From the Radio Free Michigan archives ftp://141.209.3.26/pub/patriot If you have any other files you'd like to contribute, e-mail them to bj496@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu. ------------------------------------------------ THE COMATOSE CONSTITUTION By GeryD@aol.com Our national government is out of control. It is $5 trillion in debt. It has spent $5 trillion on welfare and the problem has gotten worse. It has interfered in the medical industry and as a result, health care costs have skyrocketed. The government's solution is to take it complete control of it. It is in the process of taking over the education system. Without increased taxes (read that income redistribution) Social Security will go bankrupt in twenty years. The national government spends billions of dollars for local pork barrel projects. How did this come about? What happened that would cause such a mess? Has the Constitution failed us? Should we toss it aside and start all over? Of course not, the problem is the national government has abandoned the U.S. Constitution. They have quietly put it to sleep, especially in the past thirty years, to the extent that it is now comatose. Clearly 60% of the spending and regulations are unconstitutional. I would dare anyone to tell me where the Constitution empowers the national government to do anything in education, welfare, medical care, etc. (In this discussion, we will not talk about how the government ignores selective amendments and then "discovers" new protected rights for selective groups.) Many proponents of big government believe that the phrase "to provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States" (Section 8, Article I, U.S. Constitution) empowers the national government to do what it wants, as long as it is for "general welfare". Let us note first that the government is authorized to levy taxes for the GENERAL welfare. That could be understood as a restrictive clause, approving taxation for the benefit of all, but not for any part of the population or peoples in the country. What was being guarded against by this restriction was the levying of taxes on the whole people to pay for benefits for some people in some class, locale, state, or region of the country. In other words, the general welfare is not taxing the many for the benefit of the few. There was a definite interest in the Constitutional Convention to restrict such practices. For example, at one point in the proceedings, Benjamin Franklin proposed that the general government be given "a power to provide for cutting canals where deemed necessary." Roger Sherman objected. "The expense in such cases, will fall on the United States, and the benefit accrue to the places where the canals may be cut." Franklin's motion was defeated by a vote of 8 states to 3. While the clause may authorize taxation to finance certain powers, it in itself does not authorize or grant those powers. The clause in question does not authorize expenditure for the general welfare; it does not authorize spending for any program. Let us look at the general context of the clause under consideration, " The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States...." The men who wrote the Constitution did not assume that by granting the power to tax in order to pay debts that they had authorized indebtedness. In actuality, the very next sentence authorizes Congress "To borrow Money on the credit of the United States." If they had already authorized indebtness, why put it in again? Nor did they assume that by authorizing taxation to pay for the common defense that they had granted the power to bring into being a military establishment. On the contrary, the earlier authorization is followed by a list of powers to accomplish this purpose. In this enumeration congress is authorized "To raise and support Armies....; To provide and maintain a Navy; to make rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces..." If the power to provide for the common defense had been granted in the taxing power, each of these powers would have been redundant. Redundancies are commonplace in legal documents, of course; lawyers are notorious for piling them on one another, but the Constitution is remarkably free of redundancies. Indeed, the powers which the Founders reckoned necessary to the general welfare of the United States are enumerated. Among them are the power of Congress to enact uniform laws on bankruptcies, to coin money, to fix standards of weights and measures, to establish post offices and post roads, and the like. There are no sweeping grants of power in the Constitution; powers granted are described in specific detail so as to make reasonably clear their limits. The common sense question one must ask oneself, if the Founding Fathers intended for the national government to have essentially unlimited powers in the name of "providing for the general welfare", why did they specifally enumerate certain powers (Section 8, Article 1) and then specifically restrict the national government to those powers (10th amendment)? The writers had recently fought a war against a government that felt it had no limits when it came to providing for the "general welfare" and were not about to install a government that had a large loop hole to empower itself. These Founders had a strong belief in limited government. Thus, the powers that are not specifically enumerated were reserved to the states or to the people by the 10th Amendment, the most important , and , unfortunately, ignored amendment there is. Some may say that these are merely the views of a "radical" right winger. Let us see what other "radicals" had to say. James Madison, as President in 1817 , when he was presented with a bill for making internal improvements (canal cuts), vetoed it on constitutional grounds. In his veto, Madison said, in part "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..." But certainly if it is for the "general welfare" it is okay. Regarding the general welfare phrase specifically, he said: "To refer to the power in the question to the clause 'to provide for the common defense and general welfare' would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause as nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them..." James Monroe, in 1822, also when vetoing a bill he considered unconstitutional said, "If the power exist, it must be either because it has been specifically granted to the United States or that it is incidental to some power which has been granted. If we examine the specific grants of power we do not find it among them, nor is it incidental to any power which has been specifically granted." He continued in an added paper to his veto message , "Have Congress a right to raise and appropriate the money to any and to every purpose according to their will and pleasure? They certainly have not, the Government of the United States is a limited Government, instituted for great national purposes, and for those only." If the Founders did not believe in an all empowering statement, and the structure of the Constitution clearly demonstrates there is no all empowering statement, why does the national government assume there is. It is simply because it wants more power and the people do not know their Constitution well enough to hold their elected representatives accountable. As Thomas Jefferson said, "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." But what can be done about it? The first and most important step is to elect people who know and believe in the U. S. Constitution. Whenever any legislation comes up, please request from your congressperson, where does the Constitution, specifically empower the national government to do this. You will be amaze by the answers. I have had one congressman tell me that the government can do anything that the Constitution does not explicitly PREVENT. So much for the 10th amendment. ------------------------------------------------ (This file was found elsewhere on the Internet and uploaded to the Radio Free Michigan archives by the archive maintainer. All files are ZIP archives for fast download. E-mail bj496@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu)