Introduction to Essential Liberty

By Mark Alexander

Sons of Liberty

On December 16th, 1773, “radicals” from Boston, Massachusetts, members of a secret organization of American Patriots called Sons of Liberty, boarded three East India Company ships and threw into Boston Harbor 342 chests of tea. This iconic event, in protest of oppressive British taxation and tyrannical rule, became known as The Boston Tea Party.

Resistance to the Crown had been mounting over enforcement of the 1764 Sugar Act, 1765 Stamp Act and 1767 Townshend Acts, which led to the Boston Massacre, and gave rise to the slogan "No taxation without representation." The 1773 Tea Act and resulting Tea Party protest galvanized the Colonial movement opposing British parliamentary acts, which violated the natural, charter, and constitutional rights of colonists.

In response to the rebellion, the British enacted additional punitive measures, labeled the “Intolerable Acts,” in hopes of suppressing the insurrection. Far from accomplishing that outcome, the Crown's countermeasures led Colonists to convene the First Continental Congress on September 5th, 1774 in Philadelphia.

Representatives from 12 of the 13 colonies (Georgia did not send delegates) drafted a list of rights and grievances with a request for redress from King George, and they agreed to an economic boycott of England to compel the Crown to concede. Congress also agreed to convene a Second Continental Congress if their grievances were not resolved.

Though the boycott reduced British imports by more than 90 percent, Royalists countered with vigorous enforcement of the Intolerable Acts.

On April 19th, 1775, Paul Revere departed Charlestown (near Boston) for Lexington and Concord in order to warn John Hancock, Samuel Adams and other Sons of Liberty that the British army was marching to arrest them and seize their weapons caches. While Revere was captured after reaching Lexington, his friend, Samuel Prescott, took word to the militiamen at Concord.

In the early dawn of that first Patriots' Day, Captain John Parker, commander of the Lexington militia, ordered, “Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they want a war let it begin here.” And it did – American Minutemen fired the “shot heard round the world,” as immortalized by poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, confronting British Regulars on Lexington Green and at Concord's Old North Bridge.

Thus, by the time the Second Continental Congress was convened on May 10th, 1775, the young nation was in open war.

On May 15th, Congress adopted a resolution calling on the states to prepare for rebellion. In its preamble, John Adams advised his countrymen to sever all oaths of allegiance to the Crown.

Most notably, on July 6th, Congress approved the “Declaration of the Cause and Necessity of Taking up Arms,” drafted by Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson, which noted: “With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live as slaves.”

Samuel Adams proclaimed, “[T]he people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government and to reform, alter, or totally change the same when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.”

“Endowed by their Creator”

A year later in Philadelphia, on July 4th, 1776, Jefferson and 55 merchants, farmers, doctors, lawyers and other representatives of the original 13 colonies of the United States of America, in the General Congress, Assembled, pledged “our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor” to the cause of liberty. They declared, “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

Our Founders further avowed, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Our Declaration of Independence was derived from common law, “the Laws of Nature and Nature's God,” all men being “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” It calls upon “the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions” and “the protection of Divine Providence.”

The Declaration's common law inspiration for the Rights of Man has its origin in governing documents dating back to the Magna Carta (1215), and was heavily influenced by the writings of Charles Montesquieu and John Locke.

However, its most immediate common law inspiration was William Blackstone's 1765 “Commentaries on the Laws of England,” perhaps the most scholarly historic and analytic treatise on Natural Law.

Blackstone wrote, “As man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his Maker's will. This will of his Maker is called the law of nature. ... This law of nature, being coeval [coexistent] with mankind and dictated by God Himself is, of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times; no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this. ... Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered [permitted] to contradict these.”

In 1776, the Second Continental Congress appointed a committee representing the 13 states to draft a formal document of incorporation, and then approved the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union for ratification by the states on November 15th, 1777. The Articles of Confederation were ratified on March 1st, 1781, and “the United States in Congress assembled” became the Congress of the Confederation.

“We the People”

At the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, it was evident that the Articles of Confederation between the states did not sufficiently ensure the interests and security of the Confederation. In September 1786, at the urging of James Madison, 12 delegates from five states (New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia) met in Annapolis, Maryland, to consider amendments to the Articles.

Those delegates called for representatives from all of the states to convene at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia for full consideration of the revisions needed, and 12 states (Rhode Island declining) sent 55 delegates, a third of whom signed the Declaration of Independence.

The most noted delegates were George Washington, Roger Sherman, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and George Mason. (Thomas Jefferson was in Europe in his capacity as Minister to France, but in correspondence with Madison, expressed his cautious support for the new Constitution.)

Noticeably absent from the proceedings were Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams and Thomas Paine, who believed the Articles did not need replacement, only modification. They were concerned that a proceeding aimed at establishing a new constitution could place in peril our fundamental liberties. Summing up their sentiments, Henry wrote that he “smelt a rat in Philadelphia, tending toward the monarchy.”

The Philadelphia Convention (Constitution Convention) opened its proceedings on May 25th, 1787, and soon decided against amending the existing Articles in favor of drafting a new constitution. The next three months were devoted to deliberations on various proposals with the objective of drafting a document, which would secure the rights and principles enumerated in the Declaration and Articles of Confederation, thus preserving essential liberty.

In late July, after much debate, a Committee of Detail was appointed to draft a document to include all the compromise agreements, but based primarily on James Madison's Virginia Plan, establishing a republican form of government subject to strict Rule of Law, reflecting the consent of the people and severely limiting the power of the central government.

A month later, the Committee of Style and Arrangement, which included Gouverneur Morris, Alexander Hamilton, William Samuel Johnson, Rufus King and James Madison, produced the final draft of the Constitution, which was submitted for delegate signatures on September 17th, 1787.

George Washington and the delegates to the Convention wrote, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Said Benjamin Franklin of the new document, “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. ... Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best.”

Of the 55 delegates, 39 signed the new Constitution while the remaining delegates declined, most out of concern that the power apportioned through the new plan was a threat to the sovereignty of the several states, and thus, to individual liberty.

The ensuing ratification debates among the states were vigorous.

James Madison, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton authored The Federalist Papers advocating ratification of the new Constitution.

Patrick Henry's Anti-Federalists opposed the plan under consideration because they believed it allocated too much power to the central government. Henry, Samuel Adams, George Mason, Robert Yates, Thomas Paine, Samuel Bryan and Richard Henry Lee were among those who spoke against ratification, and some authored several essays that were aggregated and published as The Anti-Federalist Papers.

The new Constitution stipulated that once nine of the 13 original States ratified it through state conventions, a date would be established for its implementation. This created controversy, as the document in question had no standing authority to make such a stipulation. However, once the ninth state, New Hampshire, reported its convention's approval on June 21st, 1788, the Continental Congress set the date for enactment of the Constitution for March 4th, 1789.

With Rhode Island's ratification on May 29th, 1790, all 13 states had endorsed the Constitution.

Though critical of many of its provisions, in reflection Thomas Jefferson wrote of the Convention and its product, “The example of changing a constitution by assembling the wise men of the state, instead of assembling armies, will be worth as much to the world as the former examples we had given them. The constitution, too, which was the result of our deliberation, is unquestionably the wisest ever yet presented to men.”

“To secure these rights”

“In order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of [the Constitution's] powers...” –Preamble to the Bill of Rights

Endeavoring to further define our Constitution's limits on government encroachment upon the innate Rights of the People, James Madison, its primary architect, introduced to the First Congress in 1789, a Bill of Rights – the first 10 Amendments to our Constitution, which was then ratified on December 15th, 1791.

The Bill of Rights was inspired by three remarkable documents: Two Treatises of Government, authored by John Locke in 1689 regarding protection of “property” (in the Latin context, proprius, or one's own “life, liberty and estate”); the Virginia Declaration of Rights, authored by George Mason in 1776 as part of that state's constitution; and, of course, our Declaration of Independence, authored by Thomas Jefferson.

There was great consternation regarding the enumeration of these rights, as such registration might be taken to suggest that they were subject to amendment rather than unalienable; granted by the state rather than “Endowed by [our] Creator.”

As Hamilton argued in Federalist No. 84, “Bills 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. ... For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?”

On the other hand, George Mason was among 16 of the 55 Constitution Convention delegates who refused to sign because the document did not adequately address limitations on what the central government had “no power to do.” Indeed, he worked with Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams against its ratification for that reason.

As a result of Mason's insistence, the first session of Congress placed these 10 additional limitations upon the federal government for the reasons outlined by the Preamble to the Bill of Rights: “The Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution...”

Read in context, the Bill of Rights is both an affirmation of innate individual rights (as noted by Thomas Jefferson: “The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time”) and a clear delineation of constraints upon the central government.

The Rule of Law

“But where say some is the King of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind... Let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know...that in America THE LAW IS KING.” –Thomas Paine

For its first 150 years (with a few exceptions), our Constitution stood as our Founders and “the people” intended – as is – in accordance with its original intent. In other words, it was interpreted exegetically rather than eisegetically – textually as constructed, rather than as a so-called “living” document, altered to express the biases of later generations of politicians and jurists.

But incrementally, constitutional Rule of Law in the United States has been diluted by unlawful actions of those in the executive, legislative and judicial branches – most notably, the latter – at great hazard to the future of liberty.

As Thomas Jefferson warned repeatedly, the greatest threat to the Rule of Law and constitutional limitations on central government was an unbridled judiciary: “The original error [was in] establishing a judiciary independent of the nation, and which, from the citadel of the law, can turn its guns on those they were meant to defend, and control and fashion their proceedings to its own will. ... The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.”

Jefferson understood that should our Constitution ever become a straw man for a politicized judiciary to interpret as it pleased, Rule of Law would gradually yield to rule of men – the terminus of the latter being tyranny.

Regarding the process of amendment prescribed by our Constitution, George Washington wrote, “If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates, but let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.”

Alexander Hamilton concurred, “[T]he present Constitution is the standard to which we are to cling. Under its banners, bona fide must we combat our political foes – rejecting all changes but through the channel itself provides for amendments.”

On the subject of constitutional interpretation, Jefferson wrote: “The Constitution on which our Union rests, shall be administered...according to the safe and honest meaning contemplated by the plain understanding of the people of the United States at the time of its adoption – a meaning to be found in the explanations of those who advocated it. ... On every question of construction, 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. ... Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.”

James Madison agreed: “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 a consistent and stable, more than for a faithful exercise of its powers.”

Justice James Wilson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and one of the six original Supreme Court justices appointed by George Washington, wrote, “The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it.”

The Federalist Papers, the definitive explication of our Constitution's original intent, clearly delineate constitutional interpretation. In Federalist No. 78 Alexander Hamilton wrote, “[The Judicial Branch] may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment. ... Liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments.”

In Federalist No. 81, Hamilton declared, “[T]here is not a syllable in the [Constitution] which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution. ... [T]he Constitution ought to be the standard of construction for the laws, and that wherever there is an evident opposition, the laws ought to give place to the Constitution.” And yet this non-existent “spirit” is the essence of the so-called “living constitution,” which liberal jurists now amend by judicial diktat rather than its prescribed method in Article V.

With concern for the future of constitutional integrity, George Washington advised, “The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, ‘till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole People is sacredly obligatory upon all.”

A “Living Constitution”?

The first instance of extra-constitutional interpretation by the federal judiciary was the 1803 case of Marbury v. Madison. The Supreme Court, under Chief Justice John Marshall, denied the plaintiff's claim because it relied on the Judiciary Act of 1789, which the court ruled unconstitutional.

Marbury set a perilous precedent, but one which would not be used to greatly expand the limited judicial powers outlined in Article III of our Constitution until a century later in a frontal assault on the Rule of Law rivaled only by the constitutional disputes leading to the War Between the States.

