, or the threshold within the convention for approving amendment proposals before they are transmitted for ratification, but there is ample historical evidence showing how such conventions of the states operated during the founding period and model rules for such a convention have already been composed and tested.[4]

Consider next the alternatives to amending the Constitution through an Article V convention:

  • Wait on the Supreme Court to correct past errant rulings?
  • Wait on Congress to “start following the Constitution?” The 240 years of Supreme Court opinions and interpretations have removed most limitations on Congress’ authority.
  • Wait for Congress to proffer needful amendments? How likely is it that Congress will propose term limits on themselves, propose a balanced budget amendment, narrow the interpretation of general welfare or interstate commerce, propose repealing the Sixteenth and/or Seventeenth Amendments, or propose any amendment which results in a reduction of their jurisdiction or power?

The “Article V Question” is indeed controversial. Some opponents insist it will do more damage than good. Still, with arguments on both sides, correctly amending the Constitution remains in maintaining the principle that “the United States Constitution prescribes within the document the only lawful methods of amendment, by its keepers, the American people.”

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people. CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter @constitutionled.

[1] As quoted in “Takings Clause Jurisprudence: Muddled, Perhaps; Judicial Activism, No” DF O’Scannlain, Geo. JL & Pub. Pol’y, 2002.

[2] The identity of Brutus is unknown, but scholars have suggested he was either Melancton Smith of New York or John Williams of Massachusetts. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutus_(Antifederalist).

[3] James Madison, Federalist No. 51, 1788, read at: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed51.asp.

[4] https://conventionofstates.com/videos/official-convention-of-states-historic-simulation-live.

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Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

Prior to achieving statehood in March 1791, the Republic of Vermont placed a provision in their 1786 State Constitution. Every seven years, the people would elect a 13-person Council of Censors who would examine whether: “the Constitution has been preserved inviolate in every part, during the last septenary (including the year of their service;) and whether the legislative and executive branches of government have performed their duty, as guardians of the people, or assumed to themselves, or exercised other or greater powers than they are entitled to by the Constitution: they are also to inquire, whether the public taxes have been justly laid and collected in all parts of this Commonwealth–in what manner the public monies have been disposed of–and whether the laws have been duly executed.”[i] This Council would: “recommend to the Legislature the repealing such laws as appear to them to have been enacted contrary to the principles of the Constitution; these powers they shall continue to have, for, and during the space of one year from the day of their election, and no longer. The said Council of Censors shall also have power to call a Convention, to meet within two years after their sitting, if there appears to them an absolute necessity of amending any article of this Constitution which may be defective–explaining such as may be thought not clearly expressed–and of adding such as are necessary for the preservation of the rights and happiness of the people; but the articles to be amended, and the amendments proposed and such articles as are proposed to be added or abolished, shall be promulgated at least six months before the day appointed for the election of such Convention, for the previous consideration of the people, that they may have an opportunity of instructing their delegates on the subject.” (Emphasis added)

Laying on land claimed by both New Hampshire, New York and, at times, Canada, Vermont finally became an independent republic on January 15, 1777. It called itself the State of Vermont but failed to receive recognition by any country until admitted to the union on March 4, 1791.[ii] Because of its independency, Vermont was not invited to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. If it had been invited, would these ideas of constitutional review and revision have made it into the United States Constitution? If the U.S. Constitution had contained such a provision, what sort of amendments might have been ratified over these 234 years (as of 2023). And over these years, would the Constitutional “Council of Censors” find, repeatedly, that the Constitution had not “been preserved inviolate in every part”?

Amendment Under the Articles of Confederation

One of the chief defects of the Articles of Confederation, found in Article XIII, reads in part: “nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of [these Articles]; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.”[iii] (Emphasis added)

This requirement for unanimity among the states meant that the Articles would never be amended or otherwise improved. In his Vices of the Political System of the United States, James Madison’s “homework assignment” to himself, he fails to mention this flaw among the twelve “vices” he identifies; it could be that much of the “blame” for America’s moving to a new Constitution is due to this one defect. At the Constitutional Convention, Charles Pinckney said “it is to this unanimous consent [provision of the Articles], the depressed situation of the Union is undoubtedly owing. Had the measures recommended by Congress and assented to, some of them by eleven and others by twelve of the States, been carried into execution, how different would have been the complexion of Public Affairs? To this weak, this absurd part of the Government, may all our distresses be fairly attributed.”[iv]

In 1781, a proposal was made to amend the Articles of Confederation to give Congress the power to set an impost on goods. Rhode Island refused to approve the measure. As described in the notes of delegate James Madison, “[t]he small district of Rhode Island put a negative upon the collective wisdom of the continent.” Just as Rhode Island’s veto prevented the adoption of an impost in 1781, New York would be the sole state to obstruct a second impost attempt two years later.

Early in 1785, a Congressional committee recommended amending the Articles of Confederation to give Congress power over commerce. Congress sent the proposed amendment to the state legislatures; only a few states responded.

Later that year, in a letter to James Warren, George Washington, wrote:  “In a word, the confederation appears to me to be little more than a shadow without the substance;..Indeed it is one of the most extraordinary things …that we should confederate for National purposes, and yet be afraid to give the rulers of that nation… sufficient powers to order and direct the affairs of the same.”[v]

In 1786, Charles Pinckney proposed a revision of the Articles. A committee debated the proposal and recommended granting Congress power over both foreign and domestic commerce, and empowering Congress to collect money owed by the states. By now, convinced that at least one state would disagree, Congress never sent the measure to the states. Given this history, it appeared to the Constitutional Convention delegates that something less than unanimity was required to amend the new Constitution they had drafted.

Amendment at the Constitutional Convention

Item seventeen of the Virginia Plan, introduced in the “Grand Convention” on May 29, 1787, stated: “Resolved. that provision ought to be made for the amendment of the articles of Union, whensoever it shall seem necessary;” There  were many provisions of the Virginia Plan to discuss and debate. The delegates did not discuss a process of amendment until a month before the end of the convention.

The U.S. Constitution, Analysis and Interpretation website,[vi] provides this account of the debates over what became Article V of the new United States Constitution:

Alexander Hamilton … suggested that Congress, acting on its own initiative, should have the power to call a convention to propose amendments.[vii] In his view, Congress would perceive the need for amendments before the states.15 Roger Sherman took Hamilton’s proposal a step further, moving that Congress itself be authorized to propose amendments that would become part of the Constitution upon ratification by all of the states.16 James Wilson moved to modify Sherman’s proposal to require three-fourths of the states for ratification of an amendment.17 James Madison offered substitute language that permitted two-thirds of both houses of Congress to propose amendments, and required Congress to propose an amendment after two-thirds of the states had suggested one.18 This language passed unanimously.19

But on September 15, 1787, two days before the convention adjourned for the last time, Article V of the draft Constitution was again discussed. To that point, the approved wording gave all power to Congress to officially propose amendments, although the states could suggest them. Virginia’s George Mason rose and cautioned that: “No amendments of the proper kind would ever be obtained by the people, if the Government should become oppressive (as Madison wrote in his notes), as he verily believed would be the case.” Gouverneur Morris and Elbridge Gerry then moved to require a convention on application of two-thirds of the states and the motion passed “nem: con:” (unanimously). And this provided the alternate method of proposing constitutional amendments: a convention of the states. But notice the rationale for this alternate method of amendment: should Congress become oppressive.

The process of amendment placed in Article V was further debated in the state ratifying conventions, the records of Massachusetts,[viii] North Carolina[ix] and Virginia[x] particularly recording the concerns of delegates. Some convention delegates, like Virginia’s Edmund Randolph, who refused to sign the Constitution, even called for an amending convention[xi] to be immediately convened to fix the “deficiencies” in the Constitution before they went into operation, which would make them harder to correct. Madison thought the idea dangerous. Randolph’s suggestion never gained momentum and the Constitution was ratified by Virginia on June 26, 1788, four days after New Hampshire’s ratification “sealed the deal” because it was the ninth state to ratify, the number of states required by the new Constitution. Less than a year later, the new national government went into operation.

Amending the Constitution – Correctly

Article V of the United States Constitution contains two methods of proposing amendments and two methods of ratifying amendments. Congress, with a two-thirds vote of both chambers, can propose an amendment for ratification by the states and the states themselves, in a convention called for that purpose, can propose amendments for ratification. Over America’s history, all 27 current amendments have been proposed by Congress, none by a convention of the states.

Ratification of a proposed amendment can also take two forms: ratification by three-fourths of the several state legislatures (38) or ratification by three-fourths of state conventions held for that purpose, Congress may “propose” either method. Over America’s history, the later method of ratification has been used only once, to ratify the Twenty-first Amendment.

As many as five thousand amendments have been proposed in Congress since the Constitution went into effect in 1789 and only twenty-seven survived the high hurdle of committee discussions/votes followed by super majority floor votes in both chambers.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people. CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter @constitutionled.

[i] https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a5s1.html.

[ii] It was Vermont’s admission to the Union which required ratification of the Bill of Rights by ten states versus the nine required to ratify the Constitution itself.

[iii] https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/articles-of-confederation.

[iv] Charles Pinckney, Observations on the Plan of Government Submitted to the Federal Convention of May 28, 1787, reprinted in 3 Farrand’s Records, supra note 1, at 120–21.

[v] https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch5s9.html.

[vi] https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artV-2/ALDE_00013047/#ALDF_00017913

[vii] https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artV-2/ALDE_00013047/#ALDF_00017913

[viii] https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a5s7.html.

[ix] https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a5s10.html.

[x] https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a5s9.html.

[xi] https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a7s4.html.

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Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

Essay Read by Constituting America Founder, Actress Janine Turner

 

 

Why Government?

Thomas Jefferson said it most succinctly: “to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.” We could end this discussion right there – the “appropriate role and purpose of government” is the “security, the protection of unalienable rights,” but we all know there is more to the story.

Americans today are losing touch with the concept of God-given, unalienable rights, some in fact firmly reject the idea, even the existence of such rights, believing instead that government is not only the protector of our rights, but also their source. America’s Founders rejected this concept out of hand. As Jefferson clearly stated, we “are endowed by [our] creator with certain unalienable rights.” He made a similar observation two years prior in his Summary View of the Rights of British America[i] and later in his 1785 Notes on the State of Virginia.[ii]

The Source of Rights

Today, however, when someone speaks of “natural law” or “natural rights” they should be asked to clarify whether they are referring to God-given natural rights or rights which accrue to humans “naturally” through a social contract or “the nature of things.” The use of the adjective “inherent” in describing rights, as George Mason did in the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights,[iii] lends itself to two different interpretations, the rights are either uniquely inherent to humans as creations of God or are uniquely inherent to humans as the apex species of evolution. Given this, I prefer “unalienable” to “inherent.”

Though a Christian (he authored “The Truth of the Christian Religion”), the Dutch political philosopher Hugo Grotius[iv] promoted the idea (borrowed from Cicero and others) that natural law was created by the natural order and was not, or at least not necessarily a creation of God. Natural law did not require God’s revelation but could be discovered simply and solely through human reason. While America’s Founders knew of and respected Grotius, particularly his famous 1625 On the Law of War and Peace (De Jure Belli ac Pacis), as we see will in the following quotations, they held to a theistic source for both natural law and natural rights.

But even America’s leaders had to remind their fellow citizens of this from time to time. Writing in reply to an essay from “The Farmer,”[v] Alexander Hamilton explained:

“The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms[vi] and false reasonings is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to a parity of privileges. You would be convinced, that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race, and that civil liberty is founded in that; and cannot be wrested from any people, without the most manifest violation of justice. Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not a thing, in its own nature, precarious and dependent on human will and caprice; but it is conformable to the constitution of man, as well as necessary to the well-being of society…”To grant that there is a supreme intelligence who rules the world and has established laws to regulate the actions of his creatures; and still to assert that man, in a state of nature, may be considered as perfectly free from all restraints of law and government, appears to a common understanding altogether irreconcilable. Good and wise men, in all ages, have embraced a very dissimilar theory. They have supposed that the deity, from the relations we stand in to himself and to each other, has constituted an eternal and immutable law, which is indispensably obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution whatever. This is what is called the law of nature . . . . Upon this law depend the natural rights of mankind: the Supreme Being gave existence to man, together with the means of preserving and beatifying that existence. He endowed him with rational faculties, by the help of which, to discern and pursue such things, as were consistent with his duty and interest, and invested him with an inviolable right to personal liberty, and personal safety . . . . The Sacred Rights of Mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the Hand of the Divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”[vii]

Human beings have natural, unalienable rights which are incapable of being “be erased or obscured” by any act of man or government.

In his 1765 Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, John Adams insisted that our rights were “derived from the great Legislator of the universe.”

Virginian lawyer George Mason, arguing in the 1772 case of Robin v. Hardaway, (1 Jefferson 109) affirmed that:

“The laws of nature are the laws of God: A legislature must not obstruct our obedience to him from whose punishments they cannot protect us. All human constitutions which contradict His laws, we are in conscience bound to disobey. Such have been the adjudications of our courts of justice.” [viii]

Other American Founders, such as John Dickinson, expressed similar views:

“Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness… We claim them from a higher source – from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence, which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power without taking our lives. In short, they are founded on the immutable maxims of reason and justice.”[ix]

Dickinson was an intriguing man, largely overlooked today. Born into a family with long-standing ties to the Quaker religion, Dickinson received an education in the law at the Middle Temple, London, before setting up his practice near Philadelphia. He inherited land holdings in both Pennsylvania and Delaware and became one of the richest men in both states.[x] In 1776, Dickinson represented Pennsylvania at the Continental Congress as it considered independence. His Quaker roots kept him from openly voting for independence (and inevitable war), so on the fateful day of July 2, 1776, Dickinson (along with Robert Morris) “absented himself” to give the Pennsylvania delegation a majority in favor of Virginia’s resolution for independence. Once the resolution for independence passed, Dickinson similarly refused to vote in favor of Jefferson’s Declaration, a decision which then forced his resignation from the Pennsylvania delegation. Once out of the Congress, Dickinson surprisingly joined the Pennsylvania militia as a Brigadier General, becoming one of only two members of the First Continental Congress who actively took up arms during the war. Dickinson capped his long public service career by representing Delaware at the Constitutional Convention.

In this statement on natural rights, Dickinson repeats familiar themes: rights originating with a Creator God, resulting from God’s natural law, and which “cannot be taken from us by any human power.”

James Wilson, one of six men who signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, after calling God “the promulgator as well as the author of natural law,” observed in his famous 1790 Lectures on Law:

“I here close my examination into those natural rights, which, in my humble opinion, it is the business of civil government to protect, and not to subvert, and the exercise of which it is the duty of civil government to enlarge, and not to restrain. I go farther; and now proceed to show, that in peculiar instances, in which those rights can receive neither protection nor reparation from civil government, they are, notwithstanding its institution, entitled still to that defence, and to those methods of recovery, which are justified and demanded in a state of nature.”[xi]

To protect and enlarge our natural rights, this becomes the “business” of civil government, or at least one of the responsibilities or duties of government.

The History of Rights (much abridged)

Rights, and the security thereof, had gradually become a central focus of Englishmen as they wrestled with two oftentimes opposing concepts: the divine (i.e., God-endorsed) right of kings on the one hand, and the unalienable, God-given rights of individuals on the other hand. Magna Carta became a waypoint in this investigation; forcing King John to subordinate his divine right and accept responsibility for protecting certain individual rights, including due process of law and trial by jury.

Magna Carta was soon ignored, but was eventually replaced by newer versions. In the 17th century, Magna Carta’s rights were supplemented by Parliament’s Petition of Right (1628) and the English Bill of Rights (1689). This growing focus on natural rights accompanied America’s settlers as they sailed for the colonies, being encapsulated in the first colonial charters as “liberties, franchises and immunities”[xii] of Englishmen. From there, rights were expanded and reinforced, expounded in a host of colonial documents, beginning with the Mayflower Compact and ending one hundred and seventy-one years later with the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. Over this period, the colonists seldom passed up an opportunity to reiterate their essential rights. A partial list:

1620 – Mayflower Compact (Plymouth)

1636 – Code of Law (Plymouth)

1639 – Fundamental Orders (Connecticut)

1639 – Act for the Liberties of the People (Maryland)

1641 – Body of Liberties (Massachusetts)

1677 – Declaration of the People (Virginia)

1701 – Charter of Privileges (Pennsylvania)

1763 – The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (James Otis)

1764 – The Rights of Colonies Examined (Stephen Hopkins)

1765 – Declaration of Rights and Grievances (Stamp Act Congress)

1766 – An Inquiry into the Rights of The British Colonies (Richard Bland)

1772 – The Rights of the Colonists (Samuel Adams)

1774 – A Summary View of the Rights of British America (Thomas Jefferson)

1774 – Declaration and Resolves (1st Continental Congress)

1775 – Declaration on the Causes of Taking Up Arms (2nd Congress)

1776 – (January) Bill of Rights (New Hampshire Convention)

1776 – (June) Declaration of Rights (Virginia)

1776 – (July) Declaration of Independence (2nd Continental Congress)

1776 – (July) Declaration of Rights (Pennsylvania)

1776 – (September) Declaration of Rights (Delaware)

1780 – Declaration of Rights (Massachusetts)

1788 – Declaration of Rights (North Carolina)

1790 – Of the Natural Rights of Individuals -Lectures on Law (James Wilson)

1791 – The U.S. Bill of Rights

Natural law and the natural rights which spring from them are enjoying a resurgence in popularity of late, thanks to the scholarly work of men like John Finnis in Natural Law and Natural Rights (Clarendon Law Series, 2nd Edition; J. Budziszewski in Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law; Hadley Arkes in Mere Natural Law: Originalism and the Anchoring Truths of the Constitution; and others. As John Horvat explains, “the growing acceptance of natural law theory among frustrated Americans is shaking the legal field.”[xiii] This resurgence within the legal and scholarly communities appears to terrify some, however, natural law and natural rights are still ignored or misunderstood by the vast majority of Americans.

The Extent of Natural Rights

There is no known “inventory” of natural rights, at least none that all political philosophers or natural rights expositors over the millennia have agreed upon. The Founders knew of course of the Ten Commandments, which form the core of “the laws of Nature’s God.” If God commands “thou shalt not steal” it seems reasonable to derive from that “a right to acquire and retain property.” “Thou shalt not murder” denotes a “right to the preservation of one’s life.” But no Founding Father appears to have attempted an enumeration of all natural rights.  Indeed, as James Iredell explained at the 1788 North Carolina Ratifying Convention, such an enumeration, if used as the basis for a Bill of Rights:

“…would not only be useless, but dangerous, … it would be implying, in the strongest manner, that every right not included in the [enumeration] might be impaired by the government without usurpation; and it would be impossible to enumerate every one. Let any one make what collection or enumeration of rights he pleases, I will immediately mention twenty or thirty more rights not contained in it.”[xiv]

But a useful list of those essential rights the Founders collectively supported can nevertheless be gleaned from their writings. As Chester James Antieau explains:[xv] “the natural rights on which there was the largest agreement and the greatest significance were … freedom of conscience and religion, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, property, the right to govern and tax themselves, and freedom of communication.”

Some Founders also supported rights derived from the common law, such as the right to trial by jury, and freedom from warrantless searches, but such rights cannot be denominated as “natural” rights since they would have no rational basis in a hypothetical state of nature.

How Should Rights Be Secured?

The next question we must consider is: how should the government fulfill its responsibility of protecting our unalienable rights? Is a Bill of Rights necessary, or even appropriate?

James Madison and other Founders considered the Constitution itself to be a “bill of rights.” A constitution of limited and enumerated powers, carefully drawn, will protect individual rights by not providing the new government with the power or authority necessary to infringe on those rights. “For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?” wrote Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 84.[xvi] While the Framers certainly felt they had created a limited power document, replete with checks and balances, history has shown the ambiguity of language to be the Framers’ downfall. The Anti-federalists saw “loopholes”; for instance, the power given the Supreme Court would allow the court to “mould the government, into almost any shape they please.[xvii] The Anti-federalists fumed over the absence of a Bill of Rights, “would it have consumed too much paper?” scowled Patrick Henry. When sent a copy of the Constitution to review, Jefferson replied by gently chiding his friend: “A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inferences.” [xviii]And so a reluctant James Madison agreed to single-handedly champion the project.

The initial draft he submitted to Congress, borrowing heavily from the Virginia Declaration of Rights, contained several protections which did not survive the House and Senate “wordsmithing.” Madison’s treasured “rights of conscience” didn’t even make it through the House Committee on which Madison himself sat!. Despite these setbacks, Madison persisted and the document was finally sent to the states for ratification, achieving that on December 15, 1791, with Virginia’s acceptance. But would a Bill of Rights be enough?

In an October 1788 letter to Thomas Jefferson, Madison had warned that even a Bill of Rights might not be sufficient: “Repeated violations of these parchment barriers have been committed by overbearing majorities in every State. In Virginia I have seen the bill of rights violated in every instance where it has been opposed to a popular current.”[xix] “Tyranny of the majority,” the primary reason the Founders’ abhorred democracy. But infringements of rights do not require a majority, with the help of government even a minority can prevail.

When Governments Become Corrupted

Americans have recently witnessed how a government can be enticed to infringe upon our unalienable rights by a “popular current” arising from even a small minority faction. The revelation that officials in the Executive branch of the federal government colluded with media companies to silence the public expression of viewpoints they did not agree with shocks us, it is reminiscent of the Communist regimes under Stalin and Mao, not to mention the authoritarian governments in present-day Russia and China.

Jefferson believed that: “The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.”[xx]

The Americans are the ultimate sovereigns in their republican form of government; government is their servant, not the reverse. Unfortunately, the American people, by and large, have abandoned the Founders’ view of both law and government.

If there is any good news here it is that at least some Americans, those who understand the societal sea-change being forced upon them, are willing to fight for protection of their unalienable rights. Welcome assistance comes from the present Supreme Court, which is currently staffed with a majority of justices who share an originalist and therefore Founders’ view of rights. But our trust in a temporary majority of originalist justices should be cautioned by the realization that future courts may not be so favorably apportioned. As Jefferson reminds us: “In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”[xxi]

So, it is to the Bill of Rights itself we must turn; is its language sufficient or too open to interpretation? Should we consider the words of the original Bill of Rights as unamendable, or should we be willing to clarify ambiguous 18th century language? Are we to accept our society’s present worldview confusion as inevitable or should we work to correct it?

These are the sort of questions we should be asking, and debating.

In his 1967 Inaugural Address, the great Ronald Reagan cautioned:

Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people.  And those in world history who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.”[xxii]

If we want to continue to enjoy our natural, unalienable, God-given rights, and we wish our posterity to be likewise blessed, we must be prepared to fight for and defend them.

I will conclude with the words of Founder John Jay, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court under the new Constitution, who in 1777, while instructing (charging) a New York grand jury, reminded us:

“Every member of the State ought diligently to read and to study the constitution of his country and teach the rising generation to be free. By knowing their rights, they will sooner perceive when they are violated, and be the better prepared to defend and assert them.”[xxiii]

Note that, for (at that time) Judge Jay, reading the Constitution is not sufficient, it should also be studied, and diligently so. The goal, of course, lies not simply in the reading and studying; the goal is to pass along what you have learned to the next generation of Americans. Even then, the project is not complete; the rising generation requires this knowledge to be better equipped to defend and assert their rights, thus, hopefully, perpetuating a society of freedom and liberty.

John Jay would be proud of the commendable work Constituting America accomplishes in pursuing his charge.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people. CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Gary can be reached at 

gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter @constitutionled.

[i] https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/jeffsumm.asp.

[ii] https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/jefferson/jefferson.html.

[iii] “That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”

[iv] A latinizing of his given name: “Huig van Groot.”

[v] Hamilton was replying to a series of essays, appearing from November 1774 to January 1775, written by “A W. Farmer, (loyalist Bishop Samuel Seabury, the first American Episcopal bishop), who had set out “to detect and expose the false, arbitrary, and tyrannical PRINCIPLES upon which the [Continental] Congress acted, and to point out their fatal tendency to the interests and liberties of the colonies.” To see the arguments Hamilton is “refuting,” the “Farmer’s” letters can be accessed at: http://anglicanhistory.org/usa/seabury/farmer/.

[vi] Sophisms: specious arguments for displaying ingenuity in reasoning or for deceiving someone. Dictionary.com.

[vii] Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, February 23, 1775, New York.

[viii] https://cite.case.law/jefferson/1/109/.

[ix] John Dickinson, An Address to the Committee of Correspondence in Barbados, 1766.

[x] Interestingly, for a short period of time (November 1782-January 1783) Dickinson served as the President of both states.

[xi] http://www.nlnrac.org/node/241.

[xii] 1606 First Virginia Charter, at: https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/first-charter-of-virginia-1606/.

[xiii] https://www.tfp.org/why-the-left-hates-and-is-terrified-by-natural-law/.

[xiv] https://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/conv1788/conv1788.html, p. 192.

[xv] Chester James Antieau, Natural Rights And The Founding Fathers-The Virginians, 17 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 43 (1960), http://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol17/iss1/4.

[xvi] https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed84.asp.

[xvii] Brutus XI, in The Complete Anti-Federalist, Herbert J. Storing, ed., (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981) Volume Two, Part 2, 417-422.

[xviii] Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison, December 20, 1787.

[xix] https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch14s47.html.

[xx] Letter to William Hunter, 11 March 1790., at https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-16-02-0130.

[xxi] Thomas Jefferson, in a draft of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798.

[xxii] This is the version Reagan uttered during his Inaugural Address as President on January 5, 1967, not the more familiar and edited version published afterwards. See: https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/january-5-1967-inaugural-address-public-ceremony.

[xxiii] The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, ed. Henry P. Johnston, A.M. (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890-93). Vol. 1 (1763-1781), p. 164., accessed at https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/johnston-the-correspondence-and-public-papers-of-john-jay-vol-1-1763-1781?html=true.

 

Guest Essayist: Gary Porter
Pres. Theodore Roosevelt in 1904. He influenced Pres. Woodrow Wilson & other progressives to follow. All three 1912 Democratic presidential election candidates claimed to be progressives.


At a Townhall meeting in Hayward, California in 2010, then Congressman Peter Stark conceded: “Yes, the Federal government can do most anything in this country.” This statement would be shocking news to the likes of James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, even “big government” Alexander Hamilton. A government which can “do most anything” is certainly not the government the Framers tried to create in 1787. If Congressman Stark was right, the “limited and enumerated powers” government that Madison believed they had designed no longer existed. If a limited government no longer exists in the United States, there has to be a reason, a cause for such a dramatic change.

The cause, in one word, is “progressivism.” Progressives have worked diligently, mostly quietly, to bring us to the point where “the Federal government can do most anything in this country,” and particularly where the federal court system is willing to elevate the progressive political agenda to the status of constitutional law.

This is not intended to be a comprehensive essay on progressivism, books, books and more books are devoted to that subject; but to proceed we must have a common understanding of what progressivism is and what progressives believe with which to compare to the principles of the United States Constitution.

prə-grĕs′ĭ-vĭz″əm, noun, “A political ideology that favours progress towards better conditions in society.”[i]  “As a political movement, progressivism purports to advance the human condition through social reform based on advancements in science, technology, economic development and social organization.”[ii]

Who doesn’t want to better the human condition? to improve our standard of living? Who would object to such a lofty goal? If that is the goal, how does a society work toward bettering its social, economic and humanitarian conditions? “The devil’s in the details.”

“In the United States, progressivism began as an intellectual rebellion against the political philosophy of Constitutionalism as expressed by John Locke and the Founders of the American Republic, whereby the authority of government depends on observing limitations on its just powers. What began as a social movement in the 1880s[iii], grew into a popular political movement referred to as the Progressive era; in the 1912 United States presidential election, all three U.S. presidential candidates claimed to be progressives.”[iv]

The winning progressive of the 1912 presidential election, Woodrow Wilson, is credited with coining the phrase “Living Constitution,” which holds that the Constitution must be reinterpreted frequently to keep it “relevant” to modern times. But to fully understand progressivism’s effect on the presidency, we must go back to America’s first acknowledged progressive President: Theodore Roosevelt.[v] Roosevelt’s approach to presidential power was that“[t]he executive power [is] limited only by specific restrictions and prohibitions appearing in the Constitution or imposed by Congress under it constitutional powers.”[vi] In other words, there are no limitations to presidential power except those specifically mentioned in the Constitution or acts of Congress. To Roosevelt, the Constitution vested the President with near unlimited power.

But Roosevelt and progressives who followed him ran into twin obstacles: the U.S. Constitution and the principle of majoritarianism. The Constitution created a limited-and-enumerated-powers government and required respect for the law, law created by legislative majorities. Majoritarianism requires 51 percent or better support for a policy to become law. Progressives have never been in a majority in the United States – only a small percentage of Americans, about 12 percent of American adults, [vii] today consider themselves “progressive.” But progressives have one trait in abundance: an unwavering belief they are right, and patience for the “long fight.”

Their first objective was to dismantle the restrictions placed on the federal government by the Constitution, and then, knowing that would not be sufficient, to mold the federal judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court, into a body willing to look beyond the law in favor of societal “progress,” a court system willing to follow the philosophy of Supreme Court Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall: “You do what you think is right, and let the law catch up.”[viii] Until recently, they had succeeded famously in both respects.

What do Progressives believe? Although there are political parties called “Progressive” in other countries, notably countries where socialism is ascendant, there is no Progressive Party in the United States. Wikipedia identifies the Democratic Party as the current embodiment of progressivism in the United States.[ix] But within the Democratic Party there are “classical liberal,” moderate democrat, environmental and other factions. Progressives, while making great inroads, are still a minority. Research by Elaine Kamarck at the Brookings Institution in 2018 found that 44 percent of Democrats identified as a “progressive,” compared to 29 percent in 2016 and 26 percent in 2014.[x]

Bottom line: there is no single acknowledged platform or list of progressive beliefs. But here’s my view after considering multiple sources.

Utopianism. If there is one thing that distinguishes progressivism from other forms of political philosophy, it is an unflinching belief in the perfectibility of man and society. Human society has myriad problems; but progressivism holds that they can all be solved if we simply work together – and implement the solutions progressives have come up with. Mankind is innately good and those infrequent deviations when men and women do wrong should be handled carefully and gently – incarceration is usually a last resort (unless politics get involved; witness the January 6th prisoners).

Atheism/Agnosticism. Although a progressive form of Christianity has reportedly emerged in the last few years (focusing on the so-called “Social Gospel”), progressives typically have no use for God, divine revelation, divine providence, or the concept of original sin.

Universalism/Globalism. Progressives believe a single, one-world government is the perfect vehicle to bring about progressive ends as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Statism. Progressives view government as a tool, perhaps the best tool to achieve the perfect society. While they tout “freedom from government interference” they do not hesitate to use the power of government to achieve their societal ends.

Collectivism/Cooperation. Progressivism holds to a diminished view of individualism and private property, replaced by the need for everyone to cooperate to achieve progressive goals, to include forced “cooperation” if necessary.

Historicism. Historicism is a belief that history must be understood in context, and if the proper progressive-anointed context is not present in the traditional way of teaching certain history, the history must be re-interpreted in the “correct” context (the 1619 Project being the perfect example).

Enhanced Group Rights, Diminished Individual Rights. A diminished view of free speech, for example, replaced by limitations on speech in pursuit of “harmony,” “non-offensiveness” and an obsession with “disinformation.” British police arrested someone recently because their repost of a post on Facebook caused someone “anxiety.”[xi]

Social Justice. “Social Justice” is measured by equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. Social Justice is of paramount importance to the progressive, and the full strength of government should be employed to achieve it. “Too much economic and political power is concentrated in too few hands.”

Living Constitution. As has been quoted, progressivism is at least partially a response to constitutionalism, the idea that a written constitution both empowers and limits the power of the government it creates. But progressives do not abandon the Constitution altogether when they encounter its limits, they simply re-interpret the document to remove the limits. “Progressivism insists that the principled American constitutionalism of fixed natural rights and limited and dispersed powers must be overturned and replaced by an organic, evolutionary model of the Constitution.”[xii]

A typical response of a progressive to being told that something can’t be done for constitutional reasons was voiced in 2010 by Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi: “If the gate Is closed, we will go over the fence, if the fence is too high, we will pole vault in.”[xiii]

Use of the Courts

In a 1912 speech, Theodore Roosevelt complained that the courts often obstruct the will of the people in an unproductive manner. I’m not sure which “people” Roosevelt was talking to, but if you believe this, how do you overcome it? You populate the courts with progressive judges and justices. When you can’t seem to get the Supreme Court to see things your way, you employ a little “arm twisting” such as the famous “Court Packing” threat of FDR.

Perhaps the most compelling proof that progressives see the court as the mechanism for enacting policy preferences which don’t stand a chance in the democratic process was the recent “full-court press” used to try to prevent the confirmation of three conservative justices to the Supreme Court. But even this theater was over-shadowed by the apoplectic reactions that followed the Dobbs decision, in which a conservative-majority court returned the issue of abortion to the democratic process in each state. This, predictably, has led to demands to “pack the court” and return the court to the progressive policy-factory it once was.

Use of the Public Schools

Progressive educator John Dewey, typically called the “father of modern public education,” wrote: “I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform… a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness; and that the adjustment of the individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social reconstruction.”[xiv] (Emphasis added.) Today, it is safe to say, progressives dominate the U.S. public school systems.  They control the curriculum, administration, library book selections and of course the actual teaching that goes on in most classrooms. According to the Center for American Progress, the public school system is graduating more progressives each June.[xv]

The Constitution’s Challenges to Progressivism

Originalism. There is no question that the Founders intended the Constitution to be interpreted as they understood it. In an 1824 Letter to Henry Lee, James Madison insisted that:

“I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution. And if that is not the guide in expounding it, there may be no security for its faithful exercise.”

Thomas Jefferson’s view was similar:

“On every question of construction, let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”

“But the Founders didn’t have to contend with the global threat of climate change” is the frequent retort today. “Certainly, the Constitution must be adapted to deal with this modern threat.” So, who best to “adapt” the Constitution to modern conditions? Why, nine unelected judges in black robes, of course. We certainly can’t leave such an important issue to democracy now, can we?

Checks and Balances. Leaving aside the myth that the Framers created three “co-equal” branches of government,[xvi] the framers did imbed certain safeguards against a single branch of government assuming unwarranted power. “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”[xvii] Unfortunately, many of these “checks and balances” have been systematically disassembled by the Supreme Court. For a list of the court decisions which have essentially shredded the Constitution’s limits on governmental power see here or read: The Dirty Dozen, How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom, 2008, by Robert A. Levy and William Mellor.

Separation of Powers. This doctrine is another traditional restraint on the accumulation of unintended power which has been at least partially dismantled by the Supreme Court. The 1989 decision in Mistretta v. U.S. found that:

“… our jurisprudence has been driven by a practical understanding that in our increasingly complex society, replete with ever changing and more technical problems, Congress simply cannot do its job absent an ability to delegate power under broad general directives. Accordingly, this Court has deemed it “constitutionally sufficient” if Congress clearly delineates the general policy, the public agency which is to apply it, and the boundaries of this delegated authority.” (Emphasis added.)

In other words, the non-delegation of powers doctrine held by John Locke and others of the Founding Era would be ignored, the people not consulted, and Congress simply given this ability to delegate. Making matters worse was the opinion in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.,[xviii] The Supreme Court declared that federal courts should defer to the decisions of Executive Branch agencies when those agencies interpret the guidance in a statute if the “agency’s answer is based on a permissible construction [emphasis added] of the statute.” Some of these unsupported agency rules are challenged in court and overturned, and Congress has the power to overturn them as well, but a legal challenge is an expensive process, a quarter of a million dollars or more, so not every improper rule is challenged.

The Failures of the Progressive Vision

Progressivism came about as a challenge to constitutionalism. It should be clear by now that progressivism and constitutionalism simply cannot coexist; one must yield.

The basic problem with progressivism is that there is no end state, no way to tell whether progressive policies have worked; until the nebulous, undefinable state of “perfection” is reached, there can be only a steady, monotonous march onward toward “progress.”

Progressivism has brought us a federal government that can regulate every aspect of business, whether it deals with interstate commerce or not; a Code of Federal Regulations exceeding 180,000 pages; $2 Trillion in additional costs to U.S. businesses due to regulation compliance, a cost passed on to customers of those businesses; 4,500 plus federal crimes (compared with four in the original Constitution); the unwarranted taking of private property; in short: a government “that can do most anything in this country.”

Constitutionalism yielded during the Warren Court years and made somewhat of a comeback during the Rehnquist Court. What is disturbing to progressives now is the prospect of a new conservative court rolling back the “progress” progressives have made over the last 40-60 years. If there is reason for hope for constitutionalism today it lies in the present Roberts Court, placed during the Trump administration, with a 6-3 conservative to progressive balance. If the court can survive the progressives’ “full-court press” to change this balance, America might begin to see more of the progressive agenda to dismantle the original intentions of the United States Constitution, dismantled in the years ahead.

For further reading:

Progressivism

America Transformed: The Rise and Legacy of American Progressivism, 2021, by Ronald Pestritto.

Excuse Me, Professor, Challenging the Myths of Progressivism, 2015, Lawrence W. Reed.

Progressivism, A Primer on the Idea Destroying America, 2014, by James Ostrowski.

Plundered, How Progressive Ideology is Destroying America, 2012, by Michael Doffman.

How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution, 2006, by Richard Epstein.

The Progressive Era, Liberal Renaissance or Liberal Failure, 1965, Arthur Mann, ed.

The Supreme Court

Supreme Disorder; Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court, 2020, by Ilya Shapiro.

Judicial Tyranny, 2014, by Mark Sutherland.

Storm Center, the Supreme Court in American Politics, 2011, by David Obrien.

Packing the Court, The Rise of Judicial Power and the Coming Crisis of the Supreme Court, 2009, by James Burns.

The Dirty Dozen, How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom, 2008, by Robert A. Levy and William Mellor.

Men In Black, How the Supreme Court is Destroying America, 2005, by Mark Levin.

Courting Disaster, How the Supreme Court is Usurping the Power of Congress and the People, 2004, by Pat Robertson.

The Tempting of America, 1990, by Robert Bork.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people. CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter @constitutionled.

[i] The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism

[iii] Some writers identify the Progressive Era as 1880 to 1920; I contend the Progressive Era never stopped.

[iv] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism

[v] Roosevelt was President from September 14, 1901 to March 4, 1909.

[vi] Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt, ed., Stephen Brennan (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2011), 304–10

[vii] Accessed at https://news.gallup.com/poll/141218/americans-unsure-progressive-political-label.aspx Note, 54%of respondents were “unsure” whether the progressive label fit them.

[viii] https://www.azquotes.com/quote/914008

[ix] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism#Progressive_parties_or_parties_with_progressive_factions

[x] https://www.npr.org/2018/10/29/659665970/as-more-democrats-embrace-progressive-label-it-may-not-mean-what-it-used-to

[xi] https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/man-arrested-for-causing-anxiety-on-facebook/.

[xii] Bradley D. S. Watson, accessed at: https://amgreatness.com/2021/08/11/how-progressives-rewrote-american-history/

[xiii] Nancy Pelosi, accessed at: https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/if-the-gate-is-closed-we-will-go-over-the-fence-if-the-fence-is-too-high-we-will-pole-vault-in

[xiv] John Dewey, My Pedagogic Creed, School Journal vol. 54 (January 1897), pp. 77-80

[xv] https://www.americanprogress.org/article/public-opinion-snapshot-millennials-are-a-progressive-generation/

[xvi] It is an irrefutable fact that the powers of the Congress eclipse those of either of the other two branches.

[xvii] James Madison, Federalist 47.

[xviii] Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984)

 

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Guest Essayist: Gary Porter
"A republic, Madam, if you can keep it."


Nations rise and nations fall. Some would call this the cycle of life, writ large; others would simply offer that nothing is certain beyond death and taxes, certainly not the perpetuity of a nation. We are 235 years into this experiment in self-government we call the United States, and we’ve outlasted the average age of a republic, barely.[i] Some would thus suggest we are living on borrowed time. Are we? The Roman Republic lasted nearly 500 years (509 BC to 27 BC). Is it likely or even possible that ours will as well?

Alexander Fraser Tytler, aka Lord Woodhouselee (1747-1813) was a Scottish historian and professor at the University of Edinburgh. He identified stages which all societies will inevitably experience. A society will proceed “from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependence back into bondage.” Not a very encouraging prediction.

If this is a true prediction of the life of a society (and I don’t suggest it necessarily is) it is tempting to place our American experiment somewhere on this timeline, perhaps we are currently progressing “from abundance to selfishness.” Whether America is “past its prime” has been the subject of debate for quite a while.

Certainly, there are clear signs of decline in America, but is this part of a predictable, inevitable cycle or is this a merely transitory observation?

America’s Founders certainly hoped their work would not be short lived. At the Constitutional Convention, John Dickinson had drafted an address to the delegates – which he appears to have never delivered – reminding them that: “We are not forming plans for a Day Month Year or Age, but for Eternity.” An eternity? Really? Would the proposed new plan of government they had labored over for four months even be given a chance at life? Nine states would have to ratify; would they?

A Republic, if you can keep it,” Benjamin Franklin’s immortal retort, suggests the Founders believed a republic was incapable of “keeping” itself, that human effort was required; but what sort of effort? By whom? How often?  So much uncertainty.

One point they seemed to be in agreement on, one ingredient they believed was necessary for a nation’s longevity was virtue, both public and private. The Founders said this innumerable times in innumerable ways. A sampling:

“…[N]o free government, or the blessing of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.” George Mason, Virginia Declaration of Rights, Section XV [1776].

“Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics. There must be a positive passion for the public good, the public interest, honour, power and glory, established in the minds of the people, or there can be no republican government, nor any real liberty: and this public passion must be superiour to all private passions.” John Adams to Mercy Warren, 1776.

“Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks, no form of government can render us secure. To suppose liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. If there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.” James Madison, Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 20, 1788.

“[A] free government, which of all others is far the most preferable, cannot be supported without virtue.” Samuel Williams, A Discourse on the Love of our Country, 1774.

“It is certainly true that a popular government cannot flourish without virtue in the people.” Richard Henry Lee to Colonel Martin Pickett, March 5, 1786.

“It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?” George Washington, Farewell Address.

But before we go further, let’s ensure we have a common definition of the word “virtue.”

Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, the go-to guide for founding era definitions, contains ten different definitions of “virtue.” The one I believe the Founders most often had in mind, the third in Webster’s list, read:

Moral goodness; the practice of moral duties and the abstaining from vice, or a conformity of life and conversation to the moral law. In this sense, virtue may be, and in many instances must be, distinguished from religion. The practice of moral duties merely from motives of convenience, or from compulsion, or from regard to reputation, is virtue as distinct from religion. The practice of moral duties from sincere love to God and his laws, is virtue and religion. In this sense it is true,”

If this “moral goodness” or “virtue” was so important to the success of a popular government, how was it to be instilled or created in the people?

First, by inspiring it in the people: “The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our people, in a greater measure than they have it now, they may change their rulers, and the forms of government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty.” John Adams, to Zabdiel Adams, 1776.

Second, through the education of children:

Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties, and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of people, it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates … to cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them.” John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776.

“A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district–all studied and appreciated as they merit–are the principal support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty.” Benjamin Franklin.

“It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country.” Noah Webster, On Education of Youth in America, 1790.

Since private and publick Vices, are in Reality, though not always apparently, so nearly connected, of how much Importance, how necessary is it, that the utmost Pains be taken by the Publick, to have the Principles of Virtue early inculcated on the Minds even of children, and the moral Sense kept alive, and that the wise institutions of our Ancestors for these great Purposes be encouraged by the Government. For no people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preservd. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.” Samuel Adams letter to James Warren, November 4, 1775.

Some parents took their educational responsibility quite seriously: “Our Little ones whom you so often recommend to my care and instruction shall not be deficient in virtue or probity if the precepts of a Mother have their desired Effect, but they would be doubly inforced could they be indulged with the example of a Father constantly before them.” Abigail Adams to John Adams, May 7, 1776.

Third, through their churches:

“It is the duty of the clergy to accommodate their discourses to the times, to preach against such sins as are most prevalent, and recommend such virtues as are most wanted. If publick spirit is much wanted, should they not inculcate this great virtue?” John Adams, Novanglus, no. 4.

Virtue was perishable; it needed to be continually “refreshed”: “When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.” Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776.

But even the best-laid plans to inculcate virtue in the people were not expected to have complete success, and the design of government must account for this: “A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired.” Alexander Hamilton. “The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.” James Madison, Speech in the Virginia Constitutional Convention, 2 December 1829. Even the most virtuous among them was to be watched for signs of moral decay: “The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.” James Madison, Federalist No. 57, 1788.

Americans today have lost sight of the idea of virtue; it is not taught in public schools, our government would like to count on it, but seems afraid to even mention the word, and our churches are fast joining the ranks of those who insist all truth is relative including moral truth. Violent crime is generally rising, private property disrespected and voices in the public square are becoming increasingly strident. If John Adams was right, that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other,” there will come a time in this country, perhaps not long off, when the Founders’ Constitution will simply prove ineffective in governing us. There is still time to avoid that outcome, but it will require the conscious efforts of patriots across this great land.

“A people may prefer a free government; but if from indolence, or carelessness, or cowardice, or want of public spirit, they are unequal to the exertions necessary for preserving it; if they will not fight for it when directly attacked; …they are more or less unfit for liberty.” John Stuart Mill

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people. CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter @constitutionled.

[i] Alexander Fraser Tytler, aka Lord Woodhouselee, calculated the average term of a republic to be 200 years.

 

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Guest Essayist: Gary Porter
Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution


“For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?” writes Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 84. “[B]ills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted.”

“The Constitution can stand alone as a ‘Bill of Rights’” was Hamilton’s clear message here. Many of America’s Founders held to that view and the Founders were no slouches, so we would expect to find some substance to the claim. If the Framers indeed designed a United States Constitution of “limited and enumerated” powers, as Madison claimed in remarks during the Virginia Ratifying Convention, where was the fear of government infringement on individual freedoms to be found?

Indeed, in several places in the Constitution we find particular individual rights given explicit protection. For instance, in Article 1, Section 9 we find Congress specifically denied power to create bills of attainder, ex post facto laws and suspend the “Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus.” Similar restrictions against the states are found in the next section of Article 1. The states are further required to protect your right of contract in the same section. In Article 3, we find the fundamental right of trial by jury preserved for “all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment.” “All Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States” are guaranteed/protected in Article IV. But what do these consist of? The Constitution gives us no clue and, while the Supreme Court had an opportunity to provide an answer in the past[i] they demurred, so we are left to ponder the extent of this protection. As regards congressmen and congresswomen, a limited form of freedom of speech, at least while engaged on the floor of Congress, is found in Article 1, Section 6, where a companion protection from arrest is also located.

But that is about it as far as specific individual rights protections are concerned in the seven articles which make up the original Constitution. Where is the explicit protection of speech, or religion, of conscience, of the right to keep and bear arms, etc.? Hamilton’s answer of course would be: “where is the government given power in the Constitution to intrude upon any of those rights? The weight of Hamilton’s and Madison’s argument must rest then on the Constitution actually being, and, more importantly, remaining, a limited powers document. It is quite clear from the journals of early Congresses that congressmen routinely considered the Constitution to limit the powers of government.

The 1st Congress refused to approve a loan to a glass manufacturer in Georgetown after some members charged it was unconstitutional. A member in the 3rd Congress (1794) proposed $15,000 for relief of French refugees who fled from insurrection in San Domingo to Baltimore and Philadelphia. Third-term Congressman James Madison rose to object, saying, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” The 4th Congress (1796) turned down a request for relief to the citizens of Savannah, GA, after a fire burned down nearly a third of the city. On his last day as President in 1817, James Madison famously vetoed what today we would call an Infrastructure Bill,[ii] stating: “it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers [of the Constitution].

Has Madison’s view persisted? The following should be shielded from sensitive eyes.

Beginning principally in the Progressive Era and accelerating in the New Deal Era, the effort to expand the powers of the federal government has enjoyed great success. In 2010, then Congressman Peter Stark of California famously declared that “Yes, the federal government can do most anything in this country.” The picture has not improved much in the last twelve years.

Thanks to decisions in 1936[iii] and 1937,[iv] the Supreme Court gave Congress the power to spend money on anything it could justify in its own “mind” as supporting the general welfare of the United States.  Madison warned in 1792 that this sort of interpretation of the General Welfare Clause would turn the “limited powers” Constitution into an indefinite one subject [only] to particular exceptions.”[v] The 1937 Supreme Court had a different idea and today, Madison’s observation that “Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government[vi] is considered a quaint relic of a bygone era.

In 1942,[vii] the federal government was given the power to regulate nearly all aspects of business in the U.S. since only a miniscule connection to “interstate commerce” was necessary. In 1968,[viii] the Court cleared the way for Congress to delegate its exclusive law-making power[ix] to executive branch agencies. This has resulted in a veritable flood of “regulations with the force of law” which impact our individual lives in myriad ways and the compliance of which are estimated to add $2 Trillion dollars to the cost of doing business in this country, a cost passed on to you and me in the form of increased prices for goods and services.

The Anti-federalists warned of the immense power being given this new central government,[x] yet I doubt they foresaw the magnitude of the federal power-grab we continue to experience today. Even the addition of a discrete Bill of Rights in 1791, while affording important individual rights protections, has not been enough (what does “shall not be infringed” mean?) Hamilton’s hope that the Constitution could stand alone as a Bill of Rights was hopelessly utopic. A Bill of Rights has proved absolutely necessary, but not alone sufficient to curtail the continuing federal power grab.

In conclusion, for the U.S. Constitution to have stood alone as a protector of individual, God-given, unalienable rights, as Hamilton wished, was in hindsight incredibly naive. One important feature of the original document needed to survive: limited powers, and it didn’t. Various groups with a decidedly different view of the purpose of government, assisted by a Supreme Court which from time to time shared their view, have successfully changed the fundamental nature of our wonderful Constitution from one of limited and enumerated powers to one of near plenary power. Taking advantage of the ambiguity of words and the concept of a “Living Constitution,” these forces have succeeded in creating a government which today intrudes into nearly every aspect of our private and corporate lives. The “demise” of the Tenth Amendment has been widely recognized by both Left and Right.[xi]

What is to be done? Must we simply acknowledge this sea change in the Founders intent to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” and learn to live with Leviathan? That is certainly one option – one allowing us to live relatively peaceful if increasingly controlled lives. The other response requires action, commitment and purpose. We must rouse ourselves and our neighbors, educate society to the problem we face and the inevitable endstate should we remain on this path, and proceed methodically to repair the damage to this inspired document. The Supreme Court can be an ally in this project, if an originalist majority can be kept in place long enough to reverse key decisions. But that could take decades, perhaps scores of years. The more logical approach is one the document itself gives us: amendment.

Congress will never take action to reduce the immense power they have been given by the aforementioned SCOTUS decisions; that much, I hope, we can agree upon. But a carefully worded amendment defining “commerce” and placing limits on the interpretation of the Interstate Commerce Clause could. No power-reducing amendments will ever emanate from the Congress and be sent to the states for ratification. So, we face precisely the situation Colonel George Mason of Virginia warned of on September 15, 1787, as the delegates considered the, at that time, single method of amending the Constitution. “No amendments of the proper kind would ever be obtained by the people, if the Government should become oppressive (Madison writes in his Notes), as he (Colonel Mason) verily believed would be the case.” Adopted “nem con” (i.e., unanimously) was a second method of proposing amendments: the states could meet in convention to consider and propose amendments.

It seems to this writer that the solution to the problem of Leviathan is at hand, given us expressly for the situation we now face: congressional intransigence. Will we grasp it or allow individual freedoms to inexorably slip away?

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people. CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

[i] Notably in what became known as the Slaughterhouse Cases.

[ii] https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-3-1817-veto-message-internal-improvements-bill.

[iii] United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936).

[iv] Helvering v. Davis, 301 U.S. 619 (1937).

[v] “If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions. It is to be remarked that the phrase out of which this doctrine is elaborated, is copied from the old articles of Confederation, where it was always understood as nothing more than a general caption to the specified powers, and it is a fact that it was preferred in the new instrument for that very reason as less liable than any other to misconstruction.”

[vi] James Madison, Speech in the House of Representatives, January 10, 1794.

[vii] Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942).

[viii] Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361 (1989.

[ix] “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.”

[x] https://mises.org/library/antifederalists-were-right

[xi] https://mises.org/power-market/who-killed-10th-amendment.

 

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Guest Essayist: Gary Porter
Signing of the Constitution - Independence Hall in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787, painting by Howard Chandler Christy, on display in the east grand stairway, House wing, United States Capitol.


Shay’s Rebellion was a “wake-up” call for all Americans. The armed closure of a duly constituted court was a drastic step. But these were drastic times. The war with Britain, though favorably concluded for the Americans, had left the economies of the states in shambles. The Confederation Congress found itself powerless to intervene. By the summer of 1786, farmers were unable to find a market for their crops or meet their tax obligations; without hard cash they were unable to make their mortgages or loan payments. The courts, with little recourse but to uphold the law, were foreclosing on farmers who only a few short years before had been fighting for their country’s independence. On August 31, 1786, ex-Revolutionary War Captain Daniel Shays, now himself a bankrupt farmer, lead an armed mob to the Northampton, Massachusetts court and forced it to close. But Massachusetts was not alone: Pennsylvania’s James Wilson observed that “The flames of internal insurrection were ready to burst out in every quarter.”  Mutinies of soldiers in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania fed the anxiety. Political cartoons began to appear in American newspapers mocking Congress. Leading men began calling for amendments to, or even replacement of, the Articles of Confederation.

In April 1786, Rufus King wrote to Elbridge Gerry: “We are without money or the prospect of it in the Federal Treasury; and the States, many of them, care so little about the Union, that they take no measures to keep a representation in Congress.”[i]

Three years before, Henry Knox had complained to Gouverneur Morris: “As the present Constitution is so defective, why do not you great men call the people together and tell them so; that is, to have a convention of the States to form a better Constitution.”[ii]

Finally, the pleas for change were heard, there would be a “Grand Convention” to “fix things” once and for all. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison were elated. Their quiet work behind the scenes had paid off.

In Hamilton’s view “The fundamental defect is a want [lack] of power in Congress.”[iii] He had tried numerous times to have the Articles amended, to no avail. George Washington complained of “a half-starv’d, limping Government.”[iv]

Madison was determined not to waste the opportunity the convention afforded. First, he would place the Articles under his scholar’s microscope and identify each of its defects. Madison was in a unique position to undertake this analysis: he had represented Virginia from 1780-1783 in the Confederation Congress and had seen from that vantage its inherent weakness. Following this, he had served the next three years in the Virginia Assembly, seeing the problems caused by the Articles from that perspective. Returning once again to a seat in the Confederation Congress in the Spring of 1787, Madison sat down at his desk before setting out for Philadelphia and wrote “Vices of the Political System of the United States.” These would become the “cautions” that a new government must avoid. Hopefully it would become a government actually empowered to govern.

All but the last of the twelve “bullet points” Madison set down in “Vices” were accompanied by elaborating commentary. For instance: “Failure of the States to comply with the Constitutional requisitions,” the first complaint, was explained as an “evil” which “has been so fully experienced both during the war and since the peace, [which] results so naturally from the number and independent authority of the States and has been so uniformly exemplified in every similar Confederacy, that it may be considered as not less radically and permanently inherent in, than it is fatal to the object of, the present System.”

While Madison was careful to identify the “effects” of the deficiencies of the Articles, he did not focus on its numerous structural defects:

  • The Articles created only a unicameral Congress. In 1774, the Continental Congress had simply “come together” without much thought of being a permanent fixture. Governments of history had often included a Senate, but where would the authority to add a Senate to the Congress come from, even if the advantage was obvious? By 1787, however, all of the states had adopted bi-cameral legislatures in their state constitutions. While this example was adopted by the convention, it is generally regarded as one of many compromises. (See Article 1)
  • There was no Supreme Court. With Congress lacking the authority to create a supreme legal body, conflicts between states were assigned to ad hoc committees to resolve. Without an enforcement arm, committees were limited to recommending solutions, relying on the good will of the states to carry out their recommendations. (See Article 3)
  • There was no true chief executive function. Beyond keeping order in the Congress, the President had little power to do much else. Enforcing the laws passed by Congress? Not in the President’s obligations. (See Article 2)
  • The amendment process effectively guaranteed no amendments. The Articles required state unanimity before an amendment was adopted. In practice, this proved self-defeating since in every case a single state could (and did) object and thus the suggested amendment came to a grinding halt. (See Article 5)

All of these defects were corrected in the new Constitution.

The standard meme today is that the Articles were discarded in their entirety and a “brand-new” document substituted. But while the structure of government adopted at the Grand Convention was indeed new, not every feature of the Articles was abandoned; the following clauses and provisions were retained, some nearly verbatim:

  • The “privileges of trade and commerce” enjoyed by the citizens of each state were preserved, reworded as the privileges and immunities clause of the Constitution. (See Article IV, Section 2)
  • The power to extradite fugitives. (See Article IV, Section 2)
  • The “Full faith and credit clause.” (See Article IV, Section 1)
  • “Freedom of speech and debate in Congress” was retained as was immunity from arrest. (See Article I, Section 6)
  • The prohibition against treaties, confederations, or alliances between the states without the consent of the Congress. (See Article I, Section 10)
  • Congress’ exclusive war-declaring power. (See Article I, Section 8)
  • Congress’ exclusive authority to issue letters of marque and reprisal and punish “piracies and felonies commited (sic) on the high seas.” (See Article I, Section 8)

At the Virginia Ratification Convention on June 5, 1788, Edmund Pendleton would sum up the Articles thusly: “Our general government was totally inadequate to the purpose of its institution; our commerce decayed; our finances deranged; public and private credit destroyed: these and many other national evils rendered necessary the meeting of that Convention.”

The genius of fifty-five “demigods” would find solutions to the various defects of the Articles of Confederation, would create the “more perfect union” the men sought and that America deserved, yet all this genius depended on one final institution: a virtuous people. As John Adams reminds us: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”[v] If this constitutional republic is to survive, if the republic is to be “kept,” the result is in the hands of “We the People.”

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people. CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

[i] Rufus King to Elbridge Gerry, April 30, 1786

[ii] Henry Knox to Gouverneur Morris, Feb 21, 1783.

[iii]  Alexander Hamilton to James Duane, 3 Sept. 1780.

[iv] George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, 18 Jan. 1784.

[v] To the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, October 11, 1798.

 

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Guest Essayist: Gary Porter
U.S. Bill of Rights


Before I begin this discussion, I should like to highlight two books which cover this topic quite well, in far more detail than I can include here: The First American Constitutions, by Willi Paul Adams, first published in 1973 in Germany, later, in 2001 in the U.S., and The Origins of American Constitutionalism, published in 1988 by Donald S. Lutz. Both are well-written, well-documented and well-worth your time.

We tend to view the American War for Independence in simplistic terms: parliament overreached; the colonies balked, declared their independence, fought a war to secure that independence, and went on to establish a unique written Constitution “of the people, by the people and for the people.” But as any historian knows, the story is more complicated. While the later part of the 1700s, at least in America, was indeed dominated by the War for Independence, “[t]he last three decades of the eighteenth century were a time of extraordinary political experimentation and innovation,” [i] writes Donald Lutz, and the American Revolutionary War “just happened” to occur during that extraordinary time.

The U.S. Constitution has at various times and by various writers been called the product of the Enlightenment, Classical Greek philosophy, Protest theology, the Hebrew Republic, English common law and English Whig political theory, and some of its roots can easily be traced to these predecessors; but many overlook its connections to the first state constitutions. “The early state constitutions contributed significantly to the development of [the] constitutional principles [found in the U.S. Constitution].”[ii]Anyone who will lay the Federal Constitution side by side with the State Constitution of Massachusetts (adopted in 1780) and with the State Constitution of New York (adopted in 1777) will be startled by the extent to which the members of the Federal Convention not only followed the principles, but used the exact phraseology of those State documents.”[iii]

By 1787, when fifty-five men met in Philadelphia to “render the federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of the Government and the preservation of the Union,”[iv] all but two of the thirteen states had already set in place a new state constitution.[v] Of those fifty-five men, almost half (26) had served in their state legislatures, including participating in the drafting of their state’s new plan of government.

References to numerous state constitutional provisions were made during the “Grand Convention.” One of the last being on September 12th, just five days before the Constitution was completed and signed.  Virginia delegate, George Mason, rose to point out that the absence of a Bill of Rights in the draft they were then considering was a matter of great concern. “It would give great quiet to the people (to have a Bill of Rights); and with the aid of the State declarations, a bill might be prepared in a few hours.” Colonel Mason, you may recall, had been the chief architect of the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776; thus, he was eminently qualified and experienced to draft yet another declaration.  But Mr. Roger Sherman of Connecticut then rose to point out that “The State Declarations of Rights are not repealed by this Constitution; and being in force are sufficient.” A motion was made to establish a committee to draft a bill of rights, but the motion failed 0-9, and the delegates went on to put the final touches on the document they had labored over for four long months.

But let’s step back a bit in time and review what prompted this “extraordinary political experimentation and innovation.”

Rising tensions between Great Britain and the American colonies had led to the suspension of state assemblies in Massachusetts, New York, Virginia. Other Royal Governors simply fled their posts. Leaving a society without government and/or leadership invites anarchy. Thomas Jefferson complained of this in the Declaration of Independence:

He (i.e., the King) has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

Without their state assemblies in operation and to mitigate “the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within,” Committees of Correspondence, Committees of Inspection and Committees of Safety became shadow state governments. Eventually, provisional assemblies were formed and these sought advice from the Continental Congress, which began meeting in September 1774.

The State of New Hampshire figures prominently in America’s constitutional history: their ratification of our U.S. Constitution on June 21, 1788, was the ninth and final ratification necessary to put the document into effect. The subsequent ratifications, by Virginia, New York, North Carolina and Rhode Island, only ensured those states would be participants in the new union rather than bystanders. But few Americans today know that New Hampshire was also the very first colony to enact a new constitution, on January 5th, 1776, a full seven months before the united colonies declared their independence in Philadelphia. New Hampshire had asked the Congress for permission to do so in the Fall of 1775, even suggesting that Congress draft a standard state constitution that each state would then adopt. Congress debated this but decided that there were so many differences in the state governments that had evolved over a hundred or more years that a “one size fits all” approach would simply not work. Congress finally gave New Hampshire and South Carolina the “go-ahead” on November 3rd, 1775.

South Carolina followed New Hampshire’s lead with a new provisional constitution of their own on March 26, 1776. On May 4th., Rhode Island unilaterally declared its independence from Great Britain without finding it necessary to establish a new plan of government; their original charter, stripped of its monarchical references, would serve adequately.

Two days later, Virginia began the fifth in a series of conventions.  Meeting in Williamsburg, the delegates approved a Declaration of Rights on June 12th and their new constitution on June 29th.

Noting the actions of New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Rhode Island, and perhaps trying to “get ahead of the curve,” the Continental Congress on May 10th approved a circular to the thirteen colonies encouraging any of the colonies who had not yet done so to form new provisional governments. After adding a preamble on 15 May, the circular was sent. [vi] On July 2, 1776, the same day Richard Henry Lee’s resolution for independence was approved in the Congress, New Jersey ratified its new constitution.

All but one of the remaining states approved new constitutions within a year: Delaware (September 11, 1776), Pennsylvania (September 28, 1776), Maryland (November 8, 1776), North Carolina (December 14, 1776), Georgia (February 4, 1777), and New York (April 20, 1777). Connecticut, like Rhode Island, decided its existing charter provided an adequate government. Other than Rhode Island and Connecticut, Massachusetts became the last state to adopt a new constitution, in 1780.[vii]  In the years that followed, several states updated or replaced their provisional constitutions.

As each colony-turned-state began drafting their new constitution they drew upon, in Virginia’s case for instance, the experience of more than 100 years of self-governance. Each colony had an elected assembly, either unicameral or bicameral, a court system, and a Royal Governor appointed by the King but usually also advised by a Governor’s Council. By 1773, however, the aforementioned committees were governing towns and counties, and soon nearly all the colonies had established provincial congresses acting outside royal authority.[viii]

Despite their practical experience in governing, the states found constitution-making from scratch a relatively new, untested process. What features of their colonial government should they retain, which should be modified or abandoned altogether? Hanging over all this constitution-making were the Articles of Confederation. For nearly four years (November 1777 – March 1791) the Articles lacked the unanimous consent they needed to be in official operation, yet there was a war afoot; no time to wait for Maryland to come on board; Congress had no choice but to act as though the Articles were ratified. How well would these new state governments work with the Confederation Congress?  Not well at all as it turned out. But the blame should be placed on the Articles, not the states.

The Continental Congress continued to function as a rudimentary, unicameral central government under the Articles of Confederation, yet in 1776-77, as the states drafted their new plans of government, the confederation’s more glaring deficiencies were yet to be revealed. What did the states come up with?

  • First, what should we call this thing? Although the nomenclature shift from “charter” to “constitution” was slow and inconsistent, eventually all states settled on some variation of that term; Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina termed their initial document “The Constitution or Form of Government”; Pennsylvania: a “Plan or Frame of Government”; Delaware: “The Constitution or System of Government”; Georgia: “Rules and Regulations for the Future Government of the State.”
  • Division of the government into three distinct branches (most of the thirteen State constitutions had this feature). Virginia’s constitution reads: “That the legislative and executive powers of the State should be separate and distinct from the judiciary.”[ix]
  • Checks and balances. “They had encountered evil or unfortunate conditions in the past, in their royal and State governments; and they planned now to avoid a renewal of those conditions by adopting theories to fit the circumstances. So far from intending each of the three branches to be wholly coordinate, they decided to curb any excess of power in any one branch by balancing it with an effective power in another. Where they had experienced an evil in an omnipotent Legislature, they checked it; where they had actually felt the oppression of a too strong Executive, they checked him; where they believed a Court had been too independent, they checked it.”[x]
  • The Franchise. Generally, men (and in some states, women) who owned a certain minimum amount of property could vote. Pennsylvania enfranchised any male who paid taxes.
  • Elective Government. All states established direct popular elections for at least the Lower House of the legislature, with annual elections being the rule. Ten states also chose annual elections for the Senate, whether by the people or the lower house. Eleven states instituted annual elections of the governor, in three states directly or indirectly by the people, in the others by the legislature. Interestingly, South Carolina set a net worth requirement for their governor, the only state to do so.
  • The Legislature. While most colonies had operated with a unicameral legislature up until independence, often augmented by a Governor’s council, all but one state chose a bicameral legislature for their new constitutions, with Pennsylvania being the lone exception (Pennsylvania joined the bicameral states fifteen years later).
  • The Executive. In a rejection of powerful royal governors appointed by the King, the states, at least Initially, made their governors almost powerless. Although problems created by a weak executive soon became apparent and were slowly corrected, “[b]y 1787, only four states had executives worthy of the name.[xi]
  • The Judiciary. Most states instituted an appointed judiciary, often appointed by the Governor (four states) or the Legislature (seven states).
  • Consent of the governed. In all but one state, the new constitution was simply put in effect as though it were a simple law. There were some murmurings, but the citizens generally accepted this “constitution by fiat.” But to be fair to the legislatures involved, they felt themselves to be representatives of the people.

Many states kept the other major features of the governmental structure that served them for so many years. One example from Delaware: “The sheriffs and coroners of the respective counties shall be chosen annually, as heretofore.”

So, what can rightfully be called innovations in the state constitutions? I’ve encountered few that could be called truly radical, but Delaware’s Constitution provides some examples:

  • A Declaration of Rights preceded the Constitution (Virginia led the way in this).
  • In Delaware alone were elected officials impeachable up to 18 months after leaving office.
  • Delaware’s Article 26 prohibited slavery, one of the first states to do so constitutionally.
  • No firearms were allowed to be carried at any election.
  • There was to be no establishment of any one religious sect in preference to another.
  • “No clergyman or preacher of the gospel…shall be capable of holding any civil office in this State.” (other states incorporated this feature as well).
  • The oath before assuming office in Delaware read: “I, ___, do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.”

What of the various state bills or declarations of rights?  How did they compare with what eventually became the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights?

Beginning with Massachusetts, the Anti-federalists began insisting that their vote for ratification would only materialize if there were a “gentleman’s agreement” that both amendments and articles for a future bill of rights would be accepted and submitted with the ratification instrument. When he arrived at the first Congress under the new U.S. Constitution, James Madison set to work reviewing these submissions from the states and incorporating those with the greatest appeal. It should come as no surprise to find parallels between the state Declarations and what became the U.S. Bill of Rights. But there were exceptions – suggestions that were either rejected by Madison or rejected by the Congress after Madison included them in his draft to the Congress. Notably, several verbatim quotes from Virginia’s Declaration of Rights were rejected by the Congress after appearing in the draft.

In summary, as Willi Paul Adams concludes: “The most significant accomplishment of the American Revolution, apart from the military achievement of independence, was the successful establishment of republican, federal, and constitutional government in a territory so extensive by European standards that conventional wisdom considered only monarchical government suitable for such an empire.”[xii]

Donald Lutz takes a different view: “[t]he (U.S.) Constitution … successfully created a new constitutional system appropriate to new political circumstances, it conserved what was best and central in the earlier American constitutional tradition, and it bult upon and in many important respects derived from state constitutions.”[xiii](emphasis added)

While the American states were intended to be experiments in government, and they have in many respects played that role over our 230+ years, there was still remarkable similarity in the thinking of the drafters of the early state constitutions as they considered what were the ingredients to “good government.” The fact that Massachusetts operates today from their 1780 Constitution, albeit with 120 amendments, remains a testament to the wisdom of America’s founding generation.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people. CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

[i] Donald S. Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism, Louisiana State University Press, 1988. p. 97.

[ii] Donald S. Lutz, Ibid. p`. 99.

[iii] Charles Warren, Congress, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court. 1925

[iv] Resolution of the Confederation Congress, February 21, 1787.

[v] Rhode Island decided to retain the structure of government described in their Royal Charter although the linkage to the British government had of course been severed. Rhode Island operated from this modified charter until 1842.

[vi]Resolved, That it be recommended to the respective assemblies and conventions of the United Colonies, where no government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs have been hitherto established, to adopt such government as shall, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular, and America in general.”

[vii] Giving Massachusetts the distinction of having the longest continuously-operating constitution in the world today.

[viii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_government_in_the_Thirteen_Colonies

[ix] Virginia Constitution, 1776, Article 1, Declaration of Rights, Sec. 5.

[x] Charles Warren, Congress, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court. 1925, p. 24

[xi] Donald S. Lutz, Ibid. p. 106

[xii] Willi Paul Adams, The first American Constitutions, 2001, p. 5-6.

[xiii] Donald S. Lutz, Ibid. p. 109

 

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Essay 63 – Guest Essayist: Gary Porter
* Printmakers include Asher B. Durand, Henry Bryan Hall, Albert Rosenthal and Max Rosenthal. Draughtsmen include David McNeely Stauffer. Title from Calendar of Emmet Collection. Includes some photomechanical reproductions. Citation/reference : EM391 - This image is available from the New York Public Library's Digital Library under the digital ID 79df7b90-c605-012f-73bc-58d385a7bc34: digitalgallery.nypl.org → digitalcollections.nypl.org

Every American has heard the name Elizabeth Griscom, right? No? Perhaps you will recognize her by her married name: Elizabeth “Betsy” Ross, wife of John Ross. Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. Yes, Mrs. Ross was an accomplished seamstress and her particular work on a particular flag immortalized her name in American history. But Betsy also had a not-so-distant relative who should be just as famous, but is not. This relative is her uncle, George Ross, Jr. George Ross, Jr. signed an important American document in the summer of 1776.[i] It is to this “Colonel Ross” we turn today.

There were three sorts of delegates who attended the Continental Congress in the early to mid-summer of 1776. The first were those who took part in the debates over independence and were able to eventually sign the Declaration of Independence which resulted from those debates. The second were those who took part in the debates over independence and would not or never got to sign the declaration. The third were those who did not take part in the debates themselves but nevertheless had the opportunity to sign the final document. George Ross of Pennsylvania falls into the third category.

George Ross Jr. was born May 10, 1730, in Newcastle, Delaware, into a large family that could trace its lineage back to 1226 when Farquhar Ó Beólláin (1173-1251) was named the 1st Earl of Ross by King Alexander II of Scotland. Reverend George Ross Sr., with a fresh degree from Edinburgh, had arrived America in 1705[ii] as a missionary sent by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.[iii] He served first as rector for Immanuel Church in Newcastle, Delaware[iv] from 1705 until 1708 and then again from 1714 to 1754. Ross served in other area churches as well. At St. James’ Mill Creek Church in Wilmington, Delaware, he conducted their first service on July 4, 1717. Reverend Ross thought highly enough of learning to see that each of his sixteen children (by two successive wives) received a solid homeschool education. George Jr. reportedly became proficient in Latin and Greek.[v]

At age twenty, without attending college (that we can document), George Jr. was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar after two years of study in his half-brother John’s law office, and soon set up his own practice in nearby Lancaster, Pennsylvania. At some point Ross took on a client, a young lady, named Ann Lawler. A romance soon blossomed and they were married August 14, 1751. Ann was reportedly a strikingly beautiful young woman, the only child of a prominent local family. Together, George and Ann produced two sons and a daughter. “Beauty was a word that defined Ann Lawler Ross and her children, in particular. Tradition states that prior to 1760 the artist Benjamin West came to make the portraits of the Ross family at their lovely country home in Lancaster… Mr. Flower, a friend of both George Ross and Benjamin West stated, ‘The wife of Mr. Ross [Ann] was greatly celebrated for her beauty and she had several children so remarkable in this respect as to be objects of general notice.’”[vi] George, Ann and their growing family attended St. James Episcopal Church in Lancaster,[vii] where George became a vestryman.[viii]

Ross’ skill as a lawyer was quickly noticed, resulting in his appointment as Crown Prosecutor (Attorney General) for Carlisle, Pennsylvania, serving for 12 years. In 1768, he was elected to the Pennsylvania legislature, representing Lancaster. There his Tory politics began to change and he was soon heard supporting the growing calls for American independence.

On May 30, 1773, Ann Ross died unexpectedly at age 42, and was buried at Saint James Church Cemetery in Lancaster.

The next year George was elected to the First Continental Congress, receiving one less vote than Benjamin Franklin himself.[ix] The Congress opened on September 5, 1774 in Philadelphia and was notable for producing a compact among the colonies to boycott British goods unless parliament rescinded the Intolerable Acts (which they did not). The Congress is also notable for producing the Declaration and Resolves[x] which laid out the grievances of the colonies. While at the Congress, Ross continued to serve as a member of Pennsylvania’s Committee of Safety.

“Both his own State Legislature and the National Council (i.e. the Continental Congress), made [Ross] a mediator in difficulties which arose with the Indians, and he acted the noble part of a pacificator, and a true philanthropist.”[xi]

The Second Continental Congress convened May 10, 1775, in response to the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord. A commission as a Colonel in the Continental Army was soon added to Ross’ resume although there is no indication he saw combat. The following year, on June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia offered a resolution in the Congress declaring the colonies independent. In the debate which ensued, it quickly became apparent that some delegations needed time to communicate with their legislatures, so a vote on the measure was postponed until July 1. News that the resolution had been introduced spread quickly and Ross was noted to be “a warm supporter of the resolution of Mr. Lee.”[xii]

On July 15, 1776, the Pennsylvania Legislature appointed Benjamin Franklin and George Ross president and vice-president, respectively, of a convention to draft Pennsylvania’s first state constitution. The convention meeting “above stairs” in the State House (above the room Congress was using) adopted a new constitution for the state on September 28, 1776.

The journal of Congress for July 19, 1776 reports: Resolved, That the Declaration passed on the 4th, be fairly engrossed on parchment, with the title and stile of “The unanimous declaration of the thirteen United States of America,” and that the same, when engrossed, be signed by every member of Congress.” It is this record which gives historians reason to claim that the Declaration was not signed on July 4, as was long the traditional narrative; the signing actually began much later after the engrossed copy was delivered.

There are 56 signatures on the engrossed copy of the Declaration. Eight men who had taken part in the July 4 vote to approve the Declaration never signed the document they debated.[xiii]

On July 20, Ross was appointed to replace either John Dickinson, Charles Humphreys or Thomas Willing (we are not sure which) as part of Pennsylvania’s delegation to the Congress.

John Dickinson presents an interesting case: Married to a Quaker, Dickinson strongly opposed going to war with Great Britain in order to obtain independence. When the July 1 vote took place – a non-binding, “test vote” in the Committee of the Whole – after an impassioned speech against the measure, Dickinson voted “No,” joining three other members of the Pennsylvania delegation in doing so. This made the delegation’s vote 4-3 against Lee’s resolution and a “No” vote was recorded for Pennsylvania (each colony got a single vote). Lee’s resolution passed, with nine of the thirteen colonies in favor, but the hoped-for unanimity had not materialized, as both Pennsylvania and South Carolina voted against it, New York’s delegation abstained since new instructions from their state had not yet arrived, and Delaware entered a null (split) vote as the votes of the two delegates who were present canceled each other.  South Carolina requested the formal vote, as the Congress, be delayed to the following day, July 2.

On July 2, several “providential” events occurred. First, Caesar Rodney of Delaware walked in, still in his spurs. Rodney was a Delaware delegate, but was too sick to attend the Congress the previous day.  Someone had ridden to his house the previous evening and informed him of Delaware’s split vote. Hearing this, Rodney had roused himself from his sickbed and ridden all night to Philadelphia. His vote in favor tipped the Delaware delegation’s vote to “Yes.” Over at the Pennsylvania table, there were two empty chairs where the day before had sat John Dickinson and Robert Morris, two of the previous day’s “No” votes.  Without these two gentlemen present, Pennsylvania’s delegation vote changed from 4-3 against the measure to 3-2 in favor of the measure.  South Carolina’s delegation had had an overnight change of heart and now voted in favor of the resolution. This left New York. Without new instructions (they did not arrive until July 19), New York had to once again abstain. This put the vote at twelve colonies in favor and one abstention. This was as close to the unanimity they were going to get that day, so President of Congress, John Hancock, declared the measure passed.

Dickinson promptly resigned his position in the Pennsylvania delegation, as did Humphreys and Willing. On July 20, George Ross joined the rest of the Pennsylvania delegation. Returning members were Dr. Benjamin Franklin, George Clymer, Robert Morris, Colonel James Wilson, John Morton, Dr. Benjamin Rush; and new members, Colonel James Smith, and George Taylor.

It was not unusual in that period for competent gentlemen to be given multiple, important responsibilities or postings. From July 20 to September 28, Franklin and Ross must have been quite the sight, walking upstairs and down, attending to their concurrent responsibilities in the Congress and the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention. In addition to presiding as Vice-President, Ross also participated in drafting Pennsylvania’s Declaration of Rights.[xiv]

On August 2, George Ross joined the assembled delegates in adding his signature to the “Unanimous Declaration,” the last of the Pennsylvania delegation to do so.

The following year, 1777, Ross was reelected to the Continental Congress, but was forced to resign his seat before the session ended due to a recurrence of his chronic gout. The next year, he was elected Vice President of the Pennsylvania Assembly. In March of 1779, he was appointed a judge in the Pennsylvania Court of Admiralty, but four months later, on July 14, he died at the ripe young age of 49.[xv] He is buried in Philadelphia’s Christ Church Burial Ground.

The good citizens of Lancaster thought so highly of George Ross and his service to his country that they passed the following resolution:

“Resolved, that the sum of one hundred and fifty, pounds, out of the county stock, be forthwith transmitted to George Ross, one of the members of assembly for this county, and one of the delegates for this colony in the continental congress; and that he be requested to accept the same, as a testimony from this county, of their sense of his attendance on the public business, to his great private loss, and of their approbation of his conduct. Resolved, that if it be more agreeable, Mr. Ross purchase with part of the said money, a genteel piece of plate, ornamented as he thinks proper, to remain with him, as a testimony of the esteem this county has for him, by reason of his patriotic conduct, in the great struggle of American liberty.”[xvi]

Ross, however, declined this generous gift, stating to the committee which presented the resolution that his services to his country had been overrated, that he had been driven simply by his sense of duty, and that every man should contribute all his energy to promote the public welfare, without expecting pecuniary rewards.[xvii]

Visit Lancaster, Pennsylvania today and you will encounter George Ross Elementary School, Ross Street, and several historical markers commemorating “The Patriot George Ross.”

Many men seek greatness; a few of them find it. Some men have greatness thrust upon them. Other men quietly do their duty, to God and their country; George Ross was one of these men.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people. CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

Podcast by Maureen Quinn.

 

[i] Interestingly, George Ross’ sister, Gertrude, married George Read, who also went on to sign the Declaration.

[ii] https://www.immanuelonthegreen.org/.

[iii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Society_Partners_in_the_Gospel.

[iv] The church had been founded in 1689.

[v] J. B. Lossing, Signers of the Declaration of Independence, New York: Derby & Jackson, 1856, p. 130.

[vi] Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence – George Ross, accessed on 14 April 2021 at https://www.dsdi1776.com/signers-by-state/george-ross/.

[vii] St. James Episcopal Church of Lancaster was founded in 1744, also by a Church of England missionary.

[viii] https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=5204.

[ix] https://lifewithldub.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-lancasters-hero-and-patriot-george.html.

[x] Read the Declaration at https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/resolves.asp.

[xi] Ibid p. 132.

[xii] Op cit.

[xiii] Those unable or unwilling to sign the Declaration were John Alsop, George Clinton, Robert R. Livingston and Henry Wisner of New York; John Dickinson, Charles Humphreys and Thomas Willing of Pennsylvania; and John Rogers of Maryland.  All had left the Congress by August 2nd when the signing of the engrossed copy began.

[xiv] https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/pennsylvania-declaration-of-rights-and-constitution/

[xv] One source sets Ross’ death in 1780 and the age of 50.  See https://www.patriotacademy.com/george-ross-lives-fortunes-sacred-honor/.

[xvi] http://colonialhall.com/ross/ross.php.

[xvii] Robert R. Conrad, ed, Sanderson’s Biography of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia, 1846. P.439

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Essay 28 – Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

“He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

“He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.” 

Abdicated: Renounced; relinquished without a formal resignation; abandoned.[i]

After skewering the Parliament for their obnoxious legislation, Thomas Jefferson returns now with more charges aimed at the King:

On July 5, 1775, a little more than two months after the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord, the Continental Congress adopted the Olive Branch Petition, assuring the King that the colonists remained your Majesty’s faithful subjects.” It was signed on July 8 and finally delivered to Britain’s colonial secretary, Lord Dartmouth, by the colonies’ representatives on August 21. The King would not receive it, just as he had turned away a previous petition. Instead, two days later, King George officially declared the American colonies to be in “open and avowed rebellion.[ii]

The “Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition” branded the American patriots “Traitors” and encouraged British subjects to report to authorities any persons they discovered to be carrying on “traitorous correspondence” with the rebels (this was well before Twitter).

“The Americans have only to return to their allegiance,” said John Lind in his Answer, “and by that very return, they are re-instated under the protection of the King.”[iii]

England was not unaccustomed to rebellions. Going all the way back to the Norman Invasion of 1066, various rebellions and uprisings had to be dealt with in the aftermath. Certainly, the nobles’ rebellion of 1215 that produced Magna Carta is another prime example. Several Scottish uprisings in the centuries afterward gave the English considerable practice at putting down armed rebellion. Jacobite rebellions in 1715 and 1745 attempted to install first James II and then his son “Bonnie Prince Charlie” to their “rightful throne.” The Jacobite rebellions finally ended when King George I was brought over from Hanover, Germany, to sit on the English throne. No, these “upstart American colonists” were certainly not unique in British history.

“waging War against us?”  In 1776, there would be plenty of that yet to come – as Jefferson was drafting these words, notice came to the Continental Congress that the British fleet was soon to arrive off New York City – but up to this point, the “war” had consisted only of the skirmishes at Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, and a couple instances of naval shelling. But, even without these, Jefferson would have been technically correct in his assessment: a naval blockade such as the King had imposed on American ports the previous year, was an act of war under international law.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

While most Americans can name a few of the significant land battles of the Revolutionary War: Long Island, Trenton, Saratoga, Yorktown, to name several, few could name one of the naval bombardments of coastal America nor any of the significant naval battles of the war.  The battle for Breeds (Bunker) Hill in June 1775 began with a ferocious naval bombardment of Charlestown. Falmouth, Massachusetts was attacked from the sea in October of that year. On New Year’s Day, 1776, British frigates bombarded Norfolk Virginia, burning a large part of the town to the ground.

As to naval battles, no doubt there would have been more if the Americans had more than a handful of ships. The greatest injury sustained from Britain’s vast navy lay in the cargo captured by British ships.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

While professional soldiers from the German State of Hesse-Kassel (Hessians) are commonly seen as the “mercenaries” Jefferson refers to, German soldiers from at least seven German states/regions made up the nearly 30,000 German professional soldiers hired by King George III, who, within the Holy Roman Empire remained known as the Prince-elector of Hanover (Germany). Individual Germans, notably, Frederick William Augustus and Baron von Steuben, volunteered their services to the Americans. After the war, only about 17,300 of the original 30,000 German soldiers opted to return to their homeland in the German states.  Many of the freed POWs chose instead to make a new life in America.

That these Hessians were truly professional soldiers is best exemplified by this excerpt from David Hackett Fisher’s wonderful book “Washington’s Crossing.” Hessian prisoners taken during the Battle of Trenton “were sent from Philadelphia to Lancaster, in Pennsylvania, and then on to western Virginia in 1777. They were escorted by a company of Pennsylvania militia. When they reached the Pennsylvania state line, all of the militia went home except the captain, who told the Hessians, ‘whose affections he had won by his humanity,’ that ‘they must march on without an escort, as he himself should hurry on to Winchester (Virginia),’ When he met them three days later in Winchester, every Hessian POW answered the roll call.”[iv]

In his Answer to the Declaration of Independence, John Lind dismisses the king’s hiring of foreign troops “to bring [the Americans] back to their duty” as a benevolent gesture of the King intended merely to reduce the risk to the lives of his “loyal subjects in Britain.” Later, Lind explains the hiring as a necessity since the British Army was simply not big enough for the task.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

“IMPRESS’MENT, noun. The act of impressing men into public service; as the impressment of seamen.”[v]

Great Britain had practiced impressment since the reign of Queen Elizabeth. “Press gangs” would roam taverns and pubs seeking those too inebriated to realize they were “joining” the Royal Navy. “When a seaman was confronted by the gang he was first given the opportunity to volunteer. If he accepted, he was later paid the bounty. Many seamen preferred to be pressed and to refuse the king’s shilling, since they could not be charged with desertion should they flee the service and later be caught.”[vi]  In the spring of 1757, three thousand British soldiers cordoned off New York City (it was a little smaller than) and plucked 800 “tradesmen and Negroes”out of the pubs and other favored gathering spots.   Four hundred of these were “retained in the service”.[vii]

Keeping a vast naval fleet manned and ready was hard enough in peacetime; it was impossible in wartime without the use of impressment.  Even the fledgling American Navy was forced to use impressment of American citizens in 1777.[viii] Yet, impressment of foreigners into service in the British Navy was against British law.[ix] In 1812, Americans would thus be protected, theoretically, from the practice; but the practice continued and became a major factor leading to the war. During the war for American Independence, however, Americans enjoyed no such protection.[x]  American sailors captured in a naval exchange with the Royal Navy could the next day find themselves fighting their own countrymen or, as Jefferson put it: fall[ing] themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.” 

The “domestic insurrections” Jefferson refers to were slave rebellions.  There had been slave rebellions in the American colonies before so the British knew slaves, at least some of them, would fight their masters if given the opportunity.

The Stono Rebellion was the largest slave revolt to ever take place in the colonies. On Sunday, Sept. 9, 1739, supposedly a “day off” for slaves, about 20 slaves under the leadership of a man named Jemmy broke into a store, stole weapons and supplies and headed for the refuge of Spanish-ruled Florida, leaving 23 murder victims in their path.

But what Jefferson was most likely thinking of as he wrote these words was Virginia Governor Dunmore’s proclamation of November 7, 1775. The proclamation declared martial law in the colony and promised freedom for any slaves in Virginia who left their owners and joined the royal forces, becoming Black Loyalists.

In 1768, Britain decided to stop protecting the colonies from Indian attacks on the frontier. Various Indian tribes, eager to recoup land settled by the colonists, mounted attacks, some of them notoriously vicious.[xi]

This ends the complaints section of the Declaration of Independence.

As previously noted, the various complaints Jefferson raises in the Declaration, many the British had seen before, are an oft-overlooked section of this marvelous document. They show us in their reverse what good government is all about. And, it should not surprise us to find many of these “problems of government” solved in the Constitution.  The U.S. Constitution was an answer to problems. By understanding the problems, one better understands the solution.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people. CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Gary can be reached at 

gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).


Podcast by Maureen Quinn

[i] http://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/Abdicated

[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_of_Rebellion

[iii] John Lind, An Answer to the Declaration of the American Congress, 1776, p. 94

[iv] David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, (New York, Oxford University Press, 2004), 379

[v] http://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/impressment

[vi] Roland G. Usher, Jr., Royal Navy Impressment During the American Revolution, The Mississippi Valley Historical Review , Mar., 1951, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Mar., 1951), pp. 673-688

[vii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressment#British_North_America

[viii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressment#British_North_America

[ix] https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/british-navy-impressment/

[x] https://www.nps.gov/articles/impressment.htm

[xi] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoch_Brown_school_massacre

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Essay 27 – Guest Essayist: Gary Porter
House of Commons at Westminster, 1808, Parliament

“He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
– For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
– For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
– For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
– For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
– For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
– For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
– For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
– For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
– For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.”

In an earlier essay in this examination of the Declaration of Independence, we encounter Mr. Thomas Jefferson beginning to lay out the “facts” he wishes a “candid world” to consider as the colonists make their case for independence. These facts begin by pointing to actions of the King alone (“He has refused his Assent to Laws…”). Now Jefferson turns his attention to actions for which the King required the assistance of Parliament: “Acts of pretended Legislation.”

“He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:”

This is one of the most overlooked sentences in Jefferson’s Declaration.  Readers quickly skip past this sentence to get to the “pretended legislation” they know Jefferson is about to highlight. And we’ll get to that legislation soon enough; yet, there is much to glean from this simple sentence. But first we will need to lay a foundation, beginning with identifying the main characters Jefferson mentions. “He” is obviously King George III; “others” refers to Parliament. Together, King and Parliament have subjected the colonies to “a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution.” Our constitution? In 1776, eleven years before the U.S. Constitution is drafted? What possibly could Jefferson mean?

One common answer is that Jefferson refers here to the British Constitution. He could be claiming that Parliament and the King have repeatedly ignored or violated the British Constitution, particularly the 1689 Bill of Rights which forms a major part of Britain’s “unwritten constitution.”[1] And this is certainly a fair reading of the sentence. But could Jefferson have intended a different meaning?

In his first draft of the Declaration, the sentence read: “He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions….”  Constitutions, in the plural, could only mean one thing: constitutions of the separate colonies, not the Constitution of Britain. But Jefferson is writing in June of 1776. At that time only three colonies had true constitutions; they had responded to a resolution of the Second Continental Congress, passed on May 10, 1775, which read:

Resolved, That it be recommended to the respective assemblies and conventions of the United Colonies, where no government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs have been hitherto established, to adopt such government as shall, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular, and America in general.”[i]

Adopting “such government” meant enacting a new constitution, and the colonies, at least some of them, soon began deliberating, and then writing. On January 5, 1776, New Hampshire became the first of the thirteen to approve its new constitution, thus separating itself from England a full six months before Congress would do so on behalf of all the colonies. Four days later, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense was published in America. On April 12, South Carolina did likewise. On May 4, Rhode Island, concluding that its colonial charter described an adequate governmental structure they did not wish to re-design, nevertheless unilaterally declared independence from the Mother Country. Finally, on June 29, a day after Jefferson presented his final draft of the Declaration to the Congress, the Virginia Assembly approved its colony’s new Constitution.

So, which document or documents was Jefferson complaining had been violated: the English Constitution or the “Constitution” or constitutions of the colonies? Before answering, let’s be sure we understand what comprises a Constitution. For that we turn to Black’s Law Dictionary:

“The organic and fundamental law of a nation or state, which may be written or unwritten, establishing the character and conception of its government, laying the basic principles to which its internal life is to be conformed, organizing the government, and regulating, distributing, and limiting the functions of its different departments, and prescribing the extent and manner of the exercise of sovereign powers.”[ii] (Emphasis added)

If England was operating from an unwritten Constitution (and they were, and still are); could the colonies have been as well?

By 1776, many of the colonies had been self-governing for more than 150 years – Virginia since 1619. As Dr. Larry Arnn of Hillsdale College puts it: “They had built a society of self-government. They would live in no other kind.”[iii] Their charters comprised agreements between themselves and the King – there was no mention of Parliament in the Charters – and the colonial assemblies had seldom sought Parliament’s help in governing. Despite the occasional intrusion of the royal governor’s veto, for the most part, colonial self-government was working; the “character and conception of [their] government” was well established. Is it possible that the colonies had, by 1776, a well-established, but unwritten constitution? While we might expect recognizable differences in such a constitution from colony to colony, there must also have been a certain core of “basic principles to which [their] internal life [had been] conformed.” I believe it was this unwritten Constitution, rather than the English one, to which Jefferson referred. Dr. Arnn agrees.[iv]

Yes, the colonists were British subjects. Yes, they were subject to British law, but the King and his ministers and the Parliament had overlooked an important point: over the last 150 years the colonists had become a new people with a new taste for freedom enjoyed by few other people on earth, and they were not going to readily give it up to an emboldened bully called Parliament.

Others in this year’s 90-Day Study have no doubt highlighted the connection between the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, a connection recognized even by the Supreme Court.[v] As we now review the “Acts of pretended Legislation,” we will encounter several examples of improper or otherwise “bad” government that were fixed, preempted if you will, in the drafting of the 1787 Constitution. Finally, I call your attention to a little-known document entitled: “An Answer to the Declaration of Congress” by British barrister John Lind. Neither the King nor Parliament answered Jefferson’s Declaration directly; they could not. To do so would, in their eyes, have given unwarranted credence to it;[2] instead they commissioned Mr. Lind to answer.[vi] As you might expect, Mr. Lind dismisses Jefferson’s allegation with a figurative wave of the hand.

Acts of pretended Legislation” points, as you might expect, to actual legislation recommended by the King and passed by the Parliament. I will refer to these acts where they can be identified.

  • “For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.” Not only “among us” but IN OUR VERY HOMES! After the French and Indian War concluded in 1763, the British left troops behind in America as a prudent measure in case the Indians (or the French) decided ignore the 1763 Treaty of Paris, quartering them in barracks built for that purpose or in public buildings. The 1765 Quartering Act required colonial legislatures to raise the necessary tax revenue to support the soldiers lodging. But, after the violent Stamp Act protests of 1765, the next year the Quartering Act was amended to allow lodging troops in public buildings such as pubs and ale houses, with compensation to the homeowners of course. As protests continued and expanded, Parliament began to see that even more troops were needed to keep the peace. The 1774 Quartering Act[vii] enabled troops to take over private homes without the owner’s permission. In early 1775, Parliament sent another 10,000 soldiers to the colonies, to be placed in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, and other seaports. Lind’s reply to the Quartering complaint was the equivalent of “What did you expect during a revolt?” The Founders abhorrence of the quartering system led to the Third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.”
  • For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States. Soldiers with time off seemed to get into trouble without much effort, even to the point of murder. In 1768, British soldiers in Annapolis, Maryland, killed several citizens. The soldiers were tried but acquitted, a result which did not sit well with locals. Three years later, North Carolina Governor Tryon ordered troops to fire upon an angry assembly of citizens who had brought complaints to the court house, killing several of them. These soldiers were also arraigned for murder, and also acquitted. Need we mention the Boston Massacre of March 5, 1770? The Administration of Justice Act of 1774,[viii] which Lind thinks Jefferson was referring to here, was commonly called the “Murder Act” by the colonists.
  • For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world. Various Navigation Acts since the late 17th Century had attempted to funnel trade to and from the colonies through British ports to enable taxes to be levied and revenue to be raised. In 1733, the Molasses Act applied heavy duties to the trade of sugar from the (cheaper) French West Indies while leaving sugar purchased from the British West Indies duty free, producing a new enterprise in America: smuggling. Finally, in December 1775, the King issued a proclamation (the Prohibitory Act) closing the American colonies to all commerce and trade, to begin the following March. Under international law, this was an act of war.
  • For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: The French and Indian War raised British national debt 70% over 7 short years. Even though the “Seven Years War” (as it was called in Europe) saw skirmishes also on the European continent and the oceans, Parliament saw the effort as basically bailing out the colonies; thus, the colonies would need to pay for their “salvation.” The Stamp Act of 1765 was one such effort. But, the issue of taxation without representation had been brewing for a long, long time.
  • For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury. In 1674, during the reign of Charles II, the British formed a Court of Admiralty in America, bypassing the long-established colonial legal system. In 1764, a Revenue Act created a so-called ‘super’ vice-admiralty court in Halifax, Nova Scotia, presided over by a Crown-appointed judge. Instead of being tried by a jury of their peers, colonists were sent for trial by a single judge paid directly by the Crown. Lind claims the Admiralty Courts were merely a response to ubiquitous piracy in American waters.
  • For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences. On April, 1774, Parliament passed “A bill for the impartial administration of justice in the cases of persons questioned for any acts done by them in the execution of the laws, or for the suppression of riots and tumults in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England.” (Don’t you just love these simple law titles?) The Governor or the Lieutenant Governor could now order colonists to be transported to another colony or even to Great Britain for trial. If you wanted witnesses to testify in your favor, guess who paid their transport and lodging? Sound fair? It should come as no surprise, then, to find our own U.S. Constitution read: The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed. (Article 3, Section 2)
  • For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies. This “neighbouring Province,” you might guess, was Canada. In 1774, Parliament passed a bill giving support to French Catholics in Quebec and expanding Canada’s border to encompass land desired by other colonies. Parliament’s plan was to create a safe place to mass British troops in case of open rebellion.[ix]
  • For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments. Attempts to confiscate colonial charters go back to at least 1686[x]. The Boston Port Bill of March, 1774 altered the Charter of Massachusetts and gave the King the right to choose the members of the Massachusetts Council. The King would now have complete control over the selection of judges and have the ability to appoint sheriffs. Popular town meetings were eliminated, and the election of jurors denied. Even some members of Parliament described the Act as “exorbitant usurpation.”
  • For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.”[xi] Colonial legislatures had been repeatedly suspended. When New York’s Assembly failed to comply with the 1766 Quartering Act, Parliament suspended the colony’s Governor and legislature in 1767 and 1769. The order was never carried out since the Assembly backed down and agreed to contribute the necessary funds to cover the quartering in that colony. “[I]n all cases whatsoever” could only refer to one thing: the Declaratory Act of 1766, passed as the Stamp Act was being repealed. Here, Jefferson uses the Act’s own words in ridicule.

One by one, Jefferson ticked off the acts of “pretended legislation,” exposing Parliament’s obnoxious meddling in colonial affairs. But, in so doing, he continued his exposition of the principles of good government begun earlier in the document. For example: if “transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences” is an example of bad government, Jefferson simultaneously points us to an example of good government: hold trials, if at all possible, in the locale where the crime was committed. And, what do we find in Article 3, Section 2 of our Constitution? “The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed…” (Emphasis added)

Studying the Declaration of Independence is a worthy goal, if nothing more, simply as an example of good writing. But, it can be so much more. Thoughtful study of Mr. Jefferson’s Declaration introduces us, if inadvertently, to a treatise on good government. Thank you, Mr. Jefferson.

After skewering the Parliament for their obnoxious legislation, Jefferson returns (in our next essay) to the King, with more charges.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people. CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).


Podcast By Maureen Quinn

 

[1] The British Constitution, to this day, is described as an “unwritten” Constitution. Unlike that of the United States, which encapsulates its constitution in a single document, thus making it a “written” constitution, Britain’s constitution is comprised of the Bill of Rights of 1689, Acts of Parliament, and Common law, law developed by the courts and judges through cases.

[2] Lind writes: “Ill would it become the dignity of an insulted Sovereign to descend to altercation with revolted subjects. This would be to recognise that equality and independence, to which subjects, persisting in revolt, cannot fail to pretend.”

[i] http://founding.com/founders-library/government-documents/federal-government-documents/resolutions-and-recommendations-of-the-continental-congress-1776/

[ii] Blacks Law Dictionary, 4th edition

[iii] Larry Arnn, The Founders’ Key (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Inc., 2012), 31.

[iv] Ibid, 25.

[v] Gulf, C. & S. F. R. Co. v. Ellis ,  165 U.S. 150 (1897)

[vi] https://archive.org/details/cihm_20519/page/n5/mode/2up

[vii] 14 Geo III c.54 according to Lind

[viii] 14 Geo III c.39 aka The Administration of Justice Act, the colonists called this “The Murder Act”

[ix] 14 George III, c. 83 aka The Quebec Act, 1774

[x] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_Oak

[xi] 6 Geo III c 12), aka the Declaratory Act

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Essay 9 - Guest Essayist: Gary Porter
Founding Fathers John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson kneeling in prayer at Valley Forge, PA, bronze sculpture by Stan Watts at Freedoms Foundation of Valley Forge

“that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,”

According to Mr. Thomas Jefferson, it is a self-evident truth (or, if you prefer: a “sacred and undeniable truth”[1]) “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,”

This is one of the most memorable and yet controversial statements in English prose. Memorable it has become due to its striking simplicity. Controversial? It shouldn’t be. Jefferson is writing to the Americans of 1776; but his words also apply to Americans of 2021. A truth is a truth.

In 1776, Jefferson’s was a claim few would dispute or even take much notice of; it expressed an idea that had been “hackneyed about” in America for fifty to a hundred years. This was, simply, “an expression of the American Mind” of 1776. But today? While only 1 in 10 Americans believe there is no God at all, only about half of Americans believe God is an active participant in their lives.[2] Only 40% of Americans believe God actually created the world as Jefferson alludes,[3] and fewer still believe in the existence of God-given rights. Some today even claim there is danger in insisting that rights come from God. Instead, these people insist that these rights come from “human progress.”[4] There are grave implications to this alternative view, as we will see in a moment.

But, as author Brian Vanyo points out:

the Founding Fathers and other Natural Law philosophers did not take for granted that God existed. They did not base their strong conviction in God on religious dogma. Rather, they deduced that God must exist because an alternative conclusion was irrational…Belief in God was so common among the founding generation that further validation of God’s existence was often unnecessary and unwelcome.” [5]

Jefferson claimed these unalienable rights were an endowment – a gift – from our Creator: natural rights result from “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” Later in life, in the only book he ever wrote, Jefferson reiterated this view.[6] The colonists had been making this claim to their King – that these were their natural rights, and they were being violated – for many years.

The standard formula up until 1776 had been: “Life + Liberty + Property = Our Fundamental Natural Rights.” [7] Why did Jefferson now substitute “pursuit of happiness”?  Some scholars insist Jefferson borrowed the “pursuit of happiness” idea from John Locke. Locke indeed explored this idea in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (published 1689), which Jefferson no doubt studied. And it is undisputed that Jefferson modeled other phrases in the Declaration after Locke.[8]  But “pursuit of happiness” and similar phrases were commonly encountered during the Founding period. Take this excerpt from a 1773 Election Sermon by Pastor Simeon Howard:

“In a state of nature, or where men are under no civil government, God has given to every one liberty to pursue his own happiness in whatever way, and by whatever means he pleases, without asking the consent or consulting the inclination of any other man, provided he keeps within the bounds of the law of nature. Within these bounds, he may govern his actions, and dispose of his property and person, as he thinks proper, Nor has any man, or any number of men, a right to restrain him in the exercise of this liberty, or punish, or call him to account for using it. This however is not a state of licentiousness, for the law of nature which bounds this liberty, forbids all injustice and wickedness, allows no man to injure another in his person or property, or to destroy his own life.”[9]

Much has been written dissecting Jefferson’s choice of “pursuit of happiness” over “property,”[10] so I won’t take more time with the subject here other than to say there is no evidence that suggests Jefferson did not believe the right to property to also be a natural right.

Alexander Hamilton concurred that God was the source of the colonists’ rights. Answering an essayist calling himself “The Farmer,” Hamilton wrote:

The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms and false reasonings is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to a parity of privileges. You would be convinced, that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race, and that civil liberty is founded in that; and cannot be wrested from any people, without the most manifest violation of justice. Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not a thing, in its own nature, precarious and dependent on human will and caprice; but it is conformable to the constitution of man, as well as necessary to the well-being of society…The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”[11]

So did James Wilson:

“What was the primary and principal object in the institution of government? Was it – I speak of the primary and principal object – was it to acquire new rights by a human establishment? Or was it, by human establishment, to acquire new security for the possession or the recovery of those rights, to the enjoyment or acquisition of which we were previously entitled by the immediate gift, or by the unerring law, of our all-wise and all-beneficent Creator? The latter, I presume, was the case…”[12]

And John Adams:

I say RIGHTS, for such they have, undoubtedly, antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe.”[13]

And John Dickinson:

Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness… We claim them from a higher source – from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence, which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power without taking our lives. In short they are founded on the immutable maxims of reason and justice.”[14]

The prevailing understanding of the founding era was that God was the source of natural rights, period. But, even in the founding era that understanding was beginning to change, and the change has picked up speed in the modern era.

Today, it is not uncommon to encounter people claiming that man himself is the source of his rights. When interviewing controversial Judge Roy Moore, then Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, CNN commentator Chris Cuomo famously declared:  “Our rights do not come from God, your Honor, and you know that, they come from man.”

But, there is a problem with this belief, a big problem. If our rights come from man, i.e., from the laws we human beings enact, then how can these rights ever be considered unalienable? Does this mean certain men can pass a civil law creating a certain civil right with the understanding that future men will somehow be prevented from revoking that law and thus revoking the right it created? Manmade rights can simply not be unalienable.

Could there be a middle ground where both unalienable and alienable rights are part of the human condition? What if both Cuomo and Moore are right each in their own unique way?

I think we must acknowledge that man can indeed create rights through civil law. The right to vote, for instance (some insist it is a privilege, not a right), could not be a natural right. In the hypothetical state of nature, voting would have no meaning, there being no society and no government. So, some rights, as Cuomo insists, do indeed “come from man.” These rights must be considered alienable. The law that creates a right for certain individuals to vote today can easily be revoked tomorrow.

But, what then of natural rights, rights that would be part of the human condition were there no society, no government? Some today suggest that even these need not have a Heavenly source – as most of the Founders would insist – but that these rights became part of the human condition as man “evolved.”

The idea that human beings have inherent rights, inherent to being human, goes back to antiquity, but it began to gain significant adherents during The Enlightenment. One of those new adherents was Englishman Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). Regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism, Bentham explained the “fundamental axiom” of his philosophy as the principle that “it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.” Bentham famously called the idea of natural rights sourced in God as “nonsense upon stilts.”

John Dewey thought that “[n]atural rights and natural liberties exist only in the kingdom of mythological social zoology.”[15]

We do find some Founders using the “inherent” terminology; George Mason begins the Virginia Declaration of Rights by stating:

“That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”[16]

George Washington spoke of inherent natural rights in a Letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, August 17, 1790.[17]

Even Jefferson himself wrote that “Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.[18]

However, “inherent” and “natural” rights are not irreconcilable concepts.  Being inherent does not exclude God as the ultimate source. If God, as Creator, wished his human creations to understand they had these rights, he need only “embed” them into our consciousness. Both Jeremiah 31:33 and Hebrews 8:10 remind us that God’s law will be “written upon our hearts;” is it not reasonable to assume our rights are “inscribed” there as well?

We will not settle the “inherent” versus “natural” argument today, suffice it to say that if you like your rights “unalienable,” you best look to God as their source.

Which natural rights exist?  How many are there?

Note that in our subject phrase Jefferson points to only “certain” unalienable rights as included in the Creator’s endowment. “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” are among the rights created and given by God. Jefferson thus implies that other rights, beyond these three, are part of God’s endowment. This understanding, that there are other, perhaps even uncountable natural rights, was also part of the “American Mind,” so much so that we see it codified in the Ninth Amendment.[19]

One of the frequent objections to including a Bill of Rights in the Constitution was that “it would not only be useless, but dangerous, to enumerate a number of rights which are not intended to be given up; because it would be implying, in the strongest manner, that every right not included in the exception might be impaired by the government without usurpation; and it would be impossible to enumerate every one…”[20]

James Madison, in proposing the Bill of Rights on the floor of Congress in 1789, acknowledged the power of this objection but showed it had been anticipated. He said: “This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard urged against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the last clause of the 4th resolution (which would eventually become the Ninth Amendment).”[21]

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

But, we can see an obvious question arise here: if there are unenumerated rights which government should not “deny or disparage,” what are they? Who gets to identify or “enumerate” them? The Framers of the Constitution gave us no hint.

Thus far in our country’s history we have let the court system identify them. In 1965, the Supreme Court identified, for the first time, a right to privacy lurking in a “penumbra” of the Constitution. Eight years later the Justices expanded this right to include the “right” to terminate the life of an unborn baby. In 2008, the court pulled out of the “inkblot”[22] of the Ninth Amendment the “right” of two homosexuals to marry.

Note, however, that the Constitution begins not with the words: “We the Congress,” “I the President,” or even “We the Judges.” The Constitution represents a contract between the American people and the government the document creates. The people are sovereign; they hold the ultimate political power over the government. It is We the People who have the rightful authority to identify the rights we wish secured by the words of the Constitution. And the rightful mechanism for bringing those rights into the security of the Constitution is amendment, not judicial decree.

Thomas Jefferson’s words are as sacred and undeniable today as they were 245 years ago. Since Congress has declared the Declaration of Independence to be part of the Organic Law of the United States,[23] we would do well to reflect on and heed them.

Natural rights?  I’ll take mine unalienable, please.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people. CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Gary can be reached at  gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

Podcast by Maureen Quinn

[1] These were Jefferson’s words in the original draft of the Declaration.

[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/04/25/key-findings-about-americans-belief-in-god/

[3] https://news.gallup.com/poll/261680/americans-believe-creationism.aspx

[4] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201610/the-danger-claiming-rights-come-god

[5] Brian Vanyo, The American Ideology, Taking Back our Country with the Philosophy of our Founding Fathers, Liberty Publishing, 2012. p. 20-21.

[6] “And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?” Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1785.

[7] See both Declaration and Resolves, October 14, 1774 and A Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Their Taking Up Arms, July 6, 1775

[8] See Two Treatises on Government, Bk II

[9] A sermon preached to the Ancient and Honorable Artillery-Company, in Boston, New-England, June 7th, 1773. : Being the anniversary of their election of officers, by Pastor Simeon Howard, accessed at: https://christiancivicfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/artillery-sermon-on-liberty-simeon-howard.pdf

[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life,_Liberty_and_the_pursuit_of_Happiness

[11] The Farmer Refuted, 1775

[12] Mark David Hall, The Political and Legal Philosophy of James Wilson, 1742-1798 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997) pp. 1053-1054

[13] A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765

[14] An Address to the Committee of Correspondence in Barbados, 1766

[15] John Dewey, Liberalism and Social Action, 1935, page 17.

[16] George Mason, Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776, accessed at https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/virginia-declaration-of-rights.

[17] https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-06-02-0135

[18] Letter to John Cartwright, 1824.

[19] “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

[20] James Iredell, speaking at the North Carolina Ratifying Convention, July 29, 1788.

[21] https://usconstitution.net/madisonbor.html

[22] “An inkblot” is the way Judge Robert Bork characterized the Ninth Amendment in his unfruitful confirmation hearing for a seat on the Supreme Court.

[23] https://uscode.house.gov/browse/frontmatter/organiclaws%26edition=prelim

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Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

While speaking on June 14, 1954, Flag Day, President Dwight D. Eisenhower talked about the importance of reaffirming religious faith in America’s heritage and future, that doing so would “constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource, in peace or in war.” In 1864 during the Civil War, the phrase “In God We Trust” first appeared on U.S. coins. On July 30, 1956, “In God We Trust” became the nation’s motto as President Eisenhower signed into law a bill declaring it, along with having the motto printed in capital letters, on every United States denomination of paper currency.

The Hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations.” George Washington, 1778.[i]

It becomes a people publicly to acknowledge the over-ruling hand of Divine Providence and their dependence upon the Supreme Being as their Creator and Merciful Preserver . . .” Samuel Huntington, 1791.[ii]

We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.” Associate Justice William O. Douglas, 1952.[iii]

One of the most enduring battles in American politics has been over the question of whether America is or ever was a Christian Nation. For Supreme Court Associate Justice David Brewer the answer was simple: yes. The United States was formed as and, in Brewer’s 1892 at least, still was, a Christian Nation. The Justice said as much in Church of the Holy Trinity vs. United States. But his simple answer did not go unsupported.

“[I]n what sense can [the United States] be called a Christian nation? Not in the sense that Christianity is the established religion or the people are compelled in any manner to support it…Neither is it Christian in the sense that all its citizens are either in fact or in name Christians. On the contrary, all religions have free scope within its borders. Numbers of our people profess other religions, and many reject all…Nevertheless, we constantly speak of this republic as a Christian Nation – in fact, as the leading Christian Nation of the world. This popular use of the term certainly has significance. It is not a mere creation of the imagination. It is not a term of derision but has substantial basis – on which justifies its use. Let us analyze a little and see what is the basis.”[iv]

Brewer went on, of course, to do just that.

Regrettably, it lies beyond the scope of this short essay to repeat Brewer’s arguments. In 1905, Brewer re-assembled them into a book: The United States a Christian Nation. It was republished in 2010 by American Vision and is worth the read.[v]  For the purposes of this essay I will stipulate, with Brewer, that America is a Christian nation. If that be the case, it should come as no surprise that such a nation would take the advice of Samuel Huntington and openly acknowledge its trust in God on multiple occasions and in a variety of ways: on its coinage, for instance. How we came to do that as a nation is an interesting story stretching over much of our history.

Trusting God was a familiar concept to America’s settlers – they spoke and wrote of it often. Their Bibles, at least one in every home, contained many verses encouraging believers to place their trust in God,[vi] and early Americans knew their Bible.[vii] Upon surviving the perilous voyage across the ocean, their consistent first act was to thank the God of the Bible for their safety.

Benjamin Franklin’s volunteer Pennsylvania militia of 1747-1748 reportedly had regimental banners displaying “In God We Trust.”[viii] In 1776, our Declaration of Independence confirmed the signers had placed “a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence.”[ix] In 1814, Francis Scott Key penned his famous poem which eventually became our national anthem. The fourth stanza contains the words: “Then conquer we must, when our cause is just, and this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’”

In 1848, construction began on the first phase of the Washington Monument (it was not completed until 1884). “In God We Trust” sits among Bible verses chiseled on the inside walls and “Praise God” (“Laus Deo” in Latin) can be found on its cap plate. But it would be another thirteen years before someone suggested putting a “recognition of the Almighty God” on U.S. coins.

That someone, Pennsylvania minister M. R. Watkinson, wrote to Salmon P. Chase, Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury, and suggested that such a recognition of the Almighty God would “place us openly under the Divine protection we have personally claimed.” Watkinson suggested the words “PERPETUAL UNION” and “GOD, LIBERTY, LAW.” Chase liked the basic idea but not Watkinson’s suggestions. He instructed James Pollock, Director of the Mint at Philadelphia, to come up with a motto for the coins: “The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins. You will cause a device to be prepared without unnecessary delay with a motto expressing in the fewest and tersest words possible this national recognition (emphasis mine).

Secretary Chase “wordsmithed” Director Pollock’s suggestions a bit and came up with his “tersest” words: “IN GOD WE TRUST,” which was ordered to be so engraved by an Act of Congress on April 22, 1864. First to bear the words was the 1864 two-cent coin.

The following year, another Act of Congress allowed the Mint Director to place the motto on all gold and silver coins that “shall admit the inscription thereon.” The motto was promptly placed on the gold double-eagle coin, the gold eagle coin, and the gold half-eagle coin. It was also minted on silver coins, and on the nickel three-cent coin beginning in 1866.

One might guess that the phrase has appeared on all U.S. coins since 1866 – one would be wrong.

The U.S. Treasury website explains (without further details) that “the motto disappeared from the five-cent coin in 1883, and did not reappear until production of the Jefferson nickel began in 1938.” The motto was also “found missing from the new design of the double-eagle gold coin and the eagle gold coin shortly after they appeared in 1907. In response to a general demand, Congress ordered it restored, and the Act of May 18, 1908, made it mandatory on all coins upon which it had previously appeared” [x] (emphasis added). I’m guessing someone got fired over that disappearance act. Since 1938, all United States coins have borne the phrase. None others have had it “go missing.”

The date 1956 was a watershed year.  As you read in the introduction to this essay, that year, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a law (P.L. 84-140) which declared “In God We Trust” to be the national motto of the United States. The bill had passed the House and the Senate unanimously and without debate. The following year the motto began appearing on U.S. paper currency, beginning with the one-dollar silver certificate. The Treasury gradually included it as part of the back design of all classes and denominations of currency.

Our story could end there – but it doesn’t.

There is no doubt Founding Era Americans would have welcomed the phrase on their currency had someone suggested it, but it turns out some Americans today have a problem with it – a big problem.

America’s atheists continue to periodically challenge the constitutionality of the phrase appearing on government coins. The first challenge occurred in 1970; Aronow v. United States would not be the last. Additional challenges were mounted in 1978 (O’Hair v. Blumenthal) and 1979 (Madalyn Murray O’Hair vs W. Michael Blumenthal). Each of these cases was decided at the circuit court level against the plaintiff, with the court affirming that the “primary purpose of the slogan was secular.”

Each value judgment under the Religion Clauses must therefore turn on whether particular acts in question are intended to establish or interfere with religious beliefs and practices or have the effect of doing so. [xi]

Having the national motto on currency neither established nor interfered with “religious beliefs and practices.”

In 2011, in case some needed a reminder, the House of Representatives passed a new resolution reaffirming “In God We Trust” as the official motto of the United States by a 396–9 vote (recall that the 1956 vote had been unanimous, here in the 21st century it was not).

Undaunted by the courts’ previous opinions on the matter, atheist activist Michael Newdow brought a new challenge in 2019 — and lost in the Eighth Circuit. The Supreme Court (on April 23, 2020) declined to hear the appeal. At my count, Newdow is now 0-5. His 2004 challenge[xii] that the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance violated the First Amendment was a bust, as was his 2009 attempt to block Chief Justice John Roberts from including the phrase “So help me God” when administering the presidential oath of office to Barack Obama. He tried to stop the phrase from being recited in the 2013 and 2017 inaugurations as well – each time unsuccessfully.

In spite of atheist challenges, or perhaps because of them, our national motto is enjoying a bit of resurgence of late, at least in the more conservative areas of the country:

In 2014, the Mississippi legislature voted to add the words, “In God We Trust” to their state seal.

In 2015, Jefferson County, Illinois decided to put the national motto on their police squad cars. Many other localities followed suit, including York County, Virginia, and Bakersfield, California, in 2019.

In March, 2017, Arkansas required their public schools to display posters which included the national motto. Similar laws were passed in Florida (2018), Tennessee (2018), South Dakota (2019) and Louisiana (2019).

On March 3, 2020, the Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a bill that would require all public buildings in the state to display the motto. Kansas, Indiana, and Oklahoma are considering similar bills.

But here is the question which lies at the heart of this issue: Does America indeed trust in God?

I think it is clear that America’s Founders, by and large did – at least they said and acted as though they did. But when you look around the United States today, outside of some limited activity on Sunday mornings and on the National Day of Prayer, does America actually trust in God? There is ample evidence we trust in everything, anything, but God.

Certainly we seem to trust in science, or what passes for science today.  We put a lot of trust in public education, it would seem, even though the results are quite unimpressive and the curriculum actually works to undermine trust in God. Finally, we put a lot of trust in our elected officials even though they betray that trust with alarming regularity.[xiii]

Perhaps citizens of the United States need to see our motto on our currency, on school and court room walls to simply remind us of what we should be doing, and doing more often.

“America trusts in God,” we declare. Do we mean it?

“And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.” Psalm 9:10 ESV

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people. CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

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[i] Letter to Thomas Nelson, August 20, 1778.

[ii] Samuel Huntington was a signer of the Declaration Of Independence; President of Congress;
Judge; and Governor of Connecticut.  Quoted from A Proclamation for a Day of Fasting, Prayer and Humiliation, March 9, 1791.

[iii] Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306 (1952).

[iv] Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U.S. 457 (1892).

[v] https://store.americanvision.org/collections/books/products/the-united-states-a-christian-nation

[vi] Examples include: Psalm 56:3, Isaiah 26:4, Psalm 20:7, Proverbs 3:5-6 and Jeremiah 17:7.

[vii] “Their many quotations from and allusions to both familiar and obscure scriptural passages confirms that [America’s Founders] knew the Bible from cover to cover.” Daniel L. Driesbach, 2017, Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers, Oxford University Press, p.1

[viii] See https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/161178

[ix] Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, July 1776.

[x] https://www.treasury.gov/about/education/Pages/in-god-we-trust.aspx

[xi] https://openjurist.org/432/f2d/242/aronow-v-united-states

[xii] Newdow v. United States, 328 F.3d 466 (9th Cir. 2004)

[xiii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_federal_politicians_convicted_of_crimes

Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

In 1788, as the United States Constitution was adopted, senators would be elected by state legislatures to protect the states from the federal government increasing its own power. Problems related to the election of senators later resulted in lengthy senate vacancies. A popular vote movement began as a solution, but it failed to consider importance of separation of powers as designed by the Framers to protect liberty and maintain stability in government. The popular vote was an attempt to hamper the more deliberative body that is the United States Senate, and succumb to the more passionate, immediate will of the people, so on April 8, 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted.

We’ve all heard the phrase: “shooting oneself in the foot.” Grammerist.com reminds us: To shoot oneself in the foot means to sabotage oneself, to make a silly mistake that harms yourself in some fashion. The phrase comes from a phenomenon that became fairly common during the First World War. Soldiers sometimes shot themselves in the foot in order to be sent to the hospital tent rather than being sent into battle.”[i]

Can a state, one of the United States, be guilty of “shooting itself in the foot?” How about multiple states? How about thirty-six states all at once? Not only can they be, I believe they have been guilty, particularly as it regards the Seventeenth Amendment. Let me explain.

“Checks and balances, checks and balances,” we hear the refrain often and passionately these days. The phrase “Checks and balances” is part of every schoolchild’s introduction to the Constitution. In May 2019, when President Donald Trump exerted executive privilege to prevent the testimony before Congress of certain White House advisors, NBC exclaimed: “Trump’s subpoena obstruction has fractured the Constitution’s system of checks and balances”[ii] I’m not certain the Framers of the Constitution would agree with NBC as exerting executive privilege has been part of our constitutional landscape since George Washington,[iii] and if exerting it “fractures” the Constitution, the document would have fallen into pieces long, long ago. As we will see, a significant “fracturing” of the Constitution’s system of checks and balances did occur in this country, but it occurred more than a hundred years before President Donald Trump took office.

The impeachment power is intended to check a rogue President. The Supreme Court checks a Constitution-ignoring Congress, as does the President’s veto. Congress can check (as in limit) the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, and reduce or expand the number of justices at will. There are many examples of checks and balances in the Constitution. The framers of the document, distrustful as they were of human nature, were careful to give us this critical, power-limiting feature.[iv] But which was more important: the checks or the balances?

Aha, trick question. They are equally important (in my opinion at least). And sometimes a certain feature works as both a check and a balance. The one I have in mind is the original feature whereby Senators were to be appointed by their state legislatures.

We all know the story of how the Senate came into being which was the result of Roger Sherman’s great compromise. It retained the “one-state-one-vote” equality the small states enjoyed with the large states under the Articles of Confederation while also creating a legislative chamber, the House, where representation was based on a state’s population. Their six-year terms allowed them to take “a more detached view of issues coming before Congress.”[v] But how should these new Senators be selected: by the people, as in the House, or otherwise?

On July 7, 1787 the Constitutional Convention unanimously adopted a proposal by John Dickinson and Roger Sherman that the state legislatures elect this “Second Branch of the National Legislature.”  Why not the people? Alexander Hamilton explains:

“The history of ancient and modern republics had taught them that many of the evils which those republics suffered arose from the want of a certain balance, and that mutual control indispensable to a wise administration. They were convinced that popular assemblies are frequently misguided by ignorance, by sudden impulses, and the intrigues of ambitious men; and that some firm barrier against these operations was necessary. They, therefore, instituted your Senate.”[vi] (Emphasis added)

The Senate was to avoid the “impulses” of popularly-elected assemblies and provide a “barrier”  to such impulses when they might occur in the other branch.

James Madison explains in Federalist 62 who particularly benefits from this arrangement:

It is … unnecessary to [expand] on the appointment of senators by the State legislatures. Among the various modes which might have been devised for constituting this branch of the government, that which has been proposed by the convention is probably the most congenial with the public opinion. It is recommended by the double advantage of favoring a select appointment, and of giving to the State governments such an agency in the formation of the federal government as must secure the authority of the former, and may form a convenient link between the two systems.”[vii] (Emphasis added)

Appointment by the state legislatures gave the state governments a direct voice in the workings of the federal government. Madison continues:

“Another advantage accruing from this ingredient in the constitution of the Senate is, the additional impediment it must prove against improper acts of legislation. No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence, first, of a majority of the people (in the House), and then, of a majority of the States. It must be acknowledged that this complicated check on legislation may in some instances be injurious as well as beneficial; ….” (Emphasis added)

For those with lingering doubt as to who the Senators were to represent, Robert Livingston explained in the New York Ratifying Convention: “The senate are indeed designed to represent the state governments.”[viii] (Emphasis added)

Perhaps sensing the potential to change the mode of electing Senators in the future, Hamilton cautioned: “In this state (his own state of New York) we have a senate, possessed of the proper qualities of a permanent body: Virginia, Maryland, and a few other states, are in the same situation: The rest are either governed by a single democratic assembly (ex: Pennsylvania), or have a senate constituted entirely upon democratic principles—These have been more or less embroiled in factions, and have generally been the image and echo of the multitude.[ix] Hamilton refers here to those states where the state senators were popularly elected.

The careful balance of this system worked well until the end of the 19th century and the beginnings of the Progressive Era.

Gradually there arose a “feeling” that some senatorial appointments in the state legislatures were being “bought and sold.”  Between 1857 and 1900, Congress investigated three elections over alleged corruption. In 1900, the election of Montana Senator William A. Clark was voided after the Senate concluded that he had “purchased” eight of his fifteen votes.

Electoral deadlocks became another issue. Occasionally a state couldn’t decide on one or more of their Senators. One of Delaware’s Senate seats went unfilled from 1899 until 1903.

Neither of these problems was serious, but they both provided fodder for those enamored with “democracy.” But bandwagons being what they are, some could not resist. Some states began holding non-binding primaries for their Senate candidates.

Under mounting pressure from Progressives, by 1910, thirty-one state legislatures were asking Congress for a constitutional amendment allowing direct election of senators by the people. In the same year several Republican senators who were opposed to such reform failed re-election. This served as a “wake-up call” to others who remained opposed. Twenty-seven of the thirty-one states requesting an amendment also called for a constitutional convention to meet on the issue, only four states shy of the threshold that would require Congress to act.

Finally, on May 13, 1912, Congress responded. A resolution to require direct elections of Senators by the citizens of each state was finally introduced and it quickly passed. In less than a year it had been ratified by three-quarters of the states and was declared part of the Constitution by Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan on May 31, 1913, two months after President Woodrow Wilson took office.

The Seventeenth Amendment has been cheered by the Left as a victory for populism and democracy, and bemoaned by the Right as a loss for states’ rights or “The Death of Federalism!” Now, millions in corporate funding pours into Senate election campaigns. Senators no longer consult with their state legislatures regarding pending legislation. Why should they? They now represent their state’s citizens directly. The interests of the state governments need not be considered.

For the states to actually ask Congress for this change seems incredibly near-sighted. Much of the encroachment by the Federal Government on policy matters which were traditionally the purview of the states can, I believe, be traced to the Seventeenth Amendment.

We repealed the Eighteenth Amendment. What about repealing the Seventeenth?  Many organizations and individuals have called for it. Every year he was in office, Senator Zell Miller of Georgia repeatedly called for its repeal. A brief look at who supports repeal and who opposes it reveals much. In support of repeal are the various Tea Party organizations, National Review magazine and others on the Right. Opposed, predictably enough, sit the LA Times and other liberal organizations. Solon magazine called the repeal movement “The surprising Republican movement to strip voters of their right to elect senators.” Where this supposed right originates is not explained in the article.

The wisdom of America’s Founders continues to amaze us more than 200 years later. Unfortunately, the carefully balanced framework of government they devised has been slowly chipped away by Supreme Court decisions and structural changes, like the Seventeenth Amendment. Seeing that the states willingly threw away their direct voice in the federal government, my sympathy for them is limited, but repeal of this dreadful amendment is long overdue.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

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[i] https://grammarist.com/idiom/shoot-oneself-in-the-foot/

[ii] https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-subpoena-obstruction-has-fractured-constitution-s-system-checks-ncna1002101

[iii] https://supreme.findlaw.com/legal-commentary/a-brief-history-of-executive-privilege-from-george-washington-through-dick-cheney.html

[iv] See Federalist 51

[v] Bybee, Jay S. (1997). “Ulysses at the Mast: Democracy, Federalism, and the Sirens’ Song of the Seventeenth Amendment”. Northwestern University Law Review. Northwestern University School of Law. p. 515.

[vi] Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, 1788

[vii] James Madison, Federalist 62

[viii] Robert Livingston, New York Ratifying Convention, 24 Jun 1788.

[ix] Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, 1788

Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

Only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, ending the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in a theater in Washington, D.C. John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate supporter, shot the president who succumbed to his wounds the next day. President Andrew Johnson took Lincoln’s place, and was less supportive of Lincoln’s anti-slavery policies, diluting the abolition of slavery Lincoln envisioned. Johnson was in favor of policies that further disenfranchised free blacks, setting political policies that would weaken the nation’s unity.

Imagine if President Donald Trump were to choose Senator Bernie Sanders as his running mate in November 2020. Would that shock you?

Americans of 1864 must have been shocked to see President Abraham Lincoln, leader of the Republican Party, choose Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, as his running mate.

Nothing in the Constitution prohibited it, of course, and once before, America had witnessed a President and Vice from different parties. In 1796 it was accidental; this time it was on purpose.

Andrew Johnson was probably the most politically-qualified VP Lincoln could have chosen. Though totally unschooled, Johnson was the consummate politician. He started political life at age 21 as a Greenville, Tennessee alderman in 1829 and would hold elective office almost continuously for the next thirty-five years, serving as a state legislator, Congressman, two-term Governor of Tennessee and finally Senator from Tennessee.[1] When the Civil War began and Tennessee left the Union, Johnson chose to leave his state rather than break with the Union. Lincoln promptly appointed him Military Governor of Tennessee.

Heading into the 1864 election, the Democratic Party was bitterly split between War Democrats and Peace Democrats. Wars tend to do that. They tend to force people into one camp or the other. To bridge the gap and hopefully unify the party, Democrats found a compromise:  nominate pro-war General George B. McClellan for president and anti-war Representative George H. Pendleton for Vice President. The ticket gathered early support.

Lincoln thought a similar “compromise ticket” was needed. Running once again with Vice President Hannibal Hamlin was out. Hamlin was nice enough, a perfect gentleman who even volunteered for a brief stint in his Maine militia unit during the war, but Hamlin had not played a very prominent role in Lincoln’s administration during the first term. Hamlin had to go. Johnson was in.

To complicate electoral matters further, a group of disenchanted “Radical Republicans” who thought Lincoln too moderate formed the Radical Democracy Party a month before the Republican Convention and nominated their own candidates. They nominated Senator John C. Fremont from California for President and General John Cochrane from New York for Vice President. Two Johns on one ticket, two Georges on another and two men on a third whose first names began with “A.” Coincidence?  I don’t think so.

Choosing, finally, to not play the spoiler, Fremont withdrew his nomination barely two months before the election. Under the slogan “Don’t change horses in the middle of a stream,” Republicans were able to sweep the Lincoln/Johnson ticket to victory. The two men easily defeated “the two Georges” by a wide margin of 212 to 21 electoral votes.

In his second inaugural address, Lincoln uttered some of his most memorable lines ever:

the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.” With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

And then disaster hit. A little over a month after he delivered these memorable lines, Lincoln was shot in the head by Southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth on the night of April 14 while enjoying a play at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. Lincoln died the following day.  Booth’s conspiracy had planned to take out not only Lincoln, but his Vice President, and Secretary of State William Seward as well.  Seward was critically injured, but survived. Johnson also survived when assassin George Atzerodt got drunk and had a change of heart. The following day, two and a half hours after Lincoln drew his last breath, Johnson was installed as the seventeenth President of the United States.

Booth was quickly tracked down by Union troops and killed while attempting to escape. The rest of the conspirators were soon captured and the ringleaders hanged, including Mary Surratt, the first woman ever executed by the U.S. government.

Faced with the unenviable task of Reconstruction after a devastating war, Johnson’s administration started well, but quickly went downhill. The Radical Republicans were out for southern blood and Johnson did not share their thirst.

Although Lincoln is well-known for his wartime violations of the U.S. Constitution, Johnson is best known for sticking to it.

To show Johnson’s affinity for strict constructionism, there is this story: As a U.S. Representative, Johnson had voted against a bill to give federal aid to Ireland in the midst of a famine. In a debate during his subsequent run for Governor of Tennessee, his opponent criticized this vote. Johnson responded that people, not government, had the responsibility of helping their fellow men in need. He then pulled from his pocket a receipt for the $50 he had sent to the hungry Irish. “How much did you give, sir?” His opponent had to confess he had given nothing. The audience went wild. Johnson later credited this exchange with helping him win the election.

Johnson recognized the legitimacy of the Thirteenth Amendment, but he did not believe blacks deserved the right to vote. He vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 which would give citizenship and extend civil rights to all regardless of race, but Congress overrode the veto. When the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act was challenged, the Fourteenth Amendment was proposed and Johnson opposed that as well. The Radical Republicans then passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867. Johnson vetoed it and the Republicans overrode his veto. Republicans then threatened reluctant southern states with a continuance of their military governance unless they ratified the Amendment. An unnamed Republican at the time called this “ratification at the point of a bayonet.” Johnson’s reluctance to support the Radical Republican agenda did not endear him to them.

The “straw that broke the camel’s back” came when Johnson tried to remove Edwin Stanton as Secretary of War despite the Tenure of Office Act which ostensibly, and unconstitutionally in Johnson’s view, prevented such action. Johnson fired Stanton. Threatened with impeachment, Johnson replied, “Let them impeach and be damned.” Congress promptly did just that – impeach, that is. After the House impeachment, the Senate trial resulted in acquittal. Johnson retained his office by a single vote, but still gained the notoriety of being the first United States President to be impeached.

The events surrounding President Lincoln’s assignation on April 15, 1865 changed the political landscape following the Civil War making it a significant date to learn about in America’s history.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

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[1] After failing to be reelected President, Johnson was even elected Senator from Tennessee once again in 1875.

Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

Andrew Jackson started out as a lawyer and grew in politics. By the end of the War of 1812 between the United States and Britain, Jackson was a military hero of great influence. Former governor of Tennessee, he defeated John Quincy Adams in 1828, became the seventh president and first Democratic Party president, and helped found the Democratic Party.

Jackson’s biography reads larger than life. He was born in 1767 in a backwoods cabin, its precise location unknown. He was scarred by a British officer’s sword, orphaned at fourteen and raised by uncles. He was admitted to the bar after reading law on his own, one year a Congressman before being elected to the U.S. Senate, a position he then resigned after only eight months. He was appointed as a circuit judge on the Tennessee superior court. He became a wealthy Tennessee landowner, and received a direct appointment as a major general in the Tennessee militia which led, after military success, to direct appointment to the same rank in the U.S. Army. He was an underdog victor and national hero at the Battle of New Orleans, and conducted controversial military actions in the 1817 Seminole War. He experienced disappointment in the 1824 presidential election, but success four years later. He survived the first assassination attempt of a United States President and was the first President to have his Vice-President resign. He appointed Roger Taney (Dred Scott v. Sanford) to the U.S. Supreme Court. President Jackson died in 1845 of lead poisoning from the two duelist bullets he carried for years in his chest, one for forty years. You couldn’t make this biography up if you tried.

President Andrew Jackson is a constitutionalist’s dream. Few U.S. Presidents intersected the document of the U.S. Constitution as often or as forcefully during their terms as did “Old Hickory.” From the Nullification Crisis of 1832, to “killing” the Second National Bank, to his controversial “Trail of Tears” decision, Jackson seemed to attract constitutional crises like a magnet. When the Supreme Court handed down its opinion in Worcester v. George, Jackson is purported to have said “Well, John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.” It has not been reported whether Thomas Jefferson’s moldering corpse sat up at hearing those words, but I think it likely.

Jackson’s multiple rubs with the Constitution preceded his presidency. As the General in charge of defending New Orleans in late 1814, he suspended the writ of habeas corpus, which the Constitution gives only Congress the power to suspend,[1] unilaterally declaring martial law over the town and surrounding area. Habeas corpus, the “great and efficacious writ,”[2] enjoyed a heritage going back at least to Magna Carta in 1215, a fact Jackson found not compelling enough in the light of the civilian unrest he faced. As Matthew Warshauer has noted: “The rub was that martial law saved New Orleans and the victory itself saved the nation’s pride… Jackson walked away from the event with two abiding convictions: one, that victory and the nationalism generated by it protected his actions, even if illegal; and two, that he could do what he wanted if he deemed it in the nation’s best interest.”[3]

It would not be Jackson’s last brush as a military officer with arguably illegal actions. Three years later, during the First Seminole War, he found his incursion into Spanish Florida, conducted without military orders, under review by Congress. Later, when running for President, Jackson had to defend his actions: “it has been my lot often to be placed in situations of a critical kind” that “imposed on me the necessity of [v]iolating, or rather departing from, the constitution of the country; yet at no subsequent period has it produced to me a single pang, believing as I do now, & then did, that without it, security neither to myself or the great cause confided to me, could have been obtained.” (Abraham Lincoln would later offer a not dissimilar defense of his own unconstitutional suspension of Habeas Corpus in 1861).

After the ratification of the Adams–Onís Treaty in 1821, settling affairs with Spain, Jackson resigned from the army and, after a brief stint as the Governor of the Territory of Florida, returned to Tennessee. The next year he reluctantly allowed himself to be elected Senator from Tennessee in a bid (by others) to position him for the Presidency.

In the 1824 election against John Quincy Adams, Senator Jackson won a plurality of the electoral vote but, thanks to the Twelfth Amendment and the political maneuvering of Henry Clay, he was defeated in the subsequent contingent election in favor of “JQA.” Four year later, while weathering Federalist newspapers’ charges that Adams was a “murderer, drunk, cockfighting, slave-trading cannibal” the tide finally turned in Jackson’s favor and he won an Electoral College landslide.

As his inauguration day approached, I wonder how many Americans knew just how exciting would be the next eight years? On March 4, 1829, Jackson took the oath as the seventh President of the United States.

In an attempt to “drain the swamp,” he immediately began investigations into all executive Cabinet offices and departments, an effort that uncovered enormous fraud. Numerous officials were removed from office and indicted on charges of corruption.

Reflecting on the 1824 election, in his first State of the Union Address, Jackson called for abolition of the Electoral College, by constitutional amendment, in favor of a direct election by the people.

In 1831, he fired his entire cabinet.[4]

In July 1832, the issue became the Second National Bank of the United States, up for re-chartering. Jackson believed the bank to be unconstitutional as well as patently unfair in the terms of its charter. He accepted that there was precedent, both for the chartering (McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) as well as rejecting a new charter (Madison, 1815), but, perhaps reflecting his reaction to Worcester v. Georgia earlier that year, he threw down the gauntlet in his veto message:

“The Congress, the Executive, and the Court must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution. Each public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others. It is as much the duty of the House of Representatives, of the Senate, and of the President to decide upon the constitutionality of any bill or resolution which may be presented to them for passage or approval as it is of the supreme judges when it may be brought before them for judicial decision. The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Congress than the opinion of Congress has over the judges, and on that point the President is independent of both. . .”[5] . (emphasis added)

Later that same year came Jackson’s most famous constitutional crisis: the Nullification Crisis. Vice President John C. Calhoun’s home state of South Carolina declared that the federal Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional and therefore null and void within the sovereign boundaries of the state, thus “firing a shot across the bow” of Jackson’s view of federalism. The doctrine of nullification had been first proposed by none other than James Madison and Thomas Jefferson thirty-four years earlier and it retains fans today. South Carolina eventually backed down but not before Jackson’s Vice President, J.C. Calhoun resigned to accept appointment to the Senate and fight for his state in that venue, and not before Congress passed the Force Bill which authorized the President to use military force against South Carolina.

In 1834, the House declined to impeach Jackson, knowing the votes were not there in the Senate for removal and settled on censure instead, which Jackson shrugged off.

Yet in 1835, Jackson sided with the Constitution and its First Amendment by refusing to block the mailing of inflammatory abolitionist mailings to the South even while denouncing the abolitionists as “monsters.”

Today, some people  compare our current President to Jackson, including President Donald Trump himself.  Others disagree.  There are indeed striking similarities, as well as great differences. Although coming from polar opposite backgrounds, both are populists who often make pronouncements upon the world of politics without the filter of “political correctness.” Further comparisons are found in the linked articles.

Thanks to the great care taken by the men of 1787, the “American Experiment” has weathered many a controversial president, such as Andrew Jackson – and we will doubtlessly encounter, and hopefully weather many more.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

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[1] U.S. Constitution; Article One, Section 9, Clause 2

[2] Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England.

[3] https://ap.gilderlehrman.org/essay/andrew-jackson-and-constitution

[4] Secretary of State Martin Van Buren, who had suggested the firing, resigned as well to avoid the appearance of favoritism.

[5] http://www.americanyawp.com/reader/democracy-in-america/andrew-jacksons-veto-message-against-re-chartering-the-bank-of-the-united-states-1832/

Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

In 1817, construction on the Erie Canal began, opening in October of 1825. Initially a 363-mile waterway, 40 feet wide and four feet deep, it connected the Great Lakes and Atlantic Ocean flowing from the Hudson River at Albany to Lake Erie at Buffalo, New York. The canal increased transportation of bulk commercial goods at a much lower cost, widely expanded agricultural development, and brought settlers into surrounding states as the free flow of goods to the stretches of Northwest Territory were availed through the Appalachian Mountains.

On Friday, July 13, 1787, “James Madison’s Gang,” otherwise known as the Constitutional Convention, approved a motion stating that until completion of the first census, showing exactly how many residents each state contained, direct taxes to the states would be proportioned according to the number of representatives the state had been assigned in Congress. A short time later, Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania and Pierce Butler of South Carolina had a rather heated exchange over the issue of slavery and how to account for slaves in determining the state’s representation.

That same day, ninety-five miles to the northeast in New York City, the Confederation Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, creating the Northwest Territory and opening a significant new portion of the country to rapid settlement. The territory would go on to produce 5 new states and, more importantly to our story, produce tons and tons of grain in its fertile Ohio Valley. At the time, the only practical route to bring this produce to world markets was the long, 1,513 miles, voyage down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers from Cincinnati, Ohio to New Orleans, a voyage that could take weeks and was quite expensive. A cheaper, more efficient method had to be found.

The idea of a canal that would tie the western settlements of the country to the ports on the East Coast had been discussed as early as 1724. Now that those settlements were becoming economically important, talk resumed in earnest.

The first problem encountered was geography. The most logical western route for a canal was from the east end of Lake Erie at Buffalo, to Albany, New York on the Hudson River, but Lake Erie sits 570 feet above sea level. Descending eastward from the lake to the Hudson River would be relatively easy, but canals had to allow traffic in both directions. Ascending 570 feet in elevation on the westbound trip meant one thing: locks and lots of them. Lock technology at the time could only provide a lift of 12 feet. It was soon determined that fifty locks would be required along the 363 mile canal. Given the technology of the time, such a canal would be exorbitantly expensive to build; the cost was barely imaginable. President Jefferson called the idea “little short of madness” and rejected any involvement of the federal government. This left it up to the State of New York and private investors. The project would not get any relief with a change of Presidents. On March 3, 1817, President James Madison vetoed “An act to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements.” In his veto message, Madison wrote he was “constrained by the insuperable difficulty [he felt] in reconciling the bill with the Constitution of the United States.

“The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers, or that it falls by any just interpretation within the power to make laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution those or other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States…

“The power to regulate commerce among the several States” can not include a power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses…”

Once again, no help would come from the federal government.

Two different routes were considered: a southern one which would be shorter but present more challenging topography and a northern route which was longer but presented much easier terrain to deal with. The northern route was selected.

Estimates of the workers involved in building the canal vary widely, from 50,000 to 3,000 workers. A thousand men reportedly died building Governor DeWitt Clinton, “Clinton’s Folly” — the majority of them due to canal wall collapses, drowning, careless use of gunpowder and disease. Men dug, by hand, the 4-foot-deep by 40-foot-wide canal, aided occasionally by horses or oxen, explosives, and tree-stump-pulling machines. They were paid 50 cents a day, about $12 a month, and were sometimes provided meals and a place to sleep. The sides of the canal were lined with stone set in clay. The project required the importation of hundreds of skilled German stonemasons.

The gamble paid off. Once the canal opened, tolls charged to barges paid off the construction debt within ten years. From 1825 to 1882, tolls generated $121 million, four times what it cost to operate the canal. When completed in 1825, it was the second longest canal in the world.

The Erie Canal’s early commercial success, combined with the engineering knowledge gained in building it, encouraged the construction of other canals across the United States. None, however, would come close to repeating the success of the Erie. Other projects became enmeshed in politics. They became more and more expensive to build and maintain. Many canals had to be closed in the winter, yet goods still needed to get to market, whatever the cost. Railroads soon began offering competitive rates.

But the Erie Canal left its mark. New York City is today the business and financial capital of America due largely to the success of the Erie Canal.

Today, the Erie Canal is a modest tourist attraction. Cheaper means are available to move cargo. You can still take a leisurely trip via small boat from the Great Lakes to the Hudson and beyond. But so can certain species of fish, mollusks and plants use the canal and its boat traffic to make their way from the Great Lakes to “invade” New York’s inland lakes and streams, the Hudson River and New York harbor.

In 2017, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo established a “Reimagining the Canal task force” to determine the canal’s future. Addressing the environmental damage caused by invasive animal and plant life, the task force recommended permanently closing and draining portions of the canal in Rochester and Rome.

I grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania an hour’s drive from the terminus of the canal at Buffalo and I still recall the family visit we took to see it. My young brain didn’t really comprehend the labor and hardship faced by those thousands of workers over those eight years of construction. But now I can marvel at their ingenuity and perseverance in the face of amazing engineering challenges – a testament to the American Spirit.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

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Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

The 1803 treaty signed in Paris brought a purchase by the United States for 828,000 square miles, doubling the nation’s size. Constitutional questions stirred disputes over how to best divide territory and keep the nation’s peace. Concurrently, the Louisiana Purchase helped sustain America’s growing need for agriculture, free flow of commerce along the Mississippi, and secure westward regions.

On June 12, 1823, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to William Johnson: “On every question of construction, let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”

Twenty years earlier, Jefferson had been in a bit of a quandary concerning this very topic. As the third President of the United States, he was presented with an enormous opportunity: nearly double the size of the nation by purchasing land offered by France at a bargain-basement price. But search the Constitution from top to bottom, side to side, Article 1 to Amendment 11, he could find no explicit power given the President to make such a purchase. At first blush, Jefferson concluded an amendment to the Constitution was required. In an August 1803 letter to John Dickinson, he wrote: “The General Government has no powers but such as the Constitution gives it.  It has not given it power of holding foreign territory, and still less of incorporating it into the Union. An amendment of the Constitution seems necessary for this.”

An amendment would have to be rushed through Congress. Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans were tantalizingly close to the 2/3 majority needed to pass an amendment in the House (they controlled 67 of 103 seats, or 65%), but they only held 14 of 32 seats in the Senate (43%).  The Federalists, still smarting from the drumming they took at the polls in 1800, were not at all interested in supporting Jefferson (sort of like today’s Democratic Party with President Donald Trump), so crossover votes were unlikely. Even if an amendment could get through Congress, it would take months to be ratified by the states; by then would this “deal of a lifetime” slip through their grasp? Would Napoleon Bonaparte have found another buyer? Otherwise, would Jefferson be required to “squeeze” new meaning out of the Constitution? The President could not pass this deal up, but what was he to do?

The ownership of the land was even in question. Totaling 828,000 square miles (530,000,000 acres) the land had been claimed at times by Britain, France and Spain. Its ownership in 1803 rested upon secret treaties and informal agreements. Everyone at the time could see that many states would eventually emerge from the acquisition (fifteen states to be precise) but to take control of both banks of the Mississippi, a river down which, to use Jefferson’s characterization “three-eighths of our territory must pass to market”[i] simply could not be passed up.

To solve his puzzle, Jefferson did the most practical thing he could think of. He consulted none other than “Father of the Constitution” himself, James Madison.  Fortunately for the President, Madison worked right down the street from the “President’s House.”[ii] Jefferson had wisely brought Madison into the administration as his Secretary of State.

Madison adroitly opined that the power of a nation to “extend its territories” was a power enjoyed by any nation “by treaties.” And the treaty power was, without question, enjoyed by the President of the United States.[iii]

James Monroe and Robert Livingston had previously been dispatched to France to negotiate the purchase of New Orleans and Florida. The day after Monroe arrived in France (Livingston was already there) the pair had been summoned to the chambers of Talleyrand himself and offered the entirety of Louisiana. Unbeknownst to them, the day before, Napoleon had declared Louisiana “entirely lost” and ordered it be offered to the Americans. Napoleon needed the cash for yet another war with Britain. After some crafty negotiations, Monroe and Livingston were able to get the price down to $15 Million, still above the limits of their instructions, but “affordable.” The pair quickly signed the Louisiana Purchase Treaty on April 30th 1803, and hurried home.

On October 31, 1803, the last day the Senate could do so without nullifying it, the treaty was ratified, making Louisiana part of the United States.

Twenty-five years later, the Supreme Court would finally confirm Jefferson and Madison’s decision by stating: “The Constitution confers absolutely on the government of the Union, the powers of making war, and of making treaties; consequently, that government possesses the power of acquiring territory, either by conquest or by treaty.”[iv]

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

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[i] April 18, 1802 letter to Robert Livingston.

[ii] The building would not be informally called the “White House” until shortly before the War of 1812 and not officially until action taken by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1901.

[iii] Article 2, Section 2.

[iv] American Insurance Co. v. Canter (1828).

Guest Essayist: Gary Porter
U.S. Bill of Rights

In 1789, James Madison spoke on the House Floor introducing amendments to the U.S. Constitution, an attempt to persuade Congress a Bill of Rights would protect liberty and produce unity in the new government. Opposed to a Bill of Rights at first, Madison stated that the rights of mankind were built into the fabric of human nature by God, and government had no powers to alienate an individual’s rights. Having witnessed the states violating them, Madison realized in order to safeguard America’s freedoms, Congress needed to remain mindful of their role never to take a position of power by force over the people they serve.

There was probably no American more interested in what was taking place in Richmond, Virginia that brisk December morning in 1791 than James Madison. Christmas had come and gone and now Congress entered the last week of the year. The second-term U.S. Congressman from Virginia’s 5th Congressional District could only sit patiently in Mrs. House’s boarding establishment in Philadelphia and wait for a dispatch-rider carrying news from his home state. It must have been frustrating.

In the waning days of 1789, the Virginia Senate had outright rejected four of the proposed amendments, an ominous sign. The ratification by ten states was necessary (the admission of Vermont in March, 1791 bumped that up to eleven) and Virginia’s rejection did not bode well for Madison’s “summer project.”

Madison had single-handedly pushed the proposed amendments through a reluctant Congress during the summer of 1789, a Congress understandably focused on building a government from scratch. But push them through he did; a promise had to be kept.

Madison’s successful election to the First Congress under the new Constitution (by a mere 336 votes) had been largely due to a promise the future fourth President made to the Baptists of his native Orange County. “Vote for me and I’ll work to ensure your religious liberty is secured, not just here in Virginia but throughout the United States.” And vote for him they had.

Upon taking his seat in the First U.S. Congress, then meeting in New York,[1] “Jemmy” had encountered the ratification messages of the eleven states which had joined the new union. North Carolina and Rhode island would as well, eventually. Several of these ratification messages contained lengthy lists of proposed amendments which became Madison’s starting point. He whittled down the list, discarding duplicates and those with absolutely no chance for success, and submitted nineteen proposed amendments to Congress. These were “wordsmithed,” combined, some good ones inexplicitly discarded, and the lot reduced further to twelve, which were finally approved and submitted to the states for ratification on September 28, 1789.

Three states: New Jersey, Maryland and North Carolina quickly ratified almost all of the amendments before the end of the year. [2] South Carolina, New Hampshire, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island ratified different combinations of amendments in the first six months of 1790. And then things came grinding to a halt. The remaining four states would take no further action for more than a year.

Massachusetts, Connecticut and Georgia were dragging their feet. The three states did not fully ratify what we know today as the Bill of Rights until its sesquicentennial in 1939! The new state of Vermont ratified all twelve articles in early November, 1791, but Congress would not learn of that for two months. Who would provide the ratification by “three-fourths of the said Legislatures” needed to place the proposed amendments into effect?

Here at the end of 1791, things were finally looking promising. On November 14th President George Washington informed Congress that the Virginia House of Delegates had ratified the first article on October 25th, agreed to by the Senate on November 3rd. But what about the remaining eleven articles? Was that it? Although now ratified by Virginia, this first Article still lacked ratification by 11 states, so Virginia’s action had no real effect.

Unbeknownst to Madison and the rest of Congress, on December 5th, the Virginia House of Delegates had ratified “the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth articles of the amendments proposed by Congress to the Constitution of the United States.” Ten days later, the Virginia Senate concurred. It would be another seven days before Assembly President Henry Lee sent off the official notice of his state’s ratification to Philadelphia and several more days before it arrived.  On December 30th, President Washington informed Congress of Virginia’s action.

But wait. Vermont’s ratification had still not made its way from that northernmost state. Congress pressed on with other urgent matters. Finally, on January 18, 1792, Vermont’s ratification finally arrived.  With it, Congress realized that Virginia’s December ratification had indeed placed ten of the Amendments into operation.

The rest of America symbolically shrugged its shoulders and went about its affairs. In the words of historian Gordon S. Wood, “After ratification, most Americans promptly forgot about the first ten amendments to the Constitution.”[3] It would be nearly 70 years before Americans even began referring to these first ten amendments as a “Bill of Rights.” Today, we seek their protections frequently, and vociferously.  Bravo, Mr. Madison!

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

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[1] Congress moved from New York to Philadelphia between August and December of 1790.

[2] New Jersey declined to ratify Article Two, until 1992.

[3] Quoted in James Madison and the struggle for the Bill of Rights. by Labunski, Richard E., Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 258.

Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

In an example of unrivaled statesmanship, General George Washington resigned his military commission at the State House in Annapolis, Maryland on December 23, 1783 to return to his Mount Vernon, Virginia home as a private citizen. Washington’s resignation was pivotal for American history because he willingly gave up power. He later participated in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia, and was unanimously elected president of the United States in 1789. He reluctantly accepted the presidency and rejected any form of kingship. In 1797, Washington again surrendered his position, allowing a fellow American to serve as president. The example Washington set for America’s republican form of government was that of a peaceful transfer of power, a requirement the nation would need to serve by leadership and freedom rather than dictatorship.

On December 4, 1783, George Washington said goodbye to his Generals, a poignant moment captured in a piece of iconic artwork, Washington’s Farewell to His Officers in an engraving by Phillebrown, from a painting by Alonzo Chappel. “With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.”

The General then mounted his horse and turned towards Annapolis, Maryland. There was an appointment with destiny to keep. Washington was soon to become, in the words of King George III, “the greatest character of the age.”

The General and his entourage arrived in Annapolis on December 19, 1783. The normal 4-5 day trip had taken three times as long. They were feted along the 215 miles in every town and village they entered. Banquets, toasts, cannonades and the occasional militia demonstration had become familiar. Yet, this was no time for the General’s two aides to relax. Preparations and protocols had to be completed.

Promptly at noon on December 23, 1783, the highly scripted event began. Only twenty delegates from seven states were attending the Congress, greatly outnumbered by the Maryland Assembly whose larger chamber was borrowed for the event. The low attendance in Congress was not unusual. Three years later, little had changed. In a 1786 letter to Elbridge Gerry, Delegate Rufus King complained: “We are without money or the prospect of it in the Federal Treasury; and the States, many of them, care so little about the Union, that they take no measures to keep a representation in Congress.”

Historian Thomas Fleming explains what happened next:

“Washington took a designated seat in the assembly chamber, and his two aides sat down beside him. The three soldiers wore their blue and buff Continental Army uniforms. The doors of the assembly room were opened and Maryland’s governor and the members of the state’s legislature crowded into the room, along with, in the words of one eyewitness, “the principal ladies and gentlemen of the city.”

Other ladies filled every seat in a small gallery above the chamber. The President of Congress, Thomas Mifflin of Pennsylvania, began the proceedings: “Sir, the United States in Congress assembled are prepared to receive your communications.”

“Mr. President,” Washington began,

“The great events on which my resignation depended having at length taken place (the peace treaty with England) I now have the honor of offering my sincere congratulations to Congress and of presenting myself before them to surrender into their hands the trust committed to me, and to claim the indulgence of retiring from the service of my country.”

Washington’s voice faltered, but he quickly recovered his composure and proceeded:

“Happy in the confirmation of our independence and sovereignty, and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United States of becoming a respectable nation, I resign with satisfaction the appointment I accepted with diffidence.”

He thanked the country and the army for its support and added that he hoped Congress would acknowledge the “distinguished merits” of “the gentlemen who have been attached to my person during the war” — his aides. At the reference to his aides, Washington became so emotional that he reportedly had to grip the speech with both hands to hold it steady.

He continued:

“I consider it an indispensable duty to close this last solemn act of my official life by commending the interests of our dearest country to the protection of Almighty God and those who have the superintendence of them, to his holy keeping.”

Tears streamed down the General’s ruddy cheeks.

“Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of Action; and bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my Commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life.”

Washington handed his commission and a copy of his remarks to President Mifflin.

John Trumbull, himself a former aide-de-camp to Washington, who would memorialize this great event in a painting commissioned in 1817 by Congress, and hangs in the United States Capitol Rotunda, entitled General George Washington Resigning His Commission, called Washington’s resignation: “one of the highest moral lessons ever given to the world.”

Now unencumbered by his commission, Private Citizen George Washington, accompanied by Col. David Humphreys, literally galloped the 47 remaining miles to his beloved Mount Vernon home, arriving in time for Christmas Eve.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text. Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes periodic essays published on several different websites, and appears in period costume as James Madison, explaining to public and private school students “his” (i.e., Madison’s) role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

Click Here to have the NEWEST essay in this study emailed to your inbox every day!

Click Here to view the schedule of topics in our 90-Day Study on American History.

Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

The surrender of General Charles Cornwallis to General George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia, was the final battle of the American Revolution. Then, in 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed after an appeal from the British for peace, and the American Revolutionary War was over.

In 1778, a full three years before his victory at Yorktown, General George Washington wrote: “The Hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations.

Washington was not lacking in gratitude; more than once God’s hand of providence had appeared to save his beleaguered army. Whether it was the sudden fog that enveloped the East River in August 1776, allowing his army to safely retreat from the Brooklyn Heights, or the “false spring” nearly two years later that tricked shad into beginning an early run up the Delaware River to Valley Forge, Washington knew whom to thank. But at least one more act of providence lay ahead. On September 5th, 1781, a French fleet appeared providentially to defeat a slightly smaller British fleet, thus preventing the rescue of General Cornwallis and his army from their fortified but surrounded position at Yorktown.

Cornwallis had received conflicting and confusing orders from his commander back in New York, General Sir Henry Clinton, but, like a good soldier, had followed them as he understood them, believing that his exposed position at Yorktown would be remedied, if necessary, by the British Fleet. It was a gamble that unfortunately did not pay off. It did not help the British that their fleet commander, Admiral Thomas Graves, proved indecisive at a critical juncture while the French fleet under Admiral Francois Joseph Paul de Grasse did not let their disadvantaged position exiting the Chesapeake Bay lead to their downfall; the French attacked aggressively and decisively.  Historians have called the Battle of the Virginia Capes the most critical naval engagement in history!  It is said to have converted “the United States” from a possibility into a certainty.

Cornwallis was embarrassed, to say the least, by being left “flying in the wind” by Graves’ defeat. So embarrassed that after the surrender of his force had been negotiated for October 19th, he cited illness and had his second in command Brigadier General Charles O’Hara surrender the sword instead. In a final attempt to humiliate Washington, O’Hara had been instructed by Cornwallis to present his sword to the French General Rochambeau. Rochambeau politely directed the British officer to Washington who, seeing this, directed his own second in command, General Benjamin Lincoln, to accept the surrender, payback for Lincoln’s defeat the previous year at Charlestown. What games these Generals play. The painting, Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, by John Trumbull is one of the eight large, iconic paintings located in the United States Capitol Rotunda.

There would be more fighting ahead – minor skirmishes at best — but Cornwallis’ surrender “took the wind from the sails” of the British force in America. Two years would elapse before a peace treaty would finally be signed in Paris on September 3, 1783 formally ending the eight year conflict, and nearly three more months before the last British troops boarded ships to leave New York on November 25th, but it was a wait worth enduring.

Nine days later on December 4, 1783, George Washington said goodbye to his Generals, a poignant moment captured in another piece of iconic artwork, Washington’s Farewell to His Officers in an engraving by Phillebrown, from a painting by Alonzo Chappel. “With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.”

The General then mounted his horse and turned towards Annapolis, Maryland.

Gary Porter  is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text.  Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes a weekly essay: Constitutional Corner which is published on multiple websites, and hosts a weekly radio show: “We the People, the Constitution Matters” on WFYL AM1140.  Gary has also begun performing reenactments of James Madison and speaking with public and private school students about Madison’s role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and Constitution.  Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

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Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

 

— The yearning for self-government springs eternal –

In the first Federalist essay, Alexander Hamilton famously observes: It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. Reflection and choice or accident and force, which will it be? Fortunate indeed are those who get to choose.

**

The Virginia colony was off to a rocky start.

As April 26, 1607 dawned, the colonists spied the coastline of Virginia. Three weeks later they came ashore 40 miles upriver at Jamestown.

After surviving a harrowing five-month voyage from England, the intrepid Virginia colonists anxiously opened the sealed envelope that would identify the seven members who were to govern them. As they read off the names, one stood out: John Smith? Whoops! John Smith was being held on board their ship, securely in chains. There had been this little “incident” mid-voyage, you see.

The exceptionally slow voyage (a normal crossing took three months) allowed disease to spring up in the cramped quarters and factions to form among the colonists. This did not escape notice of the expedition’s leader: Captain Christopher Newport. When the expedition docked at the Canary Islands to take on supplies, Smith, a swashbuckling adventurer and soldier whose life story reads like a Hollywood script, was suddenly clapped in chains by Newport, charged with trying to “usurp the government, murder the council, and make himself king (of Virginia).” He would eventually be released to assume his place on the council, but suspicions persisted.

The plan of the Virginia Company was to govern the new colony through a 13-man council in England and a similar though smaller council in Jamestown. What the planners of the expedition did not count on, were the austere and hazardous conditions the adventurers would encounter: Within six months, 80% of the colonists were dead from illness, the seven-man council had been reduced to four, and President of the Council, Edward Wingfield, had been impeached for maladministration. He was the one now in chains, perhaps the same ones that had restrained John Smith. Captain John Ratcliffe replaced Wingfield as President of the Council, but Smith would soon assume de facto command of the colony.

Unwilling to simply let the colony die, Smith enacted harsh measures, akin to martial law, to ensure that “gentlemen” and commoners alike contributed equally to the raising and hunting of food. Despite his efforts, the winter of 1609-10 became known as the “Starving Time.”

In an attempt to breathe new life into the colony, by then hanging on by a thread, a new charter was granted in May 1609. The new charter included a provision that the colony would now extend from “sea to sea,” a gesture which provided no help to the beleaguered settlers. The charter established a new corporation and a new governing council in London that became the permanent administrative body of the corporation. A new governing council was created at Jamestown as well. A “Governour” was given extensive powers including the right to enforce martial law, if necessary.

By 1612, things were beginning to turn around. Numerous replenishments of supplies and manpower accompanied by a tenuous peace with the local natives had turned the settlement into a profitable and growing venture. A new, third charter was granted that year, extending Virginia’s jurisdiction eastward from the shoreline to include islands such as Bermuda. New settlers were each granted 100 acres of land.

On Friday, July 30, 1619, the newly appointed Governor, Sir George Yeardley set in motion the concept of self-government in the colony. Under instructions from the Virginia Company, he called forth the first representative legislative assembly in America, establishing “the oldest continuous law-making body in the New World,” Virginia’s House of Burgesses (today, the Virginia Assembly). The group convened in the colony’s largest building, the Jamestown Church “to establish one equal and uniform government over all Virginia” which would provide “just laws for the happy guiding and governing of the people there inhabiting.” The Governor, six men forming a Council of State, and, initially, twenty burgesses, two from each of ten settlements — “freely elected by the inhabitants thereof” — prepared to get underway.

An eleventh settlement, that of Captain John Martin, was not immediately allowed seats. A clause in Martin’s land patent exempted his plantation from the authority of the colony.[1] There would thus be little point in including him as a Burgess; any laws he participated in creating would not apply to his own settlement. A secretary, (former member of Parliament John Pory) and a Clerk (John Twine) were quickly appointed to their positions. Prayer was offered by Reverend Richard Buck: that “it would please God to guide and sanctifie all our proceedings to his owne glory and the good of this Plantation.”

An oath was then administered to all present The Oath of Supremacy, first established in 1534, required any person taking public or church office in England to swear allegiance to the English monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Roman Catholics who refused to take the oath were dealt with harshly. In April 1534, advisor to King Henry Sir Thomas More had refused to take the oath. He was imprisoned, tried for treason, and despite his close relationship with the King, beheaded the following year. Oaths, at least back then, were serious stuff.

The ten settlements represented that day in 1619 included “James Citty, Charles Citty, Henricus, Kiccowtan, Smythe’s Hundred, Martin’s Hundred (a different Martin than John Martin), Argall’s Guiffe, Flowerdieu Hundred, Captain Lawne’s Plantation and Captaine Warde’s Plantation.”

The lead representative of Warde’s Plantation, none other than Captain Warde himself, was immediately challenged by another Burgess as having settled in the colony without proper authority from the Company in England. But due to the great efforts Warde had made towards the colony’s success, particularly in bringing in “a good quantity of fishe,” he and his lieutenant were allowed to take their seats.

Once again, the Burgesses turned their attention to the issue of Captain John Martin’s two representatives. After a review of Martin’s patent it was decided that the two Burgesses-in-waiting should leave until such time as Captain Martin himself appeared to discuss the matter. But the assembly was not quite done with Martin. The Burgesses were next presented with a complaint that an Ensign Harrison, under Martin’s employ, had forcibly taken corn from Indians who had refused to sell to him, leaving the Indians with some “copper beades and other trucking stuffe.” The Indians had complained to Chief Opchanacanough, who had complained to Governor Yeardley. False dealing with the Indians was a serious offense; the shaky, on again, off again peace with the various Indian tribes was fragile, easily broken. It was ordered that Captain Martin appear before the Burgesses forthwith. The order to appear began: “To our very loving friend, Captain John Martin, Esquire, Master of the ordinance.” Martin’s last title in the salutation might explain the gentle tone taken.

Next, the “greate Charter, or commission of privileges, order and laws,” sent from England in four books, was presented. It was decided that two committees would be commissioned to review the first two of the books to see if they contained anything “not perfectly squaring with the state of this Colony or any lawe which did presse or binde too harde, that we might by waye of humble petition, seeke to have it redressed.” The two committees gave their reports the following day.

The Burgesses composed six petitions to send to the Council in England. The first four dealt with administrative matters; the fifth asked the Council’s permission to build “a university and colledge” in the colony. This “colledge” would eventually be named Henricus College, which today lays claim to being the oldest college in North America. It’s primary purpose? To educate the natives. The sixth petition asked permission to rename Kiccowtan settlement.[2]

The next day, Sunday, August 1, one of the Burgesses, a Mr. Shelley, died unexpectedly.

On Monday, August 2nd, the infamous Captain Martin appeared before the Burgesses. He was asked whether he would disavow the stipulation in his patent that his settlement would be exempt from the established laws. He would not. Whereupon the assembly voted that his settlement’s representatives not be admitted. As to the charge that his employees had unfairly dealt with the natives, Martin acknowledged the charges as true and said he would put up a security bond to ensure it would never happen again.

The issues with Captain Martin thus settled, the Burgesses set about to make some laws (why not?)

Laws against idleness, gaming, drunkenness and “excesse in apparel” were enacted. Settlers caught gaming at “dice and Cardes,” the winners at least, would forfeit their winnings; all the players would be fined “ten shillings a man.”

Not forgetting one of the main reasons for the settlement: the “propagating of Christian Religion to such People, as yet live in Darkness and miserable Ignorance of the true Knowledge and Worship of God,”[3] each settlement was to obtain “by just means” a number of the native children who would be educated by the settlers “in true religion and civile course of life.”

Each settler was required to plant six mulberry trees each year for seven years.

On Tuesday the 3rd of June, more laws.

On Wednesday the 4th of June, with many of his assembly coming down with malaria, Governor Yeardley decided that was enough for this session of the Burgesses and adjourned this first experiment in self-government. Many challenges lay ahead. While the 1619 House of Burgesses proved a turning point in the governing structure of Virginia; but it did not end the economic difficulties brought on by crop failures, war with the Indians, disputes among factions and bad investments.

For instance, after several years of strained coexistence, Chief Opchanacanough and his Powhatan Confederacy decided to eliminate the colony once and for all. On the morning of March 22, 1622, he and his men attacked the outlying plantations and communities up and down the James River in what became known as the Indian Massacre of 1622. More than 300 settlers were killed, about a third of the colony’s population. The fledgling developments at Henricus and Wolstenholme Towne, were essentially wiped out. Jamestown was spared only by the timely warning of a friendly Indian.  Of the 6,000 people known to have come to the settlement between 1608 and 1624, only 3,400 would survive.

In 1624, King James I finally dissolved the Virginia Company’s charter and established Virginia as a royal colony. In 1776, when the Fifth Virginia Convention declared its independence from Great Britain and became the independent Commonwealth of Virginia, the House of Burgesses was renamed the House of Delegates, which continues to serve as the lower house of Virginia’s General Assembly to this day.

Gary Porter  is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text.  Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes a weekly essay: Constitutional Corner which is published on multiple websites, and hosts a weekly radio show: “We the People, the Constitution Matters” on WFYL AM1140.  Gary has also begun performing reenactments of James Madison and speaking with public and private school students about Madison’s role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and Constitution.  Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

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[1] Martin had been a member of the original Ruling Council; how he had received such a unique patent has not been explained.

[2] It would eventually be renamed Elizabeth City, site of the present day Hampton, Virginia.

[3] Found in the First charter of 1606

Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

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“All politics is local”[i]

Black’s Law Dictionary, 4th Edition defines “Constitution” as “The organic and fundamental law of a nation or state, which may be written or unwritten, establishing the character and conception of its government, laying the basic principles to which its internal life is to be conformed, organizing the government, and regulating, distributing, and limiting the functions of its different departments, and prescribing the extent and manner of the exercise of sovereign powers.” (Emphasis added)

What if a government represents not a “nation or state” but a city or county full of people; does that government also require a constitution?  What if a state, which has a constitution, incorporates a city or county as a political subdivision of the state, is that city or county bound only by the limits of the state constitution, or must it operate from a more narrow set of powers? There being 89,004 local governments in the United States, this is a significant question.[ii]

It is a question politicians have wrestled with since the first elective government was set in place in 1619 Virginia: what are the limits of authority to be exercised by a state’s lower-tiered governments?

John Forrest Dillon (1831-1914) was an American jurist who served on both federal and Iowa state courts during his lengthy career.[iii] In 1872, while sitting on what would later become the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, he published an influential extended essay or treatise on the power of states over municipal governments, entitled “Municipal Corporations,” or, later, “The Law of Municipal Corporations.” Dillon argued, quite persuasively it seems, that municipal governments can operate only within the express powers given them by their state governments. Dillon’s idea can be summarized this way:

“A municipal corporation possesses and can exercise the following powers and no others: First, those granted in express words (from the state); second, those necessarily implied or necessarily incident to the powers expressly granted; third, those absolutely essential to the declared objects and purposes of the corporation-not simply convenient, but indispensable; and fourth, any fair doubt as to the existence of a power is resolved by the courts against the corporation.”[iv]

In essence, since they are created by the state, local governments exist to perform the tasks of the state at the local level. This makes perfect sense. If it were otherwise, an additional constitution would seem to be required; no government should be allowed to operate without clearly specified limits to its power, or tyranny would soon commence. And if a city, for instance, were to operate with only the bounds provided by the state constitution, conflicts would quickly arise over the boundary between the city’s and state’s jurisdiction. Confusion would reign supreme.

“The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse,” said James Madison on the floor of the Virginia Ratifying Convention in 1788. A hundred years later, America’s cities were growing by leaps and bounds. Tax revenues were increasing exponentially and corruption soon followed. Grafting, which is the unscrupulous use of a politician’s authority for personal gain, was a common practice in utility franchising and public works projects. To make matters worse, local governments borrowed outrageous sums of money in order to attract big businesses and railroad com­panies. Unable to pay businesses back, local officials dissolved their cities and left the debt to the state. Lord Bryce of England observed in 1888: ‘There is no denying that the government of cities is one conspicuous failure of the United States.’”[v]

In Hunter v. Pittsburgh (1907), the Supreme Court cited Dillon’s Municipal Corporations and fully adopted his view of state power over municipalities. Note, this was while Dillon was yet alive – what an honor to have your work cited by the highest court in the land!

Today, the municipalities of forty states operate under some form of Dillon Rule, my home state of Virginia being one of them. There are different versions; some states apply Dillon’s Rule only to cities, some only to counties (Alabama) some only to townships (Indiana).

Louisiana applies the rule only to “pre-1974 charter municipalities.”

The alternative to Dillon’s Rule is called Home Rule,[vi] the principle that local government can exert broad-based power, only restrained by the state and national constitutions. We should realize that before Dillion published his ideas in 1872, there was only home rule or its un-named equivalent for the nearly one hundred years that came before Dillon under the Constitution. Whether a local government is governed by the Dillon Rule or Home Rule, the ultimate decision regarding what power they do possess resides with the state government.

But Dillon’s Rule is increasingly coming under attack. Many elected officials of localities controlled by Dillion’s Rule today contend they are “handcuffed” by its restrictions.[vii]  They argue that Dillion’s Rule provides them little to no power to deal with certain problems, particularly growth within their jurisdiction or technologically complex issues such as fracking, which may extend across jurisdictional boundaries. The proponents of Home Rule argue that there are areas where state power should not infringe on that of local government and many are pushing to have their state either change completely to Home Rule or at least loosen the restrictions of Dillon’s Rule. Many states only apply Home Rule to certain municipalities. Arizona, for example, only applies Home Rule to cities with a population of at least 3,500 people. Thirty-one states apply either straight Dillon’s Rule or a combination of Dillon’s Rule and Home Rule to local jurisdictions.

One problem with Home Rule is uniformity. City governments operating under Home Rule may vary significantly in the quality and effects of their governance due to the way various administrations over the years have exerted their more loosely defined power.  Under Dillon’s Rule municipalities generally operate from a standard set of powers and/or restrictions.

The states of the United States were intended to be, essentially, laboratories within which “experiments” in government could be tried.  The Tenth Amendment supports this view, stating that whatever political power was not delegated to the national government remained with the states and their people.  Whether Home Rule or Dillon’s Rule or some combination of both will win out remains to be seen. In any case, the idea of a self-ruling people demands that the decision not be left to the politicians.

Gary Porter  is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text.  Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes a weekly essay: Constitutional Corner which is published on multiple websites, and hosts a weekly radio show: “We the People, the Constitution Matters” on WFYL AM1140.  Gary has also begun performing reenactments of James Madison and speaking with public and private school students about Madison’s role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and Constitution.  Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

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[i] Variously attributed to Associated Press Washington bureau chief Byron Price (1932) and to Chicago writer Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936), but most famously used by former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neil.

[ii] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/governments/cb12-161.html.

[iii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forrest_Dillon.

[iv] City of Clinton v Cedar Rapids and the Missouri River Rail Road Company, accessed at: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/110/27/.

[v] ACCE-White-Paper-Dillon-House-Rule-Final, accessed at: https://www.acce.us/app/uploads/2016/06/2016-ACCE-White-Paper-Dillon-House-Rule-Final.pdf.

[vi] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_rule_in_the_United_States.

[vii] Is Home Rule the Answer? Accessed at https://www.brookings.edu/research/is-home-rule-the-answer-clarifying-the-influence-of-dillons-rule-on-growth-management/

Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

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Once upon a time in America, before the Constitution was ratified, the state courts were the only game in town (and in each state). But there was also a time in America when there were no courts whatsoever.

In early May 1607, stepping off the ship Susan Constant, in chains, was none other than Captain John Smith.  Smith was one of 105 men and boys, plus 39 sailors who had made the perilous 144 day voyage from England.

Smith was among the most enterprising and useful members of the colony, traits that served to make others of the company jealous of his influence. Midway through the voyage Smith had been absurdly charged with plotting to murder the thirteen member ruling council, usurp the government, and make himself King of Virginia. He was confined for the remainder of the voyage. The charge was absurd in the extreme since no one on the three ships making up the small expedition even knew the names of the council members; they were sealed — to be revealed only upon arrival in America.

On their arrival at what would be called Jamestown, Smith was liberated and the roster of councilmen’s names opened, only to reveal that Smith had been assigned as one of the thirteen members.  Smith complained of his unjust imprisonment and demanded a trial but could not obtain one: there was no court! The settlers quickly realized they had other pressing matters: namely, survival!  Half the settlers would die in the first six months; all the while, Smith proclaimed his innocence but was not allowed to take his seat on the council.

When Smith’s enemies could postpone it no longer, a hearing of the case was held and Smith was acquitted of all the charges against him; soon after, he took his rightful council seat.[1]

Shifting to the north, one of the first acts of the Pilgrims of Plymouth after establishing themselves as a “civil body politic” by means of the Mayflower Compact was to establish The General Court of Plymouth Colony, the first to establish a complete legal code in America.[2]

Eventually, as each of the American colonies was settled, courts were established to handle the inevitable squabbles between settlers.

Fast forward to 1781.  One of the chief defects in the Articles of Confederation was that it provided no court system above the state level. With no supervision from above, state courts ruled pretty much as they pleased, not always to the satisfaction of all concerned. The consistent rulings of the Massachusetts court system in favor of creditors and against poor farmers sparked the infamous Shays Rebellion[3] in which, not long after they had fought side by side, Massachusetts farmers and Massachusetts militiamen formed opposing lines and opened fire on each other outside Springfield Arsenal.

Then came 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,” so says Article 3, Section One of the U.S. Constitution.  This clause obviously enables creation of the federal court system but the Constitution has little to say about the state court systems:  The Judges in every State “shall be bound” to view the Constitution as the “the supreme Law of the Land” (Article VI), and the “[t]rial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be … held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed” (Article III, Section 2). That’s pretty much all the Constitution has to say!

About one million cases are filed in the U.S. federal court system each year, while more than 30 million are filed in state courts.[4]

Today, state courts are considered courts of “general” jurisdiction. They hear all the various types of cases not specifically reserved to federal courts. Just as the federal courts interpret federal laws, state courts interpret state laws (although federal courts also get to interpret state laws).

Examples of cases typically heard in state courts include:

  • Violations of state law. Most criminal activity falls in this category, such as robbery, assault, murder, and many drug-related crimes.
  • Controversies arising out of the state constitution or other state laws.
  • Cases in which the state is a party, such as state tax violations.
  • Most real estate cases, malpractice, personal injury cases, and contract disputes.
  • All family, divorce, custody, inheritance and probate cases.
  • Nearly all traffic and juvenile cases

The structure of state court systems varies considerably but there are similarities. To get an idea of what the structure of state courts look like some example states, click on the links below:

The “workhorse” of any state court system is the trial court. This is the lowest level of court and usually where a case or lawsuit will originate. It may be a court of general jurisdiction, such as a circuit court, or it may be a court of special or limited jurisdiction, such as a probate, juvenile, traffic, or family court.

  • Probate courts handle the administration of estates and probating of wills.
  • Family courts focus on cases involving custody and child support, neglect and abuse, and, sometimes, juvenile crime or truancy.
  • Traffic courts handle alleged violations of traffic laws.
  • In some states, special housing courts, or landlord-tenant courts, have been established.
  • Small-claims courts handle civil matters in which the dollar amount at issue is below a certain amount.
  • Juvenile courts generally handle truancy and criminal offenses committed by minors.

Each state has a Supreme Court which is generally considered the court “of last resort” unless and until the matter qualifies for a hearing in the federal court system.

While most federal judges are appointed to their positions, the majority of state trial court judges are elected by the citizens. In some states, supreme court justices are appointed by state governors or legislatures, while in others, justices are elected.

Throughout Virginia’s history (my state), the selection and term of state judges has varied. In 1776, the state legislature selected state judges to serve a life term. Between 1850 and 1864, the citizenry elected state judges. Between 1864 and 1870, state judges were nominated by the governor and confirmed by the state legislature. After 1870, the General Assembly assumed full responsibility for the selection of state judges in Virginia.

State courts play a vital role in our nation’s legal system.  If you are ever a party to a lawsuit or are called as a trial witness, it will likely be in a state court. Without the fifty state court systems the federal court system would be overwhelmed.  State courts are usually easy to locate and provide a great opportunity to introduce school children to the U.S. legal system.

Gary Porter  is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text.  Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes a weekly essay: Constitutional Corner which is published on multiple websites, and hosts a weekly radio show: “We the People, the Constitution Matters” on WFYL AM1140.  Gary has also begun performing reenactments of James Madison and speaking with public and private school students about Madison’s role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and Constitution.  Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

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[1] A famous mural depicting the trial sits in the Cuyahoga County Courthouse.

[2] https://worldhistoryproject.org/1636/10/4/the-general-court-of-the-plymouth-colony-instituted-a-legal-code

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays%27_Rebellion

[4] https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=30

Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

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What is the purpose and impact of Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution in that “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government”? How does this form relate to the republican (representative) styles such as Commission Form, County Administrator, Elected Executive, City-County Consolidation, Constitutional Row Offices or Home Rule Authority to ensure power remains in the hands of each American, preventing a monarchy or aristocracy in each state and local government?

Further, what is a republic, why must Congress guarantee each state has and maintains a “Republican Form of Government” and how does it do this?

To the Framers of the Constitution, democracy was a hideous form of government. The colorful Fisher Ames, in one of his more measured criticisms, wrote: “Democracy, in its best state, is but the politics of Bedlam; while kept chained, its thoughts are frantic, but when it breaks loose, it kills the keeper, fires the building, and perishes.” Monarchy was obviously unacceptable; a confederation had been tried and found wanting; this left a republic. But a republic which, according to Dr. Benjamin Franklin, must be “kept.” The Constitution’s Article 4 Section 4 contributes to the “keeping.”

The first difficulty Congress faces in guaranteeing each of the fifty States has and maintains a “republican form of government” involves the lack of a consensus over what signifies this “republican form of government.” There never has been a consensus and likely never will be.

James Madison, writing as “Publius,” took a stab at the definition of a republic in 1787/88. Across several of the Federalist essays he identifies seven “republican” attributes. These are neatly summarized by Scott T. Whiteman in his short essay What is a Republic Anyway?[i]

They include:

  1. A government operating under separation of powers; Federalists Nos. 9, 47, 28, 76
  2. Representatives governing during a limited term and/or during good behavior; Nos. 9, 39
  3. Representatives elected by the people; Nos. 9, 39
  4. Power residing in the People; No. 39
  5. A government that is deliberative in action; No. 71
  6. Acknowledging the right of the people to alter or abolish their government; No. 78
  7. A government that prohibits grants of entitlement or nobility; No. 84

Contemporary authors believe additional attributes should be included, such as the Rule of Law and absence of a Monarchy.[ii]

It is easy of course to distinguish a republic from direct democracy, but must all of Madison’s seven features be present before a political entity can be declared “republican?”

When a U.S. territory applies for statehood, Congress first passes an Enabling Act which gives the applying territory the authority to draft a proposed constitution, which is then approved by the state’s citizens and submitted for review by Congress to ensure it reflects the “republican form.” Beyond allowing Congress to ensure the basic requirements of republicanism are met, this also provides Congress the opportunity to identify anything else it objects to in the way the state intends to conduct its affairs. On rare occasions Congress has insisted upon changes to the proposed state constitution before admission, such as when Congress insisted that Utah (the 45th state) first prohibit polygamy.[iii] Similar polygamy prohibitions were required of Oklahoma (46th state), New Mexico (47th state), and Arizona (48th state).

How does Congress ensure a state maintains its republican form? Here is where it gets sticky.

In 1841, Rhode Island was still operating under a government established by their royal charter of 1663. The charter strictly limited suffrage and made no provision for amendment. Groups protesting these restrictions in the charter held a popular convention to draft a new constitution and to elect a governor. In response, the existing charter government declared martial law and set out to “put down the rebellion” (called the Dorr Rebellion, after ringleader Thomas Dorr). One of the “rebels,” Martin Luther (no relation to the 1517 reformer), whose house was damaged during a search by law officers, brought suit claiming the old state government was not “a republican form of government” and all its acts, including its declaration of martial law, were thereby invalid. In Luther v. Borden. (1849)[iv], the Supreme Court declared in dictum that interpretation of the Guarantee Clause is a political, not a judicial question. Said another way: a “Republican Form of Government,” like “High Crimes and Misdemeanors,” is whatever Congress says it is. As noted in the Heritage Guide to the Constitution, “Citizens of a state who believe their state government has departed from the “republican form” should apply to Congress for relief rather than to the courts.”[v]

More modern charges of departure from a “republican form” involve the issue of popular referendums, which critics say embrace direct democracy. By way of review, in a referendum, the voters decide a policy issue outside the purview of their elected representatives. A referendum obtaining a majority vote generally goes into effect without further action by the legislature. The use of initiatives and referendums is written into the constitutions of twenty-six states, particularly those in the west, and these states contain over fifty percent of the U.S. population so many Americans encounter them. Popular initiatives, referendums, or popular recall of elected representatives are admittedly all forms of direct democracy, but does the use of one mean the government is no longer republican? Every state except Delaware ratifies state constitutional amendments through a vote of their citizens rather than by their elected representatives. This is similar to one of the two methods of ratifying a U.S. Constitutional amendment, does this depart from “republicanism.” No one has complained of this to the courts. Ironically, as morbid proof that we don’t have a democracy in America, in the thirty-one states where voters popularly- approved constitutions prohibitions of same-sex marriage, all it took was one Supreme Court decision (Obergefell v. Hodges) to overturn them all.

Turning to local government and the question of republicanism, we find that local government can take many forms.

In the Commission form of government, often encountered in cities or counties, voters elect a small commission, typically of five to seven members who comprise the legislative body of the city or county and, as a group, are responsible for taxation, appropriations, ordinances, and other general functions. Individual commissioners are also usually assigned specific executive responsibilities such as public works, finance, or public safety. This form of government thus combines legislative and executive functions in the same body.

In the County Administrator form, an Administrator is usually appointed by an elected council/commission. The Administrator then is responsible for administration of all governmental departments, subject to the council’s control.

The Elected Executive form is similar except that the Executive is elected by the polity instead of being appointed by the council or commission.

Constitutional Row Officers derive their name from the fact that the departments were first listed in a row on election ballots. In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, for example, row officers include: Clerk of Court, Controller, Coroner, District Attorney, Prothonotary, Recorder of Deeds, Register of Wills, Sheriff and Treasurer.

Home Rule Authority describes the power of a local city or county to set up its own system of self-government without requiring a charter from the state. Full home rule is allowed in thirty state constitutions and limited home rule in another nine.[vi] A city or county that adopts a home rule charter has the ability to amend its governmental organization and powers to suit its needs; in essence, they establish a local constitution.

As you can see, each of these forms embraces a republican form of government, at least in that elected representatives are used for day-to-day governing rather than involving the people themselves.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2012, there were 89,004 local governments in the United States.[vii] This included such things as school boards and regional planning authorities.[viii] Compare this with the fact that there are only 50 state governments and one (albeit ginormous) national government and you can see where the bulk of governing takes place in these united States: at the local level. Americans interested in serving their fellow citizens are advised to set their sights on local government. However, a brief and certainly not statistically significant analysis of current U.S. Representatives found only three in ten first served in local government. Twice as many held their first elective office in one of the 7,383 state legislature seats (nationwide).[ix]

While many Americans seem to give little attention to their national government, even fewer are interested in their local governments, particularly who is to represent them in those governments and how they actually govern. Voter turnout in national elections is alarmingly low, but turnout in state and local elections even worse;[x] some school board and city council members have reportedly been elected by only 10-15 percent of the eligible voters. And elections at the state and local level are often decided by amazingly small margins, even by a single vote.[xi] Our citizens’ lack of interest in local government can be confirmed by attending or viewing any televised city council or county board of supervisors meeting. There, with few exceptions, you’ll find a nearly empty room with the council members speaking, if to anyone but themselves, to a small handful of citizens. This is ironic since the day-to-day lives of Americans are arguably more influenced by local laws, codes and ordinances than those of their state or nation, local zoning laws being a prime example. On the other hand, polls show more Americans (71%) trust their local governments than their state governments (62%).[xii]

The cry of: “take back our democracy” is often heard these days, particularly from many on the political left. It is a silly notion, considering that our republican form of government is what is really at stake. But the phrase is useful; it brings in donations, lots of donations. Instead of waving “take back our democracy” signs , might I instead suggest we form a line and register as candidates for every elected office, from dog-catcher on up?

Next time you see your Congressman or Congresswoman, ask them how Congress guarantees to each state a republican form of government and see what response you get.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text.  Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes a weekly essay: Constitutional Corner which is published on multiple websites, and hosts a weekly radio show: “We the People, the Constitution Matters” on WFYL AM1140.  Gary has also begun performing reenactments of James Madison and speaking with public and private school students about Madison’s role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and Constitution.  Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

 

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[i] https://www.theamericanview.com/constitution-course-supplemental-assignments/what-is-a-republic-anyway/.

[ii] Heritage Guide to the Constitution, David F. Forte and Matthew Spalding, ed., Washington, D.C. 2014, Guarantee Clause, p. 369.

[iii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah#Utah_Territory_(1850%E2%80%931896).

[iv] Luther v. Borden. Luther v. Borden, 48 U.S. (7 How.) 1 (1849).

[v] Heritage Guide, p. 370.

[vi] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_rule_in_the_United_States.

[vii] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/governments/cb12-161.html.

[viii] The 89,004 includes 3,031 counties, 19,522 municipalities, 16,364 townships, 37,203 special districts and 12,884 independent school districts.

[ix] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_state_legislatures.

[x] https://www.governing.com/topics/politics/gov-voter-turnout-municipal-elections.html.

[xi] https://www.npr.org/2018/11/03/663709392/why-every-vote-matters-the-elections-decided-by-a-single-vote-or-a-little-more.

[xii] https://news.gallup.com/poll/195656/americans-trusting-local-state-government.aspx.

Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

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How the Bill of Rights Was Aimed at the Federal Government Because States Had Their Own Bills of Rights

James Madison was suspicious of a Declaration of Rights at the national level. In a letter to his friend Thomas Jefferson, then serving as Minister to France, Madison confessed that his “own opinion has always been in favor of a bill of rights; provided it be so framed as not to imply powers not meant to be included in the enumeration.”[1] He was particularly concerned “that a positive declaration of some of the most essential rights could not be obtained in the requisite latitude. I am sure that the rights of conscience in particular, if submitted to public definition would be narrowed much more than they are likely ever to be by an assumed power.”[2] But Madison had seen, first-hand, the obstinacy of the states under the Articles of Confederation towards the rights of their citizens.  In his “Vices of the Political System of the United States,” Madison decried the “Injustice of the laws of States.” While the “multiplicity” and “mutability” of state laws showed a “want of wisdom,” their “injustice” was “still more alarming: more alarming not merely because it is a greater evil in itself, but because it brings more into question the fundamental principle of republican Government, that the majority who rule in such Governments, are the safest Guardians both of public Good and of private rights.”[3]

Madison told Jefferson that in their home state he had “seen the bill of rights violated in every instance where it [was] opposed to a popular current.” His precious “rights of conscience” were particularly vulnerable.  Madison was livid over the jailing of Baptist preachers in the neighboring Culpeper County, calling it “that diabolical Hell conceived principle of persecution” in a letter to his College of New Jersey classmate William Bradford.

In 1776, Madison had the opportunity to strike a blow for liberty of conscience by successfully arguing, as Virginia’s Declaration of Rights was being drafted, that the principle of “toleration” towards other Christian denominations, even if it was fullest toleration, was simply not enough.  Citizens would not enjoy complete liberty of conscience until “all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion.”

It comes as no surprise then to see Madison try once again to protect liberty of conscience in 1789 when drafting his proposed amendments to the new Constitution. One proposed article read: “No State shall violate the equal rights of conscience, or the freedom of the press, or the trial by jury in criminal cases.”  In the ensuing floor debate it was argued that this amendment was improper; the Constitution gave the federal government no authority to alter the state constitutions, and such an amendment would certainly amount to such an alteration, at least in the state constitutions where a right of conscience was not already secured.  Madison, however, viewed this as the most important amendment in the whole list, his reason being, “If there were any reason to restrain the Government of the United States from infringing upon these essential rights, it was equally necessary that they should be secured against State Governments.” Madison was eventually outvoted and the “infringement” on the states was “left on the cutting room floor.”

The Constitution already contained some specific words concerning state powers; Article 1 Section 10 enumerated several tightly targeted prohibitions, and the 10th Amendment made clear that any power not specifically granted to Congress was reserved to the states and/or the people.

Congressmen in the summer of 1789 were well aware that the constitution of nearly every state predated the new U.S. Constitution and that they had been working well.  Almost all of them contained either Declarations of Rights or specific protections in the body of the constitution; some of these protections were more elaborate even than those which ended up in the U.S. Bill of Rights.[4]

That’s the way things would stand for the next 136 years; but I’m getting ahead of myself.

In the early 1830s, the city of Baltimore, Maryland, began a public works project that required the modification of several streams that emptied into Baltimore Harbor. Construction resulted in large amounts of sediment entering the streams, which flowed into the harbor near a wharf owned and operated by one John Barron.  The sediment eventually reached the point where it became nearly impossible for ships to approach Mr. Barron’s wharf and his business dropped precipitously. Barron sued the City of Baltimore for his financial loss, arguing that the city’s action “took” his property without the due process promised him by the Fifth Amendment. He was awarded $4,500 in damages by the trial court, but a state appellate court reversed the decision.  Barron appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled[5] that the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of just compensation when private property is taken for public use is a restriction on the federal government alone. The opinion in Barron v. Baltimore by Chief Justice John Marshall held that the Constitution’s first ten amendments[6]contain no expression indicating an intention to apply them to the State governments.”

This made perfect sense.  The first five words of what became known as the Bill of Rights: “Congress shall make no law…” make clear the target of the amendments – Congress (and by implication, the rest of the federal government), not the states.

On February 26, 1866, in debate over what became the 14th Amendment, the amendment’s principal author, Rep. John Bingham, was asked whether he intended the amendment to apply, as some perceived, “only to the eleven states lately in rebellion.”  Bingham replied: “It is to apply to other States also that have in their constitutions and laws to-day provisions in direct violation of every principle of our Constitution.”[7]

The following day, Rep. Bingham rose to elaborate upon the preceding day’s debate.

“Excuse me. Mr. Speaker, we have had some most extraordinary arguments against the adoption of the proposed amendment…

“Mr. Speaker, I speak in behalf of this amendment in no party spirit, in no spirit of resentment toward any State or the people of any State, in no spirit of innovation, but for the sake of a violated Constitution and a wronged and wounded country whose heart is now smitten with a strange, great sorrow. I urge the amendment for the enforcement of these essential provisions of your Constitution, divine in their justice, sublime in their humanity, which declare that all men are equal in the rights of life and liberty before the majesty of American law.

“Representatives, to you I appeal, that hereafter, by your act and the approval of the loyal people of this country, every man in every State of the Union, in accordance with the written words of your Constitution, may, by the national law, be secured in the equal protection of his personal rights. Your Constitution provides that no man, no matter what his color, no matter beneath what sky he may have been born, no matter in what disastrous conflict or by what tyrannical hand his liberty may have been cloven down, no matter how poor, no matter how friendless, no matter how ignorant, shall be deprived of life or liberty or property without due process of law—law in its highest sense, that law which is the perfection of human reason, and which is impartial, equal, exact justice; that justice which requires that every man shall have his right: that justice which is the highest duty of nations as it is the imperishable attribute of the God of nations.”

Representative Robert Hale of New York rose to ask whether he might be allowed “to ask a single question pertinent to this subject?” Bingham accepted.

(Hale) “I desire … to ask [Mr. Bingham], as an able constitutional lawyer, which he has proved himself to be, whether in his opinion this proposed amendment to the Constitution does not confer upon Congress a general power of legislation for the purpose of securing to all persons in the several States protection of life, liberty, and property, subject only to the qualification that that protection shall be equal…”

(Bingham) “It certainly does this: it confers upon Congress power to see to it that the protection given by the laws of the United States shall be equal in respect to life and liberty and property to all persons.”

(Hale) “Then will the gentleman point me to that clause or part of this resolution which contains the doctrine he here announces?”

(Bingham) “The words ‘equal protection’ contain it, and nothing else.”

It would take the Supreme Court 39 years to come around to Bingham’s thinking on the 14th Amendment.

Eight years after the 14th Amendment was ratified, in fact, in United States v. Cruikshank, the Court affirmed, once again, that the Bill of Rights did not apply to the states.  In Cruikshank, it meant that the First Amendment’s right to assembly “was not intended to limit the powers of the State governments in respect to their own citizens, but to operate upon the National Government alone.”[8]

We skip forward to July 1919. Benjamin Gitlow, a member of the Socialist Party of America, who had served in the New York State Assembly, published a document called “Left Wing Manifesto” in The Revolutionary Age, a newspaper for which he also served as business manager.  The State of New York charged Gitlow with criminal anarchy under New York’s Criminal Anarchy Law of 1902.

At trial, Gitlow insisted that his “Manifesto” consisted of historical analysis and did not advocate anarchy. Nevertheless, he was convicted and sentenced to five to ten years in prison.  He appealed, and the case eventually reached the Supreme Court.

The question presented to the court was: “Does the First Amendment prevent a state from punishing political speech that directly advocates the government’s violent overthrow?” The Supreme Court said “No,” finding that “Freedom of speech and of the press, as secured by the Constitution, is not an absolute right to speak or publish without responsibility whatever one may choose or an immunity for every possible use of language.”  They upheld Gitlow’s conviction with the explanation that the government may suppress or punish speech that directly advocates the unlawful overthrow of the government, but the Court took the unprecedented step in announcing that, for the purposes of the case, that freedom of speech and of the press are among the personal rights and liberties protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the States.[9] (Emphasis added) This became what is now called the “Incorporation Doctrine.”

After Gitlow, the Court began the tedious process of clause by clause incorporation as specific cases allowed. Not every clause of the Bill of Rights was deemed worthy of incorporation; in Palko v. Connecticut, the Court ruled that only those rights that were “of the very essence of a scheme of ordered liberty” should be incorporated.[10]  We should note that the phrase “scheme of ordered liberty” appears nowhere in the Constitution. To mold a court-invented doctrine so that it aligns with a syrupy but entirely unconstitutional phrase would seem the height of judicial hubris.

Some notable exceptions to incorporation thus far include the entire Third Amendment (outside the jurisdiction of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals), indictment of a Grand Jury (Fifth Amendment) and the right to a jury selected from residents of the state and district where the crime occurred (Sixth Amendment).

A list of those clauses incorporated can be found on Wikipedia.[11] The most recent addition to the list is the “Excessive fines” clause of the Eighth Amendment in February 2019 (in Timbs v. Indiana)

The incorporation Doctrine is not without its critics,[12] this writer being one of them.  While it may be appropriate for the states to be held responsible for protecting the rights specified in the Bill of Rights, having the Supreme Court invent the doctrine of incorporation without input from We the People is blatantly unconstitutional.  The American people should have been allowed to conduct a national conversation over the idea, an appropriate Constitutional amendment should have been proposed and, if ratified, the feat would have been accomplished, constitutionally.  Instead, the court, never intended by the Framers to be representative of the people, took it upon itself to act.  This is certainly in line with the view of Chief Justice Charles Evan Hughes that “[w]e are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is….”[13] The acquiescence of the American people since 1925 has been perceived as their acceptance.

Bryan Keith Morris, in The Incorporation Doctrine: A Legal and Historical Fallacy, takes a textualist instead of original intent position (as taken by the Court) in arguing that the Incorporation Doctrine should be discarded.  John P. Frank obliterates the originalist position in “The Original Understanding of “Equal Protection of the Laws.[14]  Both essays should be read before someone comes to a conclusion on the matter.

Today, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas and others maintain that the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and not the due process clause should provide the anchor for the Incorporation Doctrine. Thomas recently reiterated this view in his concurring opinion in Timbs v. Indiana.

No matter what your position of the rectitude of the Incorporation Doctrine today, it is indisputable that those who approved and ratified the Bill of Rights had no intention of infringing on the powers of the several states.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text.  Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes a weekly essay: Constitutional Corner which is published on multiple websites. Gary has also begun performing reenactments of James Madison and speaking with public and private school students about Madison’s role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and Constitution.  Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

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[1] James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, 17 Oct. 1788.

[2] Ibid.

[3] https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-09-02-0187.

[4] See https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/12/state_bills_of_rights_have_the_real_protections.html

[5] Barron v. Baltimore, 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 243 (1833).

[6] The Constitution had 12 amendments by then.

[7] https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/congress-debates-fourteenth-amendment-1866.

[8] https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/92/542.html.

[9] https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/268/652/.

[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palko_v._Connecticut.

[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_Rights.

[12] https://lonang.com/wp-content/download/TheIncorporationDoctrine.pdf.

[13] Speech before the Chamber of Commerce, Elmira, New York (3 May 1907); published in Addresses and Papers of Charles Evans Hughes, Governor of New York, 1906–1908 (1908), p. 139.

[14] https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2738&context=law_lawreview.

Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

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Admitted in June 20, 1863 by ratifying the U.S. Constitution, West Virginia became the thirty-fifth state. It is known as “The Mountain State” with the West Virginia State Constitution in current use adopted in 1872

The story of how West Virginia became a state is an amazing story; full of constitutional intrigue and slight-of-hand worthy of Houdini himself.

Our story begins, where else, in 1776 Virginia.  Virginia’s Constitution of 1776 was a rush-job.  War with Britain was eminent and Virginia would need a new government to see it through this war; time was fleeting. Anticipating that the Continental Congress then meeting in Philadelphia would consider and likely approve a call for independence,[1] forty-five delegates assembled at Williamsburg, Virginia on May 6th. Seven weeks later, on June 29, Virginia had a new Constitution.

Virginia’s Declaration of Rights, which preceded the Constitution itself, is one of the finest written during the founding period.  Largely the work of George Mason of Fairfax, VA (with some important input from a 25-year old James Madison) it elucidates several enduring principles of constitutional liberty absent even from the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights.

The new Constitution was put into effect immediately upon its signing, without even so much as a nod to the people of the state.  When this “non-ratification” was challenged in 1793, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that “This constitution is sanctioned by the consent and acquiescence of the people for seventeen years…” Case dismissed.

The new Constitution immediately attracted critics, among them Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.  Jefferson had wanted to remain in Williamsburg and work on the Virginia Constitution; instead he had been sent north to Philadelphia and on July 4th 1776, America benefited from the decision to send Jefferson north.   From Philadelphia, Jefferson had sent back to Williamsburg his ideas for the state constitution.  Unfortunately, they arrived too late for consideration.[2]

Among its many features, the 1776 Constitution limited the right to vote primarily to property owners and men of wealth. This coupled with malapportionment of voting districts, concentrated power in the hands of the landowners and aristocracy of Southeastern Virginia.  In the only book he ever wrote, “Notes on the State of Virginia” (1785), Jefferson listed several “capital defects” of the Virginia Constitution, including the unequal representation in the legislature.

Year after year, petitioners, largely from the western counties, called on the Virginia Assembly to initiate a constitutional convention to correct this and other deficiencies; to no avail. The House of Delegates twice passed a bill calling for a convention only to have it fail in the more conservative Senate. Western counties in the state continued to experience continued growth and increasing irritation at their lack of representation in the Assembly.

Finally, from October 5, 1829 to January 15, 1830, a convention met to “fix” the defects in the Constitution.  It has been termed the last “gathering of giants.”  Present were two former U.S. Presidents (James Madison and James Monroe) and the sitting Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Marshall (the Court’s case load was apparently not as pressing as it is today).  This august group of 96 men would eventually supply three presidents, seven U.S. Senators, fifteen U.S. Representatives and four governors.[3]

Despite the pleading of James Madison and others, the convention failed to fully rectify the Constitution’s malapportionment problem. They loosened the requirements for suffrage, but kept representation by county, which failed to solve the basic problem facing the western counties, and their residents would continue to feel under-represented and disenfranchised for the next 30 years.  The 1829 constitution was put to a popular vote and passed, even while many residents in the west voted against it.

Over the next 20 years the western half of Virginia experienced a flood of new settlers.  Attracted by cheap plentiful land, these hardy souls set up much smaller farms than those in the east — farms manageable without resorting to slave labor.  Calls for emancipation of the slaves and more equitable representation in Virginia’s government continued to be heard from the west.

Another constitutional convention in 1850-1851 eliminated the property requirement for voting, established popular election for the Governor and all Virginia judges, and created the office of Lieutenant Governor, also elected.  Delegates took note of the rising tension between the slave-owning east and the emancipation-interested western counties.[4]

Rising tensions in the United States between the manufacturing North and the agrarian South, exacerbated by the issues of slavery, tariffs, nullification and state’s rights reached a breaking point on December 20th, 1860 when South Carolina seceded from the Union.  In response, the Virginia General Assembly called for a convention, to meet in Richmond on February 13, 1861,[5] to consider whether Virginia should join South Carolina.  By the end of January, six additional southern states had seceded.

On April 12, Fort Sumter was attacked and taken over by the South.  Three days later President Lincoln issued a call for the states to provide 75,000 Union troops, including three regiments of 2,340 men from Virginia. Although a previous resolution to secede had been defeated in the convention, on April 17, 1861, Lincoln’s call for troops became too much: the convention approved an “Ordinance of Secession,” by an 88-85 vote.  All of the western and several of the northern counties objected to the Legislature’s decision to secede, but Virginia voters overall approved the ordinance by a wide margin and the convention formally ratified the Constitution of the Confederate States of America on June 19, 1861.

Virginia’s western counties conducted “anti-secession” conventions in Wheeling, Virginia on May 11, and June 11, 1861.  The Second Wheeling Convention declared the offices of all government officials in Richmond who had voted for secession to be vacant and promptly filled them with their own people. Viewed from another perspective, the Restored Government seceded from the state of Virginia.  The “Restored Government of Virginia,” with Francis H. Pierpont as their Governor, next appointed two Senators and two Representatives, who were immediately recognized by the U.S. Congress (Lincoln welcomed the votes).

Once that was complete, the “Restored Government of Virginia” moved itself to Alexandria, where it operated until 1865, while the “Secession Government of Virginia” continued to meet in Richmond.

At this point, there were two Virginia governments in existence, one meeting in Richmond and considering itself part of the Confederacy and one meeting in Alexandria considering itself part of the Union.  Each claimed the entirety of the land mass of Virginia as its own.  Was any of this legal?  The plot thickens.

The “Restored Government,” acting in accordance with Article IV, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, passed a resolution allowing the counties of northwest Virginia to split off and form their own state called West Virginia.  Before West Virginia is admitted to the Union as a distinct state (in 1863) there were actually three separate governments operating within the confines of the state of Virginia: one part of the confederacy, one part of the Union and one hopeful of becoming a separate state.  The “Restored Government” approved a new constitution in 1864.  Since this constitution was enacted under wartime conditions and the “Restored Government” stood on rather shaky ground to begin with, the 1864 constitution is not recognized as part of the constitutional history of Virginia.

The Virginia Declaration of Rights contains a statement that “all [political] power is … derived from, the people; that magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them.”  When “the people” delegate their sovereign power to a government, is that a one-way trip, is the power forever surrendered?  No, no, a thousand times no!  Virginia’s Ratification Convention of the U.S. Constitution in 1788 made this crystal clear by writing: “WE the Delegates of the people of Virginia…, DO in the name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression.”[6]

How much political power did the “Restored Government of Virginia” actually enjoy?  That’s certainly debatable; same for the government of West Virginia, and the Secession government for that matter.  Certainly possessed some legitimate political power resulting from the people each government represented.

But wait, there’s more!

There is also a provision in the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 (Section 14) that reads: “…the people have a right to uniform government, … therefore, … no government separate from, or independent of the government of Virginia, ought to be erected or established within the limits thereof.” How was the “Restored Government” not in violation of the 1776 constitution?  The “Restored Government” saw no problem, they considered the secessionist government officials to have vacated their offices, which the “restorers” gladly “filled.” Problem solved.

On December 5, 1865, however, the Virginia Assembly in Richmond passed legislation repealing all the acts of the “Restored Government” regarding secession of the 39 counties and the admission of Berkeley and Jefferson counties to the state of West Virginia.

In response, on March 10, 1866, Congress passed a resolution acknowledging the transfer of Berkeley and Jefferson counties from Virginia to West Virginia.

The Virginia Assembly in Richmond sued.  With not a single Justice from any of the southern states on the bench, the odds were stacked against Virginia.  In Virginia v. West Virginia (1871), the Court avoided the question of whether West Virginia’s existence as a state was constitutional and instead focused on the specific counties referred to in the trial. They quickly dispensed with a challenge by West Virginia that they lacked jurisdiction to hear the case and then sided with the “Restored Government of Virginia” that what had occurred was all right and proper, that Congress had properly approved West Virginia’s proposed Constitution and that the polling of the citizens that had been conducted during this process was legitimate.[7]

After the war concluded in favor of the Union, the “Restored Government of Virginia” moved its operations to Richmond and operated under the Constitution of 1864 until Virginia was placed under the military rule of Lieutenant General John M. Schofield.  Schofield called for a new constitutional convention, which meet in Richmond in December 1867.  They enacted a constitution containing a provision that prevented Virginia from ever again leaving the Union.

On October 8, 1869, Virginia voted to ratify the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, and by doing so began the process of re-admittance to the Union, which concluded on January 26, 1870 when President Ulysses S. Grant signed an act culminating the process (But wait, wasn’t the restored “Virginia” back in the Union as of April 1861?).

The present West Virginia Constitution, enacted in 1872, begins: “Since through Divine Providence we enjoy the blessings of civil, political and religious liberty, we, the people of West Virginia, in and through the provisions of this Constitution, reaffirm our faith in and constant reliance upon God and seek diligently to promote, preserve and perpetuate good government in the State of West Virginia for the common welfare, freedom and security of ourselves and our posterity.”

The Bill of Rights, which comprises Article 3, not surprisingly borrows heavily from the Virginia Declaration of Rights. It is not without its unique elements, however.

Section 11 states: “Political tests, requiring persons, as a prerequisite to the enjoyment of their civil and political rights, to purge themselves by their own oaths, of past alleged offences, are repugnant to the principles of free government, and are cruel and oppressive.  No religious or political test oath shall be required as a prerequisite or qualification to vote, serve as a juror, sue, plead, appeal, or pursue any profession or employment.  Nor shall any person be deprived by law, of any right, or privilege, because of any act done prior to the passage of such law.”  The first clause is a reaction to the state government passing imposing loyalty oaths in the aftermath of the Civil War.  The repugnancy of such oaths, in fact, provided much of the impetus for the 1872 Constitution.

Section 15a is also unique.  It reads: “Public schools shall provide a designated brief time at the beginning of each school day for any student desiring to exercise their right to personal and private contemplation, meditation or prayer.  No student of a public school may be denied the right to personal and private contemplation, meditation or prayer nor shall any student be required or encouraged to engage in any given contemplation, meditation or prayer as a part of the school curriculum.”

Section 22 makes it clear that “A person has the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and state, and for lawful hunting and recreational use.” No confusing militia clause here.

Some other interesting provisions include a prohibition against duels, but only on the part of those who might later seek public office (Article 4 §10).

Since 1872, West Virginians have added more than fifty amendments to their Constitution and the rate of amendment gradually accelerated (there were only three amendments in the 19th century). There have been occasional calls for a new constitution. In 1964, the legislature passed a law that authorized the election of delegates to a constitutional convention. The movement then stalled after the state Supreme Court invalidated the law because it improperly apportioned delegate selection.

One is hard pressed to find any of the fifty United States with a more convoluted tale of statehood.  Welcome to “The Mountain State.”

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text.  Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes a weekly essay: Constitutional Corner which is published on multiple websites, and hosts a weekly radio show: “We the People, the Constitution Matters” on WFYL AM1140.  Gary has also begun performing reenactments of James Madison and speaking with public and private school students about Madison’s role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and Constitution.  Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

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[1] Delegate to the Continental Congress Richard Henry Lee had in fact been provided a resolution for independence to introduce in the Congress.  He did so on June 7, 1776.

[2] The Virginians did adopt much of the Declaration’s “grievances” section (from Jefferson’s initial draft) as the preamble to their new Constitution.

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Constitutional_Convention_of_1829%E2%80%931830

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Constitutional_Convention_of_1850

[5] https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Virginia_Constitutional_Convention_of_1861

[6] http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/ratva.asp

[7] Virginia v. West Virginia, 78 U.S. (11 Wall.) 39 (1871)

 

Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

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Known as “The Gem State,”  Idaho ratified the U.S. Constitution July 3, 1890 admitting the forty-third state to the Union. The Idaho State Constitution currently in use today was adopted on the same day as the state’s admission to the Union, July 3, 1890.

“We, the people of the State of Idaho, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, to secure its blessings and promote our common welfare do establish this Constitution.” So begins the Idaho Constitution.

I’ve been to Idaho, many times. I’ve fished its waters, hiked its trails, hunted its elk (successfully), eaten its potatoes and golfed its links; it’s a beautiful state which also gave birth to a beautiful woman who would eventually become my wife. You should visit.

You may recall that, thanks to President Thomas Jefferson’s foresight and his Secretary of State, James Madison’s constitutional interpretation, the United States gained title to what was commonly called the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, extending the United States of America all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Two years later, on their way to that ocean, Lewis and Clark entered present-day Idaho on August 12, 1805, at Lemhi Pass, bringing with them the first black man to also enter the land. In 1819, a treaty with Spain removed that country’s claim to the same land. One would think these two actions, with France and Spain, would settle the question of who owned the land that would one day become Idaho. One would be wrong; one more treaty would be required. In the 1820s, the British-owned Hudson’s Bay Company moved in and soon controlled the fur trade in the Snake River area. They encountered competition from French fur trading companies, and before too long, additional Americans. British claims to the land were settled in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty and the area became undisputed U.S. territory for the first time. Under U.S. jurisdiction over the next few years, the land mass of what would become Idaho was alternately made part of the Oregon Territory and Washington Territory.

Idaho’s gold rush began in 1860 when placer gold was discovered at Pierce, Idaho, and the industry continues to this day, 3 million troy ounces (more than 90 tons) later. Three years after the gold rush began, a silver rush followed that has produced 1 million troy ounces to date.[i]

Captivated by the thought of siphoning off some of the newfound wealth, Congress began encouraging the land be recognized as a distinct territory.

On December 15th, 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, Congressman William Kellogg of Illinois, introduced the following resolution in the House of Representatives: “Resolved, That the Committee on Territories be instructed to inquire into the propriety of establishing a Territorial government for that region of country in which are situated the Salmon river gold mines; and that they report by bill or otherwise.” Two months later, the “Organic Act of the Territory of Idaho,” passed by both Houses and signed by the President on March 3, 1863, provided a temporary government for the territory.

As created by Congress, the Territory extended across an area one-quarter larger than Texas. Today’s state is much smaller but still as large as all six of the New England states combined, with New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware thrown in for good measure. Traveling from Bonner’s Ferry in the north of the state to Montpelier in the extreme southeast requires a trip of nearly 800 miles, only slightly shorter than a trip from New York City to Chicago.[ii]

Idaho’s Constitution,[iii] which forms the basic governing document of the state, was adopted on August 6, 1889 by a constitutional convention. After the convention concluded its work, the proposed constitution was submitted to a vote of the people with this caution:

“You will bear in mind that there has, never will be, nor is it in the  power of men to frame, a constitution that will meet the views of all. The framers of the constitution fully realizing this fact, labored  earnestly to harmonize all conflicting interests. If twenty  conventions were held it is not probable one of them would frame a constitution with as few defects as the one now submitted for your  examination, and upon which you are to vote.”

These words bring to mind similar remarks of Benjamin Franklin on September 17, 1787:

“I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others… I doubt … whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected?”

Constitution-making can indeed be messy.

Back in Idaho Territory, the convention approved the proposed constitution by a hefty margin and it was ratified in a statewide vote in November, 1889. Congress approved the ratified constitution on July 3, 1890 and President William Henry Harrison signed the bill creating the state the same day, making Idaho our 43rd state, with, at that time, a population of 88,548.

The “Idaho Admission Bill” reads: “Therefore, Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representative of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That the State of Idaho is hereby declared to be a State of the United States of America, and is hereby declared admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever; and that the Constitution which the people of Idaho have formed for themselves be and the same is hereby, accepted, ratified and confirmed.”

Idaho’s Declaration of Rights, forming the Constitution’s Article 1, borrows heavily from that of Virginia, which, as a Virginian, I find flattering. There are also many features copied from the U.S. Bill of Rights.

Some unique and interesting features of the Declaration include:

In Section 7, dealing with juries, only three-fourths of the jury is needed to render a verdict in civil actions, and in misdemeanors cases five-sixths of the jury can render a verdict.

Section 9 holds citizens responsible for abusing their right of free speech.

Section 11 prohibits any confiscation of firearms except when they are used in the commission of a felony.

Section 15 provides that there will be no imprisonment for debt in the state except in cases of fraud (i.e., no debtors prisons needed!).

In Section 19, the right of suffrage is guaranteed. “No power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere with or prevent [its] free and lawful exercise.”

Section 20 prevents any property qualification from being imposed on the citizens in order to vote “except in school elections, or elections creating indebtedness, or in irrigation district elections, as to which last-named elections the legislature may restrict the voters to land owners.

Section 22, added in 1994, contains an extensive list of the rights of crime victims. I couldn’t determine when this was added to the Constitution.

Finally, Section 23 of the Declaration of Rights, its final section, guarantees Idaho citizens the right to hunt fish and trap. “Public hunting, fishing and trapping of wildlife shall be a preferred means of managing wildlife.”

In the main body of the Constitution we find a few unique features.

Article 3, Section 20 prohibits gambling in the state, it being “contrary to public policy.” This prohibition does not extend to Indian tribal lands.

Section 24, entitled “Promotion of Temperance and Morality,” is interesting. It reads: “The first concern of all good government is the virtue and sobriety of the people, and the purity of the home. The legislature should further all wise and well directed efforts for the promotion of temperance and morality.” Wouldn’t it be nice if all states did this?

And in Section 28 we find the now ineffective statement: “A marriage between a man and a woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state.”

The Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, State Controller, State Treasurer, Attorney General and Superintendent of Public Instruction all hold their offices for a four year term. The Governor enjoys a line-item veto on appropriations bills, joining 43 other U.S. governors with similar powers.

Interestingly, the legislature must maintain a balanced budget and is prohibited from incurring any debt unless they do so by law and provide, in the authorizing legislation, a plan to pay off such debt within 20 years.

Article 9, dealing with education and school lands, begins with the declaration: “The stability of a republican form of government depending mainly upon the intelligence of the people, it shall be the duty of the legislature of Idaho, to establish and maintain a general, uniform and thorough system of public, free common schools.” (Emphasis added)

Idaho was early settled by Mormons, especially in its southeast sections. We may detect a bit of Mormon backlash in Section 6 of Article 9, when we read: “No sectarian or religious tenets or doctrines shall ever be taught in the public schools, nor shall any distinction or classification of pupils be made on account of race or color. No books, papers, tracts or documents of a political, sectarian or denominational character shall be used or introduced in any schools established under the provisions of this article, nor shall any teacher or any district receive any of the public school moneys in which the schools have not been taught in accordance with the provisions of this article.” Compulsory attendance is mandate between the ages of 6 and 18.

Article 10 provides that Boise shall be the state’s capitol, at least for the first 20 years, after which the state legislature can vote to move it elsewhere, something they have yet to get around to do. Incidentally, ever mindful of their natural resources, Idaho’s State Capitol building is the only one in the nation to be heated by geothermal water from a source 3,000 feet below the ground.[iv]

Article 14, dealing with the Militia makes “all able-bodied male persons, residents of this state, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years,” a member of the militia, and requires that they “perform such military duty as may be required by law;” unless they have “conscientious scruples against bearing arms.”

Idaho has abundant streams and rivers, but getting precious water to arable lands takes an extensive network of irrigation canals. Not surprisingly, there is an extensive section of the Constitution devoted to “Water Rights.” (Article 15)

Taken in the whole, Idaho’s is a well-constructed Constitution, perhaps explaining why it has remained in force (albeit extensively amended) since 1890.

On March 25, 2016, the state carried on its tradition of being a gun-friendly state by legalizing the carry of concealed firearms without a permit.[v]

Oh, and Idaho’s Great Seal was designed through a contest won by Emma Edwards Green, apparently the only woman to design the official seal of a U.S. state.[vi]

Idaho’s current 1,754,208 residents[vii] wait to welcome you.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text.  Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes a weekly essay: Constitutional Corner which is published on multiple websites, and hosts a weekly radio show: “We the People, the Constitution Matters” on WFYL AM1140.  Gary has also begun performing reenactments of James Madison and speaking with public and private school students about Madison’s role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and Constitution.  Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

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[i] https://www.goldmapsonline.com/idaho-gold-rush-history-and-districts.html.

[ii] https://www.idaho.gov/about-idaho/history/.

[iii] https://sos.idaho.gov/elect/stcon/index.html.

[iv] https://www.history.com/topics/us-states/idaho.

[v] http://concealednation.org/2016/03/permitless-concealed-carry-in-idaho-passes-takes-effect-july-1st-2016/.

[vi] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_and_seal_of_Idaho.

[vii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho.

Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

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Maryland is the seventh state admitted to the United States, ratifying the U.S. Constitution April 28, 1788. The current Maryland State Constitution in use was adopted in 1867.

Maryland was the seventh state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, on April 28, 1788. Two months later the U.S. Constitution went into effect with New Hampshire’s ratification on June 21. A study of the “Old Line State” (we’ll see where that appellation comes from in a moment) provides a convenient entry point to address several different constitutional topics; but first a little history:

It is August 27, 1776; the British have mounted their anticipated invasion of Long Island, New York. British General William Howe commits 20,000 of his best troops to the fight, including 8,000 Hessians, against approximately 6,000 ill-equipped and ill-experienced Americans (20,000 to 6,000; hardly seems a fair fight). Howe splits his forces across three fronts and executes a daring nighttime flanking maneuver that utterly surprises the American forces. The Americans are soon routed from their defensive lines and forced to retreat onto fortified Brooklyn Heights. To buy time for the withdrawal, Washington orders General William Stirling, commanding two units of the 1st Delaware Regiment as well as four companies from the 1st Maryland Regiment, to hold his line on the Gowanus Road. The 1st Maryland Regiment (part of the “Maryland Line”) is under the temporary command of Major Mordecai Gist (the unit’s commander, Colonel William Smallwood, is attending court martial duty in the city). The British attack up the Gowanus Road consists of 2,000 troops under the command of General James Grant. The Marylanders, soon reduced to less than 400 men (The Immortal 400)[1] are ordered to hold the line near Vechte-Cortelyou house, a stone building commanding the strategic road and a bridge, the only escape route across the Gowanus Salt Marsh. Not only do Gist’s men hold off the British, they make six amazing counterattacks before being finally forced to scatter and make their own escape back to American lines. Only a handful of the Maryland men are successful. Watching from Brooklyn Heights, General Washington turns to General Israel Putnam and states: ‘Good God, what brave fellows I must this day lose.” The Maryland 1st Infantry will go down in history as “The Old Line,” giving Maryland its claim as “The Old Line State.”[2] Historian, Thomas Field, writing his 1869 book “The Battle of Long Island,” called the stand of the Marylanders “an hour more precious to liberty than any other in history.”[3] As we will see, Maryland will go on to make other important contributions to the establishment of the American union.

In 1632, Lord George Calvert, a convert to Catholicism, was granted a charter by King Charles I to establish “The Province of Maryland.”[4] Actual settlement began two years later, first along the Chesapeake Bay and then proceeding slowly but inexorably westward. Calvert envisioned a colony where religious tolerance would prevail, especially towards his fellow Catholics. Accordingly, in 1649, the Maryland General Assembly passed an Act Concerning Religion which made it a crime to harass a fellow citizen of the colony over their religious preferences. Maryland would eventually gain the largest concentration of Catholics of any of the colonies, to include, in 1715, one John Porter, immigrant ancestor of the writer of this essay. Family legend holds that John was “asked” to leave England after composing and singing publicly a song not entirely complementary of the new reigning monarch: George I of Hanover, brought over from Germany the previous year to take the English throne.

With its moderate weather, 4,000 miles of shoreline and a fine port at Baltimore, Maryland grew to nearly 250,000 inhabitants by 1776.[5] Maryland’s current boundaries were solidified following the settlement of a long-running dispute with Pennsylvania and completion, in 1767, of the Mason-Dixon Line, a project to which two sons of the aforementioned immigrant John Porter allegedly contributed as the surveying team reached the westernmost parts of the state. It would not be until 1820, however, that the term “Mason-Dixon Line” came into common usage. The Missouri Compromise used the term to define the boundary between slave territory and free territory (remember this, we encounter it again).

While no major battles of the Revolution were fought within the state (that would change with the War of 1812 and the Civil War), Maryland was an active participant in the events leading up to the Revolution. In 1776, its delegates, Charles Carroll, Samuel Chase, Thomas Stone, William Paca, signed the Declaration of Independence (with Carroll being the only Catholic to sign). “Charles Carroll of Carrollton” had been an early proponent of independence from the mother country, writing often in the Maryland Gazette under the pseudonym “First Citizen,” and serving on various Committees of Correspondence. A devout man, in a November 4, 1800, letter to James McHenry (of Fort McHenry fame) Carroll wrote: “Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure…are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.” When he died in 1832, Carroll was the last surviving signer of the Declaration and acquired the distinction (dying at 95 years of age) of being the oldest lived Founding Father.

Like other states, Marylanders were bitterly divided as the Revolutionary War loomed; many Loyalists in the state refused to support the Revolution, and saw their lands and estates confiscated as a result.

Responding to a resolution of Congress of May 10, 1776, Maryland’s provincial congress recommended formation of a convention to form a new constitution to replace its royal charter. Fifty-three delegates assembled on August 14, and completed their work on November 8. While the new constitution kept most of the features of government intact, the state’s property qualification for suffrage was lowered from thirty to five British pounds, greatly expanding the electorate. Ironically, following the example set by Virginia earlier that year, on November 8, 1776, the convention put their new constitution into effect by voice vote, without bothering to submit the document to Maryland’s newly expanded electorate.

“Baltimore Town” served as the temporary capital of the confederated states from December 1776 to February 1777, while Philadelphia was occupied by the British. Towards the end of the war, from November 1783, to June 1784, Annapolis, briefly hosted the confederation government, and it was in the Old Senate Chamber of the Maryland State House in Annapolis on December 23, 1783, that General George Washington famously resigned his commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. It was there also, on January 14, 1784, that the Treaty of Paris was ratified, officially ending the Revolutionary War.

Maryland was the last of the thirteen states to ratify the Articles of Confederation, on March 1, 1781, and then only when France threatened to withdraw its treaty-guaranteed protection of the Chesapeake Bay. Maryland had been insisting that the territory north of the Ohio River be ceded to the confederation government by the several states which maintained conflicting claims on it. Virginia’s government agreed to cede its claim to the land but demanded that the claims of Maryland’s land speculators be declared void. Maryland objected, but faced with France’s threat, they ratified the Articles. The event was celebrated across the colonies with fireworks, bonfires and the ringing of church bells.

In September 1786, Maryland played host to the “Annapolis Convention” which produced the famous call for a “Grand Convention,” to take place in Philadelphia the following May. On September 17, 1787, Daniel Carroll (a cousin of Charles Carroll of Carrollton), Daniel Jenifer and James McHenry (of Fort McHenry fame) would share the honor of signing the new constitution for their state.

On April 28, 1788, after a short, five day discussion, Maryland became the seventh state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, by a vote of 63–11.

According to the U.S. Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17), the District of Columbia was to be formed from land donated by “particular States.” That turned out to be both Maryland and Virginia; and each state ceded the required land in 1790. But in 1846, with the capitol by now well established, but on only the north side of the Potomac River, Congress returned Virginia’s portion, leaving the District completely within Maryland’s former boundaries.

In August 1814, the state experienced, first-hand, a new war with Britain. In the Battle of Bladensburg,[6] which saw the first appearance on a U.S. battlefield of a sitting U.S. President (second-term-President James Madison). British troops easily pushed back a hastily formed composite force of militia and regular troops and continued their march on “Washington City.” The following month, the unsuccessful British siege of Fort McHenry provided the backdrop for the composition of our National Anthem by Maryland native Francis Scott Key.

Forty-five years later, Maryland pondered whether to join the growing list of seceding states south of the now famous Mason-Dixon Line. The state had effectively legalized slavery more than one hundred years before (in 1752) when it prohibited the manumission of slaves, and many citizens were eager to join the confederacy. An early vote of the legislature, which might have gone for secession, was stifled by President Abraham Lincoln’s declaration of martial law and his unconstitutional suspension of Habeas Corpus. When the Maryland legislature finally took up the matter, they voted 53-13 to remain in the Union. While many today claim that the (inaccurately named) Civil War[7] settled the idea of secession, the issue, as we will see later, is still very much alive.

The first fatalities of the Civil War (called in the South, more accurately, the War for Southern Independence) occurred during riots which took place in Baltimore on April 18 and 19, 1861. Union troops moving from one train station to another to continue their journey southward to protect Washington, D.C. were confronted by an angry and armed mob. The troops, set upon with “bricks, paving stones, and pistols,” fired on the crowd. When the smoke cleared, four soldiers and twelve civilians had been killed. Small skirmishes between citizens and police occurred throughout the city for the next month.

Determined to keep a route through Maryland open for the transport of troops and supplies from the northern states, on April 27, President Lincoln authorized General Winfield Scott to suspend the writ of habeas corpus near any military supply line between Philadelphia and Washington “if the public safety required it.”

On September 17, 1862, Confederate forces were defeated at Antietam, just west of Frederick, Maryland (hometown of the then Chief Justice Roger Taney). Remembered as the “Single Bloodiest Day of the Civil War,” the Battle of Antietam (known in the South as the Battle of Sharpsburg) caused more than 23,000 casualties.

A week later, as a result of continued unrest, particularly in Maryland but elsewhere in the Union as well. Lincoln issued a proclamation stating that “all Rebels and Insurgents, their aiders and abettors within the United States, and all persons discouraging volunteer enlistments, resisting militia drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice, affording aid and comfort to Rebels against the authority of United States, shall be subject to martial law and liable to trial and punishment by Courts Martial or Military Commission.” Further “That the Writ of Habeas Corpus is suspended in respect to all persons arrested, or who are now, or hereafter during the rebellion shall be, imprisoned in any fort, camp, arsenal, military prison, or other place of confinement by any military authority or by the sentence of any Court Martial or Military Commission.”[8] (Emphasis added)

Lincoln later explained his actions in a letter to Albert G. Hodges on April 4, 1864, by stating: “I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the constitution, through the preservation of the nation.”[9]

In July 1864, the little-known Battle of Monocacy was also fought on Maryland soil, again near Frederick.

The 1864 Maryland Constitution, ratified in October, freed the state’s slaves a year before ratification of the 13th Amendment.[10] On April 14, 1865, Marylander John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln.

Today’s Maryland government is based on its 1867 Constitution, the last of four. The 1776 constitution was followed by a second in 1851, and a third in 1864. At approximately 47,000 words, today’s Maryland Constitution is much longer than the average length of a U.S. state constitution (about 26,000 words). By comparison, the United States Constitution, including amendments, is only about 8,700 words long.

When compared with the U.S. Bill of Rights, Maryland’s 1776 Constitution lacked specific protections for:

  • Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Assembly (U.S. 1st Amendment)
  • A Right to Keep and Bear Arms (U.S. 2nd Note: Maryland is one of the few states still lacking the equivalent of the Federal Second Amendment)
  • Right to a Grand Jury when Life/Limb is imperiled, protection against double jeopardy and protection of private property against government taking without compensation (all found in the U.S. 5th Amendment)
  • Protection of unenumerated rights (U.S. 9th Amendment, this was added in the 1851 Constitution)
  • Reservation of non-delegated powers to the states/people (U.S. 10th Amendment, this was added in the 1867 Constitution)

Conversely, Maryland’s Declaration of Rights today contains the following protections and principles not found in the U.S. Bill of Rights:

  • A relief from taxation for all “paupers.” (still there!)
  • Protection of the common law of England. (still there!)
  • A right to trial by jury (this right is assumed by the Constitution but only secured for certain classes of citizens).
  • Juries in criminal cases are declared to be judges of law as well as fact (jury nullification, added in the 1867 Constitution, see below).
  • A statement that “all government of right originates from the people, is founded in compact only, and instituted solely for the good of the whole.”
  • A statement that “the people of the State ought to have the sole and exclusive right of regulating the internal government and police thereof.”
  • A statement that “all persons invested with the legislative or executive powers of government are the trustees of the public, and, as such, accountable for their conduct.”
  • A statement that “every man, having property in, a common interest with, and an attachment to the community, ought to have a right of suffrage” (whether U.S. citizen or not?).
  • A statement that “the legislative, executive and judicial powers of government, ought to be forever separate and distinct from each other.”
  • A statement that no power of suspending laws, or the execution of laws, unless by or derived from the Legislature, ought to be exercised or allowed.
  • A statement that “no aid, charge, tax, fee, or fees, ought to be set, rated, or levied, under any presence, without consent of the Legislature.” (No taxation without representation!)
  • A statement that “the levying taxes by the poll is grievous and oppressive.” (I.e. no poll taxes will be allowed)

We should take a moment here to note the uniqueness of Maryland securing a right of jury nullification in its constitution. To my knowledge it is the only U.S. state to do so. In 2002, South Dakota voters rejected a state constitutional amendment to permit criminal defendants to argue in favor of jury nullification; and in 2012, New Hampshire passed a law explicitly allowing defense attorneys to inform juries about their right of jury nullification, only to have the New Hampshire Supreme Court effectively nullify the law.[11]

The ability of a jury to refuse to return a guilty verdict because it feels the underlying law to be unjust has a rich history going back to at least Magna Carta (1215), if not before — the famous trial of William Penn being the perfect example.[12] In this country, the practice was common from before the Revolutionary War to beyond 1850 when rampant jury nullification of the Fugitive Slave Act occurred throughout the North. The Supreme Court has never taken up the issue but Associate Justice Sonya Sotomayer apparently views it favorably.[13]

The primary impetus for the 1851 Constitution was a desire to reapportion the Maryland General Assembly. This constitution also changed the status of the City of Baltimore and its relationship with the surrounding Baltimore County. The city was given the status of the (soon-to-be) 23 counties of the State and a provision for “home rule.” Growing criticism of the 1851 Constitution, especially relating to how the judiciary functioned, led to pressure for yet another revision.

The 1864 Constitution was written in the midst of the Civil War. Unionists controlled the Maryland government at the time and made some significant changes to the document. It was approved by a bare majority (50.31%) of the state’s eligible voters, which included Union soldiers from other states temporarily assigned to Maryland! Perhaps its most controversial feature was the temporarily disfranchisement of the approximately 25,000 Marylanders who were at that time fighting for or supporting the Confederacy.

Only three years later, the Constitution of 1867 was approved. As noted, it still operates today. Subsequent amendments have been approved which brought changes to the wording in the main constitution and amendments to the Declaration of Rights, the last of these occurring in 2010.

In 2019, Maryland is home to slightly more that 6 Million people.[14] Interestingly, its state government has been continuously controlled by the Democratic Party for nearly 100 years. In 2013, frustrated conservatives in the five western-most counties famously mounted an effort to secede from the remainder of the state and form a new one, called Western Maryland.[15] This call to secede joined similar efforts in California, Arizona, Michigan and Colorado — proving that the issue of secession lives on.

The “Old Line State” has produced many noted politicians and four Supreme Court Justices. They include:

  • Spiro T. Agnew, former Governor of Maryland and Vice President of the United States
  • Sargent Shriver, former Vice Presidential candidate
  • John Bolton, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations
  • Steny Hoyer, current House Minority Whip, U.S. House of Representatives
  • Nancy Pelosi, current Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives
  • Samuel Chase, former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court
  • Roger Taney, former Chief Justice of the United States
  • Thurgood Marshall, former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court
  • Brett Kavanaugh, current Associate Justice of the Supreme Court

The Old Line State provides both the historian and constitutional scholar much to occupy their time. With one of the oldest state constitutions still operating today, including one of the longest Declarations of Rights, a detailed study of the rights of Maryland’s citizens will be time well spent.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text.  Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes a weekly essay: Constitutional Corner which is published on multiple websites, and hosts a weekly radio show: “We the People, the Constitution Matters” on WFYL AM1140.  Gary has also begun performing reenactments of James Madison and speaking with public and private school students about Madison’s role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and Constitution.  Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

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[1] Some accounts put the unit at 260 remaining men, of which only a handful survived the day.

[2] The story of the “Maryland 400’s” heroic stand is told by Patrick K. O’Donnell in Washington’s Immortals: The Untold Story of an Elite Regiment Who Changed the Course of the Revolution.

[3] https://books.google.com/books/about/The_battle_of_Long_Island.html?id=TFYOAAAAIAAJ.

[4] Named after the King’s wife, the former French princess Henrietta Maria, aka Queen Mary.

[5] https://plymouthcolonytourism.weebly.com/population.html.

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bladensburg.

[7] A “Civil War” is normally fought over who will control an existing government. The South had no interest in taking over the government of the Union.

[8] https://www.thoughtco.com/lincoln-issues-proclamation-suspending-habeas-corpus-3321581.

[9] http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/hodges.htm.

[10] Ratified on December 18, 1865.

[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification#State_laws.

[12] http://constitution.org/trials/penn/penn-mead.htm.

[13] https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/22588-supreme-court-justice-sotomayor-supports-practice-of-jury-nullification.

[14] http://worldpopulationreview.com/states/maryland-population/.

[15] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/western-marylanders-push-to-secede-from-state.

Guest Essayist: Gary Porter

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State Constitutions? – Why would each state need a constitution when we have the United States Constitution? What would it mean for the states to be run by their citizens rather than royal rule?

“Americans are the heirs of a constitutional tradition that was mature by the time of the national Constitution,” writes Donald Lutz in The Origins of American Constitutionalism.”[1] Beginning with “proto-constitutions” such as the Mayflower Compact, the Pilgrim Code of Law and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, Americans had spent more than 150 years learning and perfecting the art of constitution-writing — and the thirteen state constitutions which were in effect when the national constitution was ratified in 1788 were an important step in that process. “It would not be putting the matter too strongly to say that the United States Constitution, as a complete foundation document, includes the state constitutions as well.”[2] Tragically, Americans, whose knowledge of their national constitution is dismal enough,[3] show even less interest in those of their own states. This is doubly tragic when you consider that American lives are arguably more affected by the laws of their state than by federal law.

As to what it would mean for the states to be run by their citizens rather than royal rule, some colonies had not known “royal rule” for quite some time.  The charters of 1662 (Connecticut) and 1663 (Rhode Island) had given each of these colonies permission to elect their own governors rather than live under governors appointed by the king, as was the rule elsewhere. In fact it was the “self-rule” aspects of these charters that persuaded the two states to not construct new constitutions after July 4th 1776, finding instead that they could continue operating under the structure of these charters as independent states. Even in those colonies operating under royal appointees, those governors rarely interfered in the affairs of their elected legislatures, making Parliament’s “Intolerable Acts” of 1774[4] even more intolerable.

Every government, every organization for that matter, has a constitution, whether one has been purposely created for it or not; this is simply a fact of voluntary association. Until a written constitution is drafted to guide it, any organization will, over time, adopt formal or informal rules to guide the organization and its affairs. These rules comprise a constitution, often an unwritten one.

Black’s Law Dictionary[5] defines “Constitution” as “The organic and fundamental law of a nation or state, which may be written or unwritten, establishing the character and conception of its government, laying the basic principles to which its internal life is to be conformed, organizing the government, and regulating, distributing, and limiting the functions of its different departments, and prescribing the extent and manner of the exercise of sovereign powers.”

America had a constitution in 1776, or at least so thought Jefferson when he complained in the Declaration: “[The King] has combined with [Parliament] to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws.” (Emphasis added).  “Our constitution,” not “our constitutions” (which could have pointed to the several state constitutions by then in force).  While the colonies certainly lacked a common, written constitution, the last 150+ years of successful collective self-government had resulted in the informal incorporation of many features of government which combined to comprise an unwritten constitution – which Jefferson claimed was being violated.

“Reading properly and carefully, one can glean from a constitution the balance of political forces, a structure for preserving or enhancing that balance, a statement of the way people should treat each other, and the values that for the basis for the people’s working relationship, as well as the serious, remaining problems in the political order.”[6]

In July 1776, when the thirteen united colonies claimed their independence and became “free and independent states,” they had a long relationship with self-governance –Virginia, the oldest colony, since 1619; and the autonomy they enjoyed would not be so easily given up to a Parliament which, in 1766, had claimed for itself the right to legislate for the colonies “in all matters whatsoever.”[7]

By 1776, each colony was operating under a charter from the King of England, some royal, some proprietary, which defined its leadership/governing structure and the rights to be enjoyed by the colony’s inhabitants. Virginia’s 1606 charter, for instance created a thirteen-member governing council in Virginia shadowed by another thirteen-member council back in England. The colony’s citizens were to enjoy “all liberties, franchises and immunites within anie of our other dominions to all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and borne within this our realme of Englande”[8]

On May 10th, 1776, the Second Continental Congress issued a resolution encouraging any of the colonies who had not already done so to “adopt such government as shall, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular, and America in general.” [9] Sent out on May 15th after a prologue had been added, the resolution arrived too late for several colonies. The previous January, New Hampshire had unilaterally enacted a new constitution, the first to do so.  South Carolina had followed suit on April 12th.  On May 4th, 1776, the legislature of Rhode Island, sensing the mood of the country, passed a bill that replaced an act of allegiance to the king with an oath of allegiance to the state – effectively declaring their independence. As previously noted, Connecticut’s “Fundamental Orders,” adopted in 1638 while the state was still an English colony, included no overt allegiance to England. It would not be until 1818 that Connecticut would get around to drafting a new constitution. Virginia had already issued its call for a constitutional convention, to assemble in Williamsburg on May 5th. Their new constitution was enacted 5 days before Jefferson’s Declaration was approved in Philadelphia.

Responding to Congress’ resolution, the other colonies began to take action:  Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and New Jersey all enacted new Constitutions later that year.

Georgia and New York put new constitutions in place the following year, Massachusetts in 1780.

These first state constitutions “were the most detailed and legally binding collective expression of the revolutionaries’ political ideas in 1776.”[10]  Often overshadowed by the Constitution of 1787, the state constitutions are a rich treasure trove of republican and democratic principles.

Why were the state constitutions still needed after the U.S. Constitution went into effect twelve years later? Simply because the formation of a new national government did not eclipse the state governments, in fact it relied upon the states to continue to provide the vast majority of governmental services within each state, which the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution obliquely reminds us: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”[11]

Eleven of the original thirteen state constitutions contained specific protections for individual rights. While a state document cannot deny a right secured in the national document, in some cases the states secure rights for their citizens which are not mentioned or are elucidated differently in the national document.  For instance, Pennsylvania and a few other states make it clear that “the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state,” significantly clearer than the confusing wording of the U.S. Second Amendment. (Emphasis added). The North Carolina constitution secures a right for its citizens to “instruct their representatives,” and requires that jury decisions be unanimous (as do several other state constitutions). Maryland secures a right for its citizens of resistance, against arbitrary power and oppression.” Delaware’s first constitution (enacted September 10,1776) outlawed slavery in the state.