Prior to Franklin D. Roosevelt's “New Deal” expansion of central government authority in the 1930s, the courts were still largely populated with originalists, those who properly rendered legal interpretation based on the Constitution's “original intent.” But Roosevelt grossly exceeded the constitutional restrictions on his office and that of the legislature in his ill-conceived efforts to end the Great Depression – which ultimately ended during World War II, but not before having long outlasted FDR's social and economic engineering.

So determined was Roosevelt to enact his social welfare policies, that in 1937, he attempted to increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court with the expectation that his appointees would give him a majority and do his political bidding.

It is no coincidence that the term “living constitution” was coined the same year as the title of a book on that subject.

He failed with that approach, but during his unprecedented first three terms, he appointed eight justices to the High Court, who radically accommodated their “interpretation” of the Constitution to conform with Roosevelt's expansion of central government power.

In effect, Roosevelt successfully converted the Judicial Branch from one of independent review according Rule of Law to one of subservience according political will.

In the decades that followed, the notion of a “living constitution,” one subject to contemporaneous interpretation informed by political agendas, took hold in federal courts. With increasing frequency, “judicial activists,” jurists who “legislate from the bench” by issuing rulings at the behest of like-minded special-interest constituencies, were nominated and confirmed to the Supreme Court.

This degradation in the Rule of Law was codified by the Warren Court in Trop v. Dulles (1958). In that ruling, the High Court noted that the Constitution should comport with “evolving standards...that mark the progress of a maturing society.” In other words, it had now become a fully pliable document, “a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please,” as Thomas Jefferson had warned. Indeed, the Court had mutated into “a despotic branch.”

Since then, judicial despots have not only undermined the plain language of our Constitution, but have also grossly devitalized the Bill of Rights.

For example, the First Amendment reads plainly: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Once again, in plain language, “Congress shall make no law...”

But the courts have ruled this restriction applies to virtually every public forum.

Meanwhile, judicial despots and legislators are endeavoring to supplant authentic freedoms of speech and of press, while asserting that virtually all other mediums of expression constitute “free speech.”

As another example, the Second Amendment reads plainly: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” And yet, certain executive, legislative and judicial principals are unceasing in their efforts to enfeeble this essential right.

During the 1788 Massachusetts Convention debates to ratify the U.S. Constitution, Founder Samuel Adams stated: “The Constitution shall never be construed...to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”

That same year, James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 46, “The ultimate authority...resides in the people alone. ... The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation...forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition.”

In his Commentaries on the Constitution (1833), Justice Joseph Story, appointed to the Supreme Court by James Madison, affirmed the pre-eminence of the Second Amendment: “The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of the rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.”

Similarly, Founder Noah Webster wrote, “Tyranny is the exercise of some power over a man, which is not warranted by law, or necessary for the public safety. A people can never be deprived of their liberties, while they retain in their own hands, a power sufficient to any other power in the state.”

Equally offensive to our Constitution is the manner in which the 10th Amendment's assurance of States' Rights has been eroded by judicial interpretation.

The 10th Amendment reads plainly: “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.” However, the central government has routinely violated this amendment with all manner of oppressive legislation and regulation over what should be, according to the Rule of Law, matters “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

But by the 1980s, judges had become the final arbiter of our Constitution, and its adulteration was so commonplace that liberal Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was brazenly lecturing on “The Constitution: A Living Document,” in defense of constitutional interpretation based upon contemporaneous moral, political and cultural circumstances.

More recently, Justice Antonin Scalia writes, “[There's] the argument of flexibility and it goes something like this: The Constitution is over 200 years old and societies change. It has to change with society, like a living organism, or it will become brittle and break. But you would have to be an idiot to believe that; the Constitution is not a living organism; it is a legal document. It says something and doesn't say other things.”

Justice Clarence Thomas follows, “[T]here are really only two ways to interpret the Constitution – try to discern as best we can what the framers intended or make it up. No matter how ingenious, imaginative or artfully put, unless interpretive methodologies are tied to the original intent of the framers, they have no basis in the Constitution. ... To be sure, even the most conscientious effort to adhere to the original intent of the framers of our Constitution is flawed, as all methodologies and human institutions are; but at least originalism has the advantage of being legitimate and, I might add, impartial.”

On the political consequences of a “living constitution,” Justice Scalia concludes plainly, “If you think aficionados of a living constitution want to bring you flexibility, think again. ... As long as judges tinker with the Constitution to ‘do what the people want,' instead of what the document actually commands, politicians who pick and confirm new federal judges will naturally want only those who agree with them politically.”

A “Wall of Separation”?

There is no more ominous defilement of our Constitution than that of the errant notion of a “Wall of Separation” between our constitutional government and our Creator – ominous because if the knowledge of our Creator (at one time proliferate in every educational institution) is constrained, then the general knowledge that liberty is “endowed by [our] Creator” will be equally diminished.

As noted in the previous section, our Founders' intent was that the Central government would not appoint any state church by act of Congress. “Congress shall make no law...”

But judicial activists have for decades “interpreted” this First Amendment to suit their political agendas, placing severe constraints upon the free exercise of religion and invoking the obscure and grotesquely misrepresented “Wall of Separation” to expel religious practice from any and all public forums.

As noted by the late Chief Justice of the Supreme Court William Rehnquist, “The wall of separation between church and state is a metaphor based upon bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned. ... The greatest injury of the ‘wall' notion is its mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intention of the drafters of the Bill of Rights.”

George Washington wrote in his 1796 Farewell Address, “Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation deserts the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in the Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

Our Founders affirmed that the natural rights enumerated in our Declaration of Independence and, by extension, as codified in its subordinate guidance, our Constitution, are those endowed by our Creator.

Thomas Jefferson proclaimed, “The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time. ... 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? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.”

Alexander Hamilton insisted, “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.”

“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...” These are natural rights – gifts from God, not government.

Moreover, it was with firm regard to this fact that our Constitution was written and ratified “in order to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” As such, it established a constitutional republic ruled by laws based on natural rights, not rights allocated by governments or those occupying seats of power.

John Quincy Adams wrote, “Our political way of life is by the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, and of course presupposes the existence of God, the moral ruler of the universe, and a rule of right and wrong, of just and unjust, binding upon man, preceding all institutions of human society and government.”

Notably, the conviction that our rights are innately bestowed by “the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God,” is enumerated in the constitutional preambles of every state in our Union.

But, for many decades, those who advocate a “living constitution” have used the “despotic branch” to remove faith from every public quarter, ironically and erroneously citing the “Wall of Separation” metaphor – words that Jefferson wrote to denote the barrier between federal and state governments, not to erect a prohibition against faith expression in any and all public venues.

The intended consequence of this artificial barrier between church and state is to remove the unmistakable influence of our Creator from all public forums, particularly government education institutions, and thus, over time, to disabuse belief in a sovereign God and the notion of natural rights. This erosion of knowledge about the origin of our rights, the very foundation of our country and basis of our Constitution, has dire implications for the future of liberty.

“A republic, if you can keep it”

At the close of the Constitution Convention in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin was asked if the delegates had formed a republic or a monarchy. “A republic,” he responded, “if you can keep it.”

He added, “Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

To that end, as a warning for future generations to beware of “cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men,” George Washington wrote, “A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.”

Daniel Webster wrote, “Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”

Ominously, Alexander Hamilton noted, “Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.”

John Adams observed, “Is the present state of the national republic enough? Is virtue the principle of our government? Is honor? Or is ambition and avarice, adulation, baseness, covetousness, the thirst for riches, indifference concerning the means of rising and enriching, the contempt of principle, the spirit of party and of faction the motive and principle that governs?”

Adams cautioned, “A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”

Unfortunately, and at great peril to our liberty, our Constitution has suffered generations of “cunning, ambitious and unprincipled” politicians and judges whose successors now recognize only vestiges of its original intent for governance. Consequently, constitutional Rule of Law has been undermined by those who have deserted their sacred oaths to “support and defend” the same.

As the erosion of constitutional authority undermines individual liberty, it likewise undermines economic liberty.

In Federalist No. 45, James Madison wrote, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined [and] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce.”