In many cases, these first state constitutions take the opportunity to explain principles of government which the Framers of 1787 apparently thought were so “self-evident” as to not require mentioning. For example, the Virginia Declaration makes the following statements (here paraphrased) not found in the U.S. Constitution:

  • That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have inherent rights that they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity.
  • That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people.
  • That magistrates should be at all times amenable to the people.
  • That elected officials should be returned to the body of the people to feel, once again, their burdens.
  • That government is instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation or community.
  • That a majority of the community has a right to reform, alter or abolish their government.
  • That no individual or group is entitled to exclusive or separate benefits or privileges from the community.
  • That citizens should evidence a permanent common interest in, and attachment to, their community before being allowed to vote.[12]

Today, a Massachusetts legal organization cautions: “Some of the protections bestowed by the [Massachusetts ] Declaration of Rights duplicate those enumerated in the Bill of Rights, while others confer greater protection of individual liberties. Too few Massachusetts criminal defense attorneys utilize the additional protections afforded to Massachusetts citizens under the Declaration of Rights in defending their clients. A criminal defense lawyer who fails to specifically cite the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights in objections at trial or issues raised on an appeal may needlessly consign his client to a prison cell.”[13]

Another advantage of the state constitutions lies in their generally being easier to amend than the national constitution. As a consequence, the state constitutions are amended far more frequently.  The entire constitution of a state can often be replaced more easily (Georgia and Louisiana are each currently operating under their ninth state constitution since 1776).

For those interested in further study of the 50 state constitutions, the NBER/Maryland State Constitutions Project provides searchable access to almost 150 versions of these documents. The best comparative treatment of the state constitutions, including to what extent they incorporated the leading principles of republican government, is found in Willi Paul Adams’ masterpiece: The First American Constitutions; Republican Ideology and the Making for the State Constitutions in the Revolutionary Era.

State constitutions perform an important role in the governance of America’s 320 Million citizens and play a critical role in making federalism work.  We couldn’t get by without them.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text.  Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes a weekly essay: Constitutional Corner which is published on multiple websites, and hosts a weekly radio show: “We the People, the Constitution Matters” on WFYL AM1140.  Gary has also begun performing reenactments of James Madison and speaking with public and private school students about Madison’s role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and Constitution.  Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

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[1] Donald Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1988, p.5.

[2] Ibid.

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/27/too-many-americans-know-too-little-about-the-constitution-heres-how-you-can-fix-that/?utm_term=.8715e5eb6890

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intolerable_Acts

[5] Black’s Law Dictionary, 4th Edition, accessed at:

[6] Lutz, p. 3

[7] The American Colonies Act 1766, aka The Declaratory Act, explained at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaratory_Act

[8] 1686 Virginia Charter

[9] http://startingpointsjournal.com/may-resolution-declaration-of-independence/

[10] Willi Paul Adams, The First American Constitutions; Republican Ideology and the Making for he State Constitutions in the Revolutionary Era, Rowman & Littlefield, Pub, New York, 2001, Preface to the Expanded Edition.

[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

[12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Declaration_of_Rights

[13] https://www.relentlessdefense.com/what-should-i-do/massachusetts-declaration-of-rights/

 

Guest Essayist: Gary R. Porter

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Short answer: It should be easy, but it’s not.

Article 1, Section 5, Clause 2 of the Constitution states:Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings….”  Because of this clause, we have different procedures in each house of Congress which determine how a bill will be handled in that chamber.  Both the rules of the House and those of the Senate are a matter of public record and may be downloaded from the respective chamber’s website.  There are both unique and common elements of the rules.  For instance, House Rule XII uniquely requires that every bill contain a paragraph describing the claimed constitutional authority for the action the bill proposes.  One would think this provision would deter a Congressman or Congresswoman from exceeding the limited and enumerated powers which the Constitution provides to the legislative branch, but one would be wrong.

When Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) proposed a bill that would create a “Department of Peace,” he famously cited the Preamble’s goal of “ensur[ing] Domestic Tranquility” as his authority.  Unfortunately for Rep. Kucinich, the Constitution’s Preamble does not grant power to any branch of government; the government has no explicit power to ensure “domestic tranquility,” it remains only a goal of the overall document.  To be sure, there are other powers explicitly granted to the Congress, such as the power to call forth the militia to “suppress Insurrections” that would serve this end, but, sadly, domestic tranquility will have to be achieved without Rep. Kucinich’s Department of Peace.  Representative Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) cited the Constitution’s Commerce Clause as the authority for his H.R. 1127, a bill “to encourage and ensure the use of safe football helmets.”  What Pascrell’s proposal had to do with interstate commerce was left unsaid.

The authors of House Rule XII had noble intent, but they presumed the people would elect Representatives who would take the rule seriously.

Over in the Senate we find the infamous “Filibuster Rule,” which requires the agreement of “3/5 of the Senators” (normally 60) before debate on a bill can be ended.  When neither of the two major parties enjoys a 60+ majority, the “Cloture Rule,” as it is also called, provides a convenient partisan blocking mechanism.  This rule was amended recently to expedite certain presidential nominations that were being stonewalled by one party.

Aside these and a few other differences, the basic process for getting a bill to the President’s desk for signature is essentially the same.  Some Congressmen place simplified descriptions of the process on their websites.  In brief, the bill is proposed by an individual member after he or she has either drafted it or had it provided by a constituent or lobbying group.  The bill is normally then sent to a Committee for consideration in the Chamber in which it was first introduced.  Depending on the bill’s complexity, it may be further referred to one or more subcommittees.  It is a poorly kept “secret” that bills lacking widespread popularity are sent to sub-committees to “die,” never to be put to a committee vote, let alone a floor vote.  For instance, of the thousands of constitutional amendments proposed over the years few ever made it to a floor vote and only 33 were ever sent to the states for ratification.

The committee may modify the bill’s wording after public hearings to improve its chance of surviving a floor vote and then they must pass it with a majority vote of the committee.  The bill is then sent to the majority leader of the originating chamber to be put on the chamber’s calendar for a vote of the entire chamber.  Here is another weakness in the process; the Speaker of the House and Senate Majority leader enjoy great power over what goes on their chamber’s calendar.  Both bills originating in their chamber or coming from the other chamber after a successful vote may languish for a very long time before appearing on the calendar; or they may never appear on the calendar.  There are periodic complaints over this practice.

Presuming a bill passes with a majority vote of each chamber, and any differences between the two versions of the bill have been resolved in a Conference Committee, the bill is sent to the President.

But here we must pause for a history lesson.

In 1776, Thomas Jefferson complained in his famous declaration that King George III had “refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.”  Laws duly passed by the colonial legislatures and sent to the King often never received his signature and thus were never put into effect.  Some of these bills were no doubt “wholesome and necessary.”  The Framers of 1787 sought to solve this problem.  They set out to ensure the “people’s voice,” as reflected in the actions of their representatives, would never be muted.

Our constitution therefore does not require the President give his “assent” to a bill, at least not explicitly, before it becomes a law.  Many Americans erroneously believe the President must sign a bill before it becomes a law.  Not so.  He may sign it if he agrees with its purpose, or he may veto the bill.  He may also let it become law without his signature.  This will occur automatically 10 days after the bill has been presented to him (not counting Sundays, when the President was expected to be in church).  One caveat, if a bill is presented to the President and he does not have a full 10 days to consider it before Congress adjourns, it does not become law, but suffers what is called a “pocket veto.”

One final note: According to Article 2, Section 2, the President is required to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed;” i.e., he must carry out the “will of the people” as expressed in the new law passed by Congress, every part of it.  But what happens if the President objects to one teeny-weeny provision in a 2000+ page bill.  Must he veto the bill in its entirety over this minor flaw?  Perhaps he feels the provision exceeds the power of Congress or infringes upon executive privilege.  Enter: Signing Statements.

Signing Statements date back to 5th President James Monroe.  Although originally used as ways to express great satisfaction in signing a particular piece of legislation, today they provide the President the opportunity to express reservations over certain provisions of a bill without having to veto the entire thing.  Deputy Assistant Attorney General and future Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito raised quite a stir when he published an 1986 memo entitled: Using Presidential Signing Statement[s] to Make Fuller Use of the President’s Constitutionally Assigned Role in the Process of Enacting Law in which he stated bluntly that Presidential Signing Statements could be used to “increase the power of the Executive to shape the law.”

“Getting a bill from introduction in Congress to the President’s desk” is clearly not as easy as it could be or should be.  We have the rules of Congress to blame for that; and as long as the Constitution gives Congress the complete power to compose their rules as they see fit, there is little hope for change any time soon.  If the American people want streamlined procedures for passing legislation, they must demand it of Congress.  Concerted demands will be heard.  But do the American people ever act in concert?  Not often.  The only remedy which remains is to amend the Constitution in such a way that an expedited legislative procedure results. Congress, once again, is unlikely to ever propose an amendment which reduces in any way their power over legislation; thus it devolves to the people, through an Article V convention, to propose an amendment which would enact such a change.

If you want an easy process for getting legislation to the President’s desk, there is work to do.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text.  Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes a weekly essay: Constitutional Corner which is published on multiple websites, and hosts a weekly radio show: “We the People, the Constitution Matters” on WFYL AM1140.  Gary has also begun performing reenactments of James Madison and speaking with public and private school students about Madison’s role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and Constitution.  Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, onFacebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

Guest Essayist: Gary R. Porter

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The election of Congress ought not be controversial, Americans have been electing their representatives in this country off and on for four hundred years.[1]  But of course it is quite controversial, made so by what’s at stake: raw political power.  Whichever political party controls Congress controls the most important and powerful branch of government.  While some Americans view the Executive Branch as the pre-eminent, most powerful branch of the three, even a superficial comparison shows this to be incorrect – Congress rules!

The “election method” of Congress has many facets: who is entitled to vote, how they vote, even such mundane things as how votes are counted (does a hanging chad count?).  As Madison reminds us: “the essence of government is power and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.”[2] And abuse we have: election fraud is a problem and growing [3]despite charges by some that such claims are a myth.[4]

Popular elections by the people were so liable to abuse that the Framers discarded this method when considering the election of the President, and decided instead on “Electors chosen for that purpose.”  In Speaking of abuse, in 1777, James Madison lost the only election he would ever lose, to the Virginia House of Delegates, because he refused to provide Orange County voters with “spirituous liquors,” which his tavern-owner opponent could (and did) pour abundantly.

So let us consider first the question of who should be allowed to vote.

The Constitution presumes, but does not require, voting by the people.  It is difficult to see how voting could be supported as a natural, inalienable right, so it must therefore be a civil right, one subject to denial or change at the whim of the government.

The Founders are repeatedly denigrated today for not allowing women to vote; and while there is some truth to the claim, unmarried women were allowed to vote in some states as long as they met the property requirements of “freeholders.”  Why unmarried women only?

Under the English common law doctrine of coverture, the husband “covered” his wife’s legal identity throughout their marriage. Blackstone’s Commentaries described it this way:

By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in the law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing.

The husband’s vote was thus viewed as reflective of the interests of the entire family.

The amount of property a person must own to vote varied from state to state, but the prevailing notion supporting a property requirement was that this produced a polity with “skin in the game,” voters more likely to vote with care; their property potentially at jeopardy through a careless or ill-informed choice.

Today, property requirements for voting have been removed, and the franchise limited only by age and citizenship.  Which provides the basis for another controversy: why limit voting to citizens?  Shouldn’t, every tax-payer, whether citizen or not, whether in the country legally or illegally, be able to vote? Shouldn’t they also have a say, through the ballot box, in how their taxes are spent?  Many on the Left certainly think so.  Others see voting as not just a privilege, but a high privilege of citizenship.

“Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual – or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country,” wrote Samuel Adams.[5]  (Emphasis added)

Our dismal voting participation rate, hovering as low as 37% in mid-term elections, vividly demonstrates the sense of hopelessness many feel when considering the effect their individual vote will likely have on the trajectory of the country.  Career politicians, acting in their own self-interest, are perpetually elected thanks to powerful moneyed interests; a recipe for disaster.

With a re-election rate of well over 90% it seems hard to believe that we have an entirely new House of Representatives every two years, but that is exactly what the Framers intended.  In fact, it has been said that a Representative is always running for office; no sooner does he or she catch their breath from the last (successful) campaign when they must start all over again with a new one.

Not so with the Senate; the Senate was intended to be the more stable and deliberative of the two houses of Congress.  Thus, the Senate does not change personnel en masse like the House; only a third of the Senators are up for reelection each time; and this was by design as well.

Although some today decry the filibuster rule in the Senate, I think a bigger problem to the long-term health of the republic lies in the fact that Senators are no longer appointed by their states.  Thanks to the 17th Amendment, Senators are elected by the people of the state and no longer vote in line with the interests of the legislature of their state as they once did.  This Amendment permanently shifted the intended balance of power in Congress, to the disfavor of the states which created the government in the first place.  To restore that balance of power will require the repeal of the 17th Amendment, and that proposal is shrouded in controversy.

It is important to the principle of self-government that there be continuity and stability in the Congress, and the initial Constitutional design was intended to produce just that.  But the original balance of power in Congress is equally important, and that deserves our attention today.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text.  Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes a weekly essay: Constitutional Corner which is published on multiple websites, and hosts a weekly radio show: “We the People, the Constitution Matters” on WFYL AM1140.  Gary has also begun performing reenactments of James Madison and speaking with public and private school students about Madison’s role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and Constitution.  Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, onFacebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

[1] The  first elected government was installed at “Jamestowne” in 1619.

[2] sSpeech in the Virginia constitutional convention, 1829

[3] See: http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/20/heres-what-voter-fraud-looks-like-in-23-states/

[4] See: https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/voter-fraud

[5] in the Boston Gazette, 1781.

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Guest Essayist: Gary R. Porter
BenjaminRush.Peale3

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Another principle of the Rule of Law is that all laws should apply to all the people. “[W]here there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community,” wrote Founder Benjamin Rush in a 1788 letter to David Ramsay. (Emphasis added) Do our laws apply to all?

It is not uncommon for Congress to exempt itself from complying with certain laws.[1] Congress has exempted itself from the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, the Freedom of Information Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, a key provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and many others. Interpreting Benjamin Rush, do these laws deserve the name of law if they only apply to “ordinary Americans” and not the elite of Congress?

The Rule of Law should be the bedrock of our society; but this “bedrock” has the appearance today of shifting sand. If we expect the laws of our land to be respected, we must make them respectable, and the people who make such law must act respectably in doing so, using responsibly the power the people have delegated to them and them alone.

How did we reach this point?  I lay most of the blame on the American people. Our lack of knowledge of constitutional principles today is a plague upon our society. But it was not always so in this country. In 1835, Frenchman Alexis De Tocqueville visited America and noted: “… every citizen is taught…the history of his country, and the leading features of its Constitution.  … it is extremely rare to find a man imperfectly acquainted with all these things, and a person wholly ignorant of them is sort of a phenomenon.”[2]  Today, unfortunately, it is extremely rare to find an American citizen who can discuss features of his Constitution. In a recent poll, thirty-seven percent of Americans could not name a single right secured by the First Amendment.[3]

Our educational system is also partly to blame for not teaching these important constitutional principles. Due to our ignorance, we then send the wrong people to represent us in Washington. We choose the wrong representatives because we don’t know enough to ask the right questions as they run for office. Instead of asking them what they intend to do to “fix Washington,” we should first determine their view of law, the Rule of Law, and the role Congress should play in representing “We the People” in writing our laws.

We can return to an authentic and respectable Rule of Law in this country, but it will require some effort.  My suggestions:

  • Insist that Congress once again exercise the exclusive legislative authority they were intended to have. If Congress insists that certain proposed legislation exceeds their technical expertise, let executive branch agencies propose rules; but those rules must first be submitted to a vote of Congress before they can take effect. This change would not require a Constitutional amendment, only a rule change within Congress.
  • Require that every law passed by Congress applies to them – no exceptions. A “28th Amendment” has been making the rounds of the Internet the last few years. It reads: “Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States.”  Since it is unlikely Congress will make such a change voluntarily, a Constitutional amendment will likely be needed and such an amendment would likely only come from an Article V Convention.
  • Taking Madison’s warning to heart, the days of 2000-page bills should end. Bills should encompass a single topic and be limited to perhaps 100 pages, sufficiently short to be read in a single sitting.
  • The original Constitution established only four federal crimes: treason, bribery, piracy and counterfeiting. There are estimated today to be in excess of 4500 federal crimes.[4] It has been suggested that so many unknown crimes exist in the Code of Federal Regulations that every citizen violates at least one federal law each day, perhaps as many as three, making all of us potentially federal criminals should a federal prosecutor take interest in us.[5] This must stop.  There should be a methodical scrub of the CFR and antiquated, absurd or redundant federal crimes removed.[6]
  • We as a people should consider whether the principle of judicial precedent really serves republican purposes. A court’s opinion should be deemed to apply only to the two litigants in a case. When the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court charges that five of his colleagues have acted like a legislature, they should take note and change their behavior/opinion.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text.  Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes a weekly essay: Constitutional Corner which is published on multiple websites, and hosts a weekly radio show: “We the People, the Constitution Matters” on WFYL AM1140.  Gary has also begun performing reenactments of James Madison and speaking with public and private school students about Madison’s role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and Constitution.  Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

[1] See: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/congress-acts-its-above-the-law-23400.

[2] de Tocqueville, Alexis (1835). De la démocratie en Amérique. (1 ed.). Paris: Librairie de Charles Gosselin.

[3] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/sep/13/37-percent-of-americans-cant-name-any-of-the-right/.

[4] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703749504576172714184601654.

[5] https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229.

[6] You are a federal criminal if you denigrate the character of Woodsy the Owl or his motto: “Give a hoot, don’t pollute.”

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If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, an inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws — the first growing out of the last.[1]

Alexander Hamilton goes on to point out that: “The instruments by which [government] must act are either the AUTHORITY of the laws or FORCE. If the first be destroyed, the last must be substituted; and where this becomes the ordinary instrument of government there is an end to liberty!”[2]Where there is no respect for the law, where it has no authority, liberty ends — slavery begins.

“A Republic, if you can keep it,” cautioned Mr. Franklin. A key ingredient of this “keeping,” if Hamilton is to be believed, must certainly be a uniform respect for and obedience of the law. Said another way: the Rule of Law is the bedrock of our society.

But what does “Rule of Law” really mean? Would we know it when we saw it operating? Wikipedia answers: The rule of law is the principle that law should govern a nation, as opposed to being governed by decisions of individual government officials.”[3]

“[A] government of laws, and not of men,” is how John Adams put it.[4] But the phrase “Rule of Law” presumes we understand what law itself is. Do we?

“…[L]aw and liberty cannot rationally become the objects of our love” (or our respect, we might add) “unless they first become the objects of our knowledge,” states Founder James Wilson of Pennsylvania.[5] So as we begin this discussion of “The Meaning of the Rule of Law and its importance to the functions of Congress in representing the American people,” we should first examine what “law” itself is; what does it encompass? The answer is not as simple as some might suppose.

Noah Webster provides this founding-era definition of law: “A rule, particularly an established or permanent rule, prescribed by the supreme power of a state to its subjects, for regulating their actions, particularly their social actions.”[6] Many authorities point to the Code of Hammurabi (1754 B.C.) as one of the oldest written systems of law, predating even the Ten Commandments (~1513 B.C.), but “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it,” God’s first oral commandment to man in Genesis 1:28, predates them both.

Even earlier came the Law of Nature. As Sir William Blackstone explains:

“For as God, when he created matter, and endued it with a principle of mobility, established certain rules for the…direction of that motion; so, when he created man, and endued him with freewill to conduct himself in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws of human nature, whereby that freewill is in some degree regulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the purport of those laws.”[7]

As Blackstone argues, the Law of Nature should have been discoverable by reason and inquiry. Should have been. But man quickly showed a propensity for “missing it.”[8] God took action.

“[D]ivine providence… in compassion to the frailty, the imperfection, and the blindness of human reason, hath been pleased, at sundry times and in diverse manners, to discover and enforce its laws by an immediate and direct revelation. The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the holy scriptures.”[9] Ergo, the “Laws of Nature and [the Laws of] Nature’s God.”[10] Finally, along came civil laws, such as those of Hammurabi.

So there are three systems of law – natural law, revealed law and civil law — the last deriving its authority from the first. But is all civil law, “good” law? Does it automatically deserve our respect and obedience simply because it has been created by our duly elected representatives? What if in promulgating civil law a conflict is created with natural or revealed law? Frederick Bastiat answers:

“No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree, but the safest way to make them respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality are in contradiction to each other, the citizen finds himself in the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense, or of losing his respect for the law—two evils of equal magnitude, between which it would be difficult to choose.”[11]

“Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny,” said Englishman Edmund Burke.[12] The Roman historian Tacitus expressed a similar sentiment: “Formerly we suffered from crimes. Now we suffer from laws.” “[I]f the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them,” complained “Candidus” in the Boston Gazette on January 20, 1772. Finally, a civil law which contravenes natural law is either “spoilt law” (Thomas Aquinas)[13] or of “no validity” (Blackstone).[14] Clearly, not all laws are created equal.

Which brings us to Congress. We know from Article 1, Section 1, that the Constitution gives all legislative power to Congress. According to the separation of powers doctrine put forth by Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (the most quoted philosopher of law at the Constitutional Convention), law-making is thus the legitimate purview of neither the Executive nor Judicial branches of government. That’s not the way things work today, but more on that later.

Congress, representing the people, makes laws for the government of the people. But it stands to reason that they should only make laws which reflect the will of the people and which are in the people’s best interest. That also does not always happen today.

Finally, Congress does not have the constitutional authority to make any old laws. According to James Madison, their legislative jurisdiction is (or was) limited “to certain enumerated objects.”[15]

The process by which Congress and the President turn a bill into a law is pretty well-known and will not be repeated here. I should point out, however, that one feature of that process, whereby a bill passed by both houses of Congress automatically becomes law unless vetoed by the President (in all but one circumstance), is a direct result of one of Jefferson’s complaints in the Declaration of Independence: [The King] has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.”[16] Today, we no longer need the assent of the “King” before a “wholesome and necessary” bill becomes law, it does so automatically at the end of ten days,[17] with or without the President’s signature.

Earlier I inferred that all was not well with our law-making process under today’s Constitution. Since that is an integral part of the Rule of Law, let’s take a closer look.

Despite the clear wording of Article 1 Section 1, Congress is today not the exclusive legislative body in the federal government. Executive branch agencies have been given the authority to promulgate “rules” which have the force of law. That they are called “rules” rather than laws is simply cosmetic: if you break a rule you will likely go to jail or be fined just as though you “broke the law.” This improper law-making does not take place in a dark alley somewhere, outside the cognizance of Congress; Congress in fact authorizes it. But this delegation of Congress’ law-making authority runs counter to this principle expressed by John Locke:

“For [the legislative power] being but a delegated Power from the People, they, who have it, cannot pass it over to others. . . . And when the people have said, We will submit to rules, and be govern’d by Laws made by such Men, and in such Forms, no Body else can say other Men shall make Laws for them; nor can the people be bound by any Laws but such as are Enacted by those, whom they have Chosen, and Authorised to make Laws for them.”[18]

This delegation of legislative authority to unelected government bureaucrats was challenged in 1989.[19] The Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision (Justice Scalia was the lone dissent!), stated:

“… our jurisprudence has been driven by a practical understanding that in our increasingly complex society, replete with ever changing and more technical problems, Congress simply cannot do its job absent an ability to delegate power under broad general directives. Accordingly, this Court has deemed it “constitutionally sufficient” if Congress clearly delineates the general policy, the public agency which is to apply it, and the boundaries of this delegated authority.” (emphasis added)

So Congress passes a skeleton of a law, containing some broad “general policy ,“ and says to the Executive Branch: “fill in the details.”

To guard against the equivalent of President John Adams’ “midnight judges,”[20] Congress gave itself the authority to overturn rules promulgated in the waning days of an outgoing administration; but they must use this authority within a certain “window of opportunity.”[21]

These rules are no small matter. They have bloated the Code of Federal Regulations to more than 175,000 pages and it has been calculated that they add more than $2Trillion to the annual cost of business in America[22] — a cost that is simply passed on to “we the consumer,” a consumer, it should be clear, who is oblivious to this breach of the separation of powers doctrine. Unless the Supreme Court one day overturns Mistretta, Executive Branch law-making is here to stay.

If the Executive Branch can make law, why not the Judiciary? Enter “judge-made law.” “Judge made laws are the legal doctrines established by judicial precedents rather than by a statute. In other words, [the] judge interprets a law in such a way to create a new law. They are also known as case law. Judge made laws are based on the legal principle “stare decisis” which means to stand by that which is decided.”[23] Judge-made law suffers the same defect as delegation to the Executive Branch: law created by other than our elected officials; law created by men and women unaccountable to the people.

“[T]his Court is not a legislature. Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us. Under the Constitution, judges have power to say what the law is, not what it should be. The people who ratified the Constitution authorized courts to exercise ‘neither force nor will but merely judgment’….The majority’s decision is an act of will, not legal judgment. The right it announces has no basis in the Constitution or this Court’s precedent.”[24]

Judge-made constitutional law would not be much of an issue if all Justices had a respect for originalism and the intent of the Framers and Ratifiers. Sadly, such Justices are in the minority.

Turning now to whether laws passed by Congress reflect the will of the American people we can point to the example of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The PPACA, nicknamed Obamacare, was passed in 2010 by a Democrat-controlled Congress without a single Republican vote, and was triumphantly signed by President Obama. Public polls of the time consistently showed 60% or more of Americans opposed to the measure yet the 2000+ page bill was rammed through the Congress and became law through an act of pure partisan power. While subsidizing the cost of health care for some Americans who could previously not afford it, the poorly contrived bill, admittedly intended as a step towards a single-payer health-care system, has resulted in higher insurance premiums for most other Americans.

James Madison foresaw this situation:

“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what is will be tomorrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?”[25]

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text.  Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes a weekly essay: Constitutional Corner which is published on multiple websites, and hosts a weekly radio show: “We the People, the Constitution Matters” on WFYL AM1140.  Gary has also begun performing reenactments of James Madison and speaking with public and private school students about Madison’s role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and Constitution.  Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

[1] Alexander Hamilton, “Tully No. 3,” published in the American Daily Advertiser, August 28, 1794, found at https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-17-02-0130.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law.

[4] John Adams, Novanglus No. 7, found at: https://thefederalistpapers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/The-Novanglus-Essays-by-John-Adams.pdf.

[5] James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1768, found at: http://www.constitution.org/jwilson/jwilson.htm.

[6] Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, New York: S. Converse, 1828.

[7] Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1765, Clarendon Press, Oxford, England. Introduction.

[8] See Genesis 4:8, for starters.

[9] Ibid. Book 1, Chapter 2.

[10] Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.

[11] Frederick Bastiat, The Law, found at https://americanliterature.com/author/frederic-bastiat/book/the-law/.

[12] Speech at Bristol, England, 6 September 1780.

[13] Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I–II q. 95 a. 2.

[14] Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book 1, Chapter 2.

[15] James Madison, Federalist No. 14, 1787.

[16] Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, 1776.

[17] Not counting Sundays.

[18] John Locke, Second Treatise on Government, 1690.

[19] Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361 (1989).

[20] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Judges_Act.

[21] For more on the Congressional Review Act, see: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43992.pdf.

[22] See: http://www.nam.org/Data-and-Reports/Cost-of-Federal-Regulations/Federal-Regulation-Executive-Summary.pdf.

[23] https://definitions.uslegal.com/j/judge-made-laws/.

[24] Chief Justice John Roberts’ dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015).

[25] James Madison, Federalist no. 62, February 27, 1788.

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A Matter of Conscience: Henry J. Hyde, Congressman

“One of the great errors of modern politics is our foolish attempt to separate our private consciences from our public acts, and it cannot be done. At the end of the 20th century, is the crowning achievement of our democracy to treat the weak, the powerless, the unwanted as things? To be disposed of? If so, we have not elevated justice; we have disgraced it.” – Congressman Henry Hyde, speaking on partial-birth abortion.

“The right of conscience and private judgement is unalienable and it is truly the interest of all mankind to unite themselves into one body for the liberty, free exercise, and unmolested enjoyment of this right.” – Ezra Stiles (1727-1795).

“The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience by in any manner, or on any pretext infringed.” – James Madison, original draft of the First Amendment.

James Madison failed at his task of securing an explicit right of conscience in the Constitution.  Nevertheless, it is comforting today to encounter men and women of conscience.  Such was Henry J. Hyde.

Henry Hyde (April 18, 1924 – November 29, 2007) was an American politician best known for sponsoring an amendment, now bearing his name,[1]  which outlawed the use of federal funds in performing abortions.  Over the years, Congress altered the Hyde Amendment several times, but repeatedly passed it nevertheless.

Although the Hyde Amendment was immediately challenged in the courts, the Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality in Harris v. McRae.  The Court stated:

“The funding restrictions of the Hyde Amendment do not impinge on the “liberty” protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment held in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 168, to include the freedom of a woman to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy. . . .

Regardless of whether the freedom of a woman to choose to terminate her pregnancy for health reasons lies at the core or the periphery of the due process liberty recognized in Wade, supra, it does not follow that a woman’s freedom of choice carries with it a constitutional entitlement to the financial resources to avail herself of the full range of protected choices.”

On July 21, 2016, the Democratic Party of the U.S. issued its 2016 platform, containing, for the first time, an explicit call to repeal the Hyde Amendment.[2]  Seemingly in response, six months later on January 24, 2017, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 7, which, according to the press office of Speaker Paul Ryan, “makes the Hyde amendment permanent.”

For his steadfast opposition to abortion, after announcing his retirement from Congress in 2006, Representative Hyde was named a Papal Knight of the Order of St. Gregory the Great by Pope Benedict XVI.  After leaving office the following year, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor from President George W. Bush.  Hyde could not attend the award ceremony in person as he remained hospitalized after open-heart surgery, complications of which shortly led to his death at age 83. The Presidential Medal of Freedom citation read:

“A veteran, a lawyer, and a public servant, Henry Hyde has served his country with honor and dedication.  During his 32-year career in the House of Representatives, he was a powerful defender of life, a leading advocate for a strong national defense, and an unwavering voice for liberty, democracy, and free enterprise around the world.  A true gentleman of the House, he advanced his principles without rancor and earned the respect of friends and adversaries alike.  The United States honors Henry Hyde for his distinguished record of service to America.”[3]

“Veteran” referred to Hyde’s service in the U.S. Navy during WWII and his continued service in the Naval Reserve from 1946 to 1968, ending in command of a U.S. Naval Intelligence Reserve Unit in Chicago and retirement at the rank of Commander (O-5).

As a public servant, Hyde served first in the Illinois House of Representatives (1967-1974) including a stint as Majority Leader from 1971 to 1972, and then represented Illinois’ 6th District in Congress for the next 32 years, from 1975 to 2007.

Beyond the 1976 Hyde Amendment, Hyde is perhaps best known for his efforts in leading the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998.  When the Lewinsky Scandal[4] first became public, Hyde apparently did not take calls to impeach Clinton very seriously; he considered the issue to one of be sexual misconduct and not a concern of Congress.[5] That changed after Clinton boldly lied to the House Judiciary Committee, stating that he had not had sexual relations with “Ms. Lewinsky” — with Hyde sitting before him as chairman of the committee!  Hyde skillfully led House “managers” in successfully passing an impeachment resolution and sending the case to the Senate for trial where, despite Hyde’s efforts as chief prosecutor, Clinton was acquitted of perjury and obstruction of justice charges. Hyde ended his closing argument in the Senate trial by stating:

“A failure to convict will make the statement that lying under oath, while unpleasant and to be avoided, is not all that serious…We have reduced lying under oath to a breach of etiquette, but only if you are the President…And now let us all take our place in history on the side of honor, and, oh, yes, let right be done.”

Once more, a call to conscience.

Over the years, Hyde also waged vigorous battles against flag-burning, doctor-assisted suicide, and same-sex marriage.  Speaking out about partial-birth abortion, Hyde eloquently stated:

“This is not a debate about sectarian religious doctrine or about policy options. This is a debate about our understanding of human dignity, what does it mean to be human? Our moment in history is marked by a mortal conflict between a culture of death and a culture of life, and today, here and now, we must choose sides.”

A graduate of Georgetown University, Hyde later earned his law degree from Loyola University Chicago, a Jesuit Catholic University. In 1947, Hyde married the former Jeanne Simpson. Together they had four children, who brought them four grandchildren. Jeanne died in 1992 and Henry soon married the former Judy Wolverton. No further children issued.

When Hyde died on November 29, 2007, Crisis Magazine began a collection of online condolences. They paint a picture of a remarkable patriot:

“… one of the rarest, most accomplished, and most distinguished Members of Congress ever to serve.”

“… one of the great leaders of America’s modern age.”

“…the most eloquent defender of the right to life who ever served in the United States Congress.”

“…the greatest Catholic statesman of our generation.”

“His courage should be an example for us all.”[6]

Perhaps this short bio should end, as it began, with the words of Congressman Henry Hyde:

 “When the time comes as it surely will, when we face that awesome moment, the final judgment, I’ve often thought, as Fulton Sheen wrote, that it is a terrible moment of loneliness. You have no advocates, you are there alone standing before God – and a terror will rip through your soul like nothing you can imagine. But I really think that those in the pro-life movement will not be alone. I think there will be a chorus of voices that have never been heard in this world but are heard beautifully and clearly in the next world – and they will plead for everyone who has been in this movement. They will say to God, ‘Spare him because he loved us,’ – and God will look at you and say not, ‘Did you succeed?’ but ‘Did you try?’”  –Congressman Henry Hyde, speech on abortion.

Amen.

Gary Porter is Executive Director of the Constitution Leadership Initiative (CLI), a project to promote a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by the American people.   CLI provides seminars on the Constitution, including one for young people utilizing “Our Constitution Rocks” as the text.  Gary presents talks on various Constitutional topics, writes a weekly essay: Constitutional Corner which is published on multiple websites, and hosts a weekly radio show: “We the People, the Constitution Matters” on WFYL AM1140.  Gary has also begun performing reenactments of James Madison and speaking with public and private school students about Madison’s role in the creation of the Bill of Rights and Constitution.  Gary can be reached at gary@constitutionleadership.org, on Facebook or Twitter (@constitutionled).

[1] This “Hyde Amendment” should not be confused with the Hyde Amendment of 1997, which dealt with an entirely different matter.

[2] http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/papers_pdf/117717.pdf

[3] https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/11/20071105-7.html

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton%E2%80%93Lewinsky_scandal

[5] Hyde had himself confessed to an adulterous affair that had taken place in the early 1960s before he entered public life, calling it a “youthful indiscretion[].”

[6] https://www.crisismagazine.com/2007/remembering-henry-hyde-2

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A Bill Of Rights Is What The People Are Entitled To … — The People Limit Their Government

“In questions of power,… let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” Thomas Jefferson, 1798.

Sunday, 8 April 1787

Young “Jemmy” Madison, frustrated by what he had observed over the last six years, sat down at his writing desk in his New York City boarding room. After an unseasonably severe winter, the spring of 1787 was finally becoming pleasant. But Madison had little time to reflect upon the fair weather.

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Declaration of Independence painting by John Trumbull depicting the five-man drafting committee, left to right: John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin of the Declaration of Independence presenting their work to the Congress. The original hangs in the U.S. Capitol rotunda.

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Most Americans realize that the Declaration of Independence established our separation from Great Britain and that sometime later the U.S. Constitution established the U.S. Congress, the Legislative Branch of government, along with its sister branches: the Executive and the Judiciary.  But most Americans would be surprised to learn that the Congress, through the Constitution, has a connection to the Declaration of Independence as well.  Many view the two documents as separate and distinct; they were, after all, drafted eleven years apart by two different groups of men for different purposes.[1] But the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed their connection; in Gulf, C. & S. F. R. CO. v. Ellis , 165 U.S. 150 (1897), the Court declared that while the Constitution was indeed the “body and letter” of our government, the Declaration was the “thought and spirit.”

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