But by 1794, Madison had begun to rail against government's unconstitutional urge to redistribute the wealth of its citizens: “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.”

Jefferson wrote: “[G]iving [Congress] a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole [Constitution] to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please. Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. [The Constitution] was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect.”

But at the onset of the Great Depression a century later, that same wealthy aristocrat, Franklin Roosevelt, who upended constitutionally limited government, undertook an equally injurious assault on economic liberty.

FDR, like many “inheritance welfare” politicos today, had an unquenchable thirst for power and used the Great Depression as cover to redefine and expand the role of the central government via countless extra-constitutional decrees as well as the means to justify how the government would fund that folly.

Roosevelt issued this dubious proclamation: “Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.”

Of course, his “American principle” was nothing more than a paraphrase of Karl Marx's maxim, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

Indeed, Roosevelt's “principles” had no basis in the Rule of Law or the laws of free enterprise, and his New Deal gave rise to what is now the central government's most oppressive weapon: The U.S. Tax Code.

Of government welfare programs, Madison wrote, “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...”

Accordingly, Article 1, Section 8 of our Constitution, which addresses the powers of the legislature, does not give Congress the authority to collect taxes for banking, mortgage and automaker bailouts, or to subsidize production or service sectors like healthcare, or to fund education and retirement, much less, tens-of-thousands of earmarks for special interest “pork projects.”

Congress is also not authorized to institute countless conditions for the redistribution of wealth in its 20 volume, 14,000 page Tax Code, or to impose millions of regulations on everything from CO2 emissions to toilet water volume.

Today, more than 70 percent of the federal budget is spent on “objects of benevolence,” for which there is no constitutional authority. Put another way, much of your income is confiscated by the government and redistributed unconstitutionally. And the current Democrat hegemony has saddled the nation with more government debt than all previous administrations combined, in effect assuring the confiscation of income from future generations for purposes not expressly authorized by our Constitution.

Of such debt, Jefferson concluded, “The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”

Principium Imprimis

If there is to be a peaceful transfer of liberty to our posterity, then we must return to principium imprimis, or First Principles.

Short of another American Revolution to remove by force those in government who do not abide by their oaths “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” our freedoms cannot long endure unless we, the people, reaffirm what was well understood by our Founders: that our Creator is the only eternal assurance of liberty.

The primacy of faith must be restored in order to preserve the conviction that, as Jefferson wrote, our “liberties are the gift of God”; traditional families and values must be restored as the foundation of our culture; individual rights and responsibilities must be restored as the underpinning of republican government; free enterprise must be unbridled from government constraints; and constitutional authority over each branch of government must be restored to ensure liberty, opportunity and prosperity for a civil society.

The Cycle of Democracy has been summarized as:

  • From bondage to spiritual faith;
  • From spiritual faith to great courage;
  • From courage to liberty (rule of law);
  • From liberty to abundance;
  • From abundance to complacency;
  • From complacency to apathy;
  • From apathy to dependance;
  • From dependence back into bondage (rule of men).

Our Founders established a democratic republic, not a democracy, in order to enfeeble this cycle. However, with the erosion of constitutional authority, our Republic is now in grave peril of following the same cycle as have all other democracies in history. Only intervention by citizens and leaders who advocate the primacy of constitutional authority, those committed to supporting and defending that authority above their self-interest, can save the Republic for the next generation.

Irrevocably linked to liberty ensured by constitutional Rule of Law is economic liberty. In 1916, a minister and outspoken advocate for liberty, William J. H. Boetcker, published a pamphlet entitled The Ten Cannots:

  • You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
  • You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
  • You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
  • You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
  • You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence.
  • You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
  • You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
  • You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
  • You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
  • You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.

Fact is, the central government cannot give to anybody what it does not first take from somebody else.

So what is a Patriot to do?

Some of our countrymen are overwhelmed with the current state of affairs. They have resigned to defeat and withdrawn from the fields of battle. In so doing, they betray the legacy of liberty extended to them by generations of Patriots who have pledged their “Lives, Fortunes and Sacred Honor.”

Of such resignation, Hamilton wrote, “A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one!”

Franklin insisted, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Samuel Adams showed no sympathy for such retreat: “Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say ‘what should be the reward of such sacrifices?' ... If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!”

Patrick Henry said famously, “Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

Plainly, none can claim the name “American Patriot” if they submit to laws and regulations, which violate the most fundamental tenets of our Constitution.

At its core, the word “patriot” has direct lineage to those who fought for American independence and established our constitutional Republic. That lineage has descended through our history most conspicuously by way of those who have pledged “to support and defend” our Constitution – those who have been faithful to and have abided by their oaths, even unto death.

Today, those who can rightly claim the name Patriot, those who have stood firm on the front lines of the struggle to restore constitutional integrity, be encouraged. There is a groundswell of activism across the Fruited Plain, as our fellow countrymen are awakening to the ominous threat of constitutional adulteration and its irrevocable terminus: tyranny.

The growing chorus of Patriot voices from every corner of the nation and all walks of life is demanding restoration of the Rule of Law as outlined by our Constitution.

Today's Patriots exemplify not only the eternal spirit of liberty conferred through the ages by previous generations of Patriots, but also a spirit enlivened in recent history by a conservative who spent much of his life as a Democrat (even heading a major union at one time).

That man became an outspoken conservative in reaction to the Democrat Party's increasing betrayal of our Constitution, declaring, “I didn't leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left me.”

He was elected president in 1980 on a platform of constitutional integrity and federalism, and he was devoted to that doctrine. He was re-elected on those principles four years later in a landslide victory – winning every state but his opponent's home state (and, of course, the District of Columbia).

His name was Ronald Wilson Reagan, and he delivered a treatise on liberty in 1964, “A Time for Choosing,” which to this day appositely frames conservative philosophy.

In “The Speech,” as we know it, Reagan insisted, “I think it's time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers. ... Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.”

He continued: “You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down – up to a man's age-old dream; the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order – or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism, and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.”

Some said President Reagan won broad support because he was a “great communicator,” but he said more accurately in his farewell address: “I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn't spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation – from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in principles that have guided us for two centuries.”

The principles of liberty advanced by President Reagan were, and remain, a template for victory over tyranny. But our legacy of liberty is at grave risk today. Indeed, we face another time for choosing.

While the words “conservative” and “liberal” are ubiquitously used to describe party alliances, these words more essentially describe whether one advocates the Rule of Law, or the rule of men; for the conservation of our Constitution as the Founders intended, or its liberal interpretation by “progressive” legislators and judicial activists.

It is time for each of us to choose which we advocate and to fully understand the consequences of that choice.

It is time for those of us who endorse the most basic tenets of our Republic, “That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” to honor that heritage and set about the formidable task of restoring individual liberty and constitutional limits upon the branches of our national government.

The futility of debating policy matters must now yield to a more substantive national debate about constitutional authority.

The time is at hand when we must inquire with a unified voice: “If there is no constitutional authority for laws and regulations enacted by Congress and enforced by the central government, then by what authority do those entities lay and collect taxes to fund such laws and regulations?”

On July 4th, 1776, our Declaration of Independence, this nation's supreme manuscript of incorporation, asserted, “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government...”

Our Declaration's principal author, Thomas Jefferson, also wrote, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. ... Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.”

While one prays that liberty will be restored and extended to our posterity without spirited rebellion, history does not favor such prospects.

At present, our Constitution is in virtual exile, and the central government is in the hands of those who believe they are the arbiters of liberty, rather than its endowment by our Creator.

It is time for tenacious resistance and rebellion against the current thrones of government. This is not a call for revolution but for restoration – to undertake whatever measures are dictated by prudence and necessity to restore constitutional Rule of Law.

Ronald Reagan said, “There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. ... You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”

Which will it be?

Fellow Patriots, I implore you to make no peace with oppression, and I leave you with these words of encouragement from the Father of our Nation, George Washington: “We should never despair. Our situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new exertions and proportion our efforts to the exigency of the times.”

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander
Publisher, PatriotPost.US