5000 Year Leap (18 page)
But this does raise an important question. No doubt our economic and social circumstances have changed tremendously since the days of the Founders. Has this made the Constitution obsolete? In the next chapter we will address this question.
"Let no more be said of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." (Thomas Jefferson)
protect the people from the human frailties of their rulers.
"Let no more be said of confidence in man, but bind him down from
mischief by the chains of the Constitution." -- Thomas Jefferson
At the Constitutional Convention, the Founding Fathers were concerned with the one tantalizing question which no political scientist in any age had yet been able to answer with complete satisfaction. The question was, "How can you have an efficient government but still protect the freedom and unalienable rights of the people?"
Government Is Coercive Force
Leaders Are Not Angels But Fragile Human Beings
Why the Original Constitution Will
Never
Be Obsolete
Danger of Losing Constitutional Rights
When Erosion Occurs, Act Quickly
The Founders had more confidence in the people than they did in the leaders of the people, especially trusted leaders, even themselves. They felt the greatest danger arises when a leader is so completely trusted that the people feel no anxiety to watch him. Alexander Hamilton wrote:
"For it is a truth, which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are commonly most in danger when the means of injuring their rights are in the possession of those [toward] whom they entertain the least suspicion."
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Two hundred years of American history have demonstrated the wisdom of the Founders in proclaiming a warning against the frailties of human nature in the people's elected or appointed leaders. Every unconstitutional action has usually been justified because it was for a "good cause." Every illegal transfer of power from one department to another has been excused as "necessary." The whole explosion of bureaucratic power in Washington has been the result of "trusting" benign political leaders, most of whom really did have good intentions. Thomas Jefferson struck out with all the force that tongue and pen could muster against trusting in human nature. Said he:
"It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights; that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism; free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy, and not confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power; that our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no farther, our confidence may go....
"In questions of power, then, let no more be said of confidence in man,
but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution
."
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George Washington made it very clear why all of this was necessary. The Founders looked upon "government" as a volatile instrument of explosive power which must necessarily be harnessed within the confines of a strictly interpreted Constitution, or it would destroy the very freedom it was designed to preserve. Said he:
"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence -- it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
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James Madison saw the problem of placing power in the hands of fallible human beings who, by nature, contain a complexity of elements reflecting both good and evil. The purpose of a constitution is to define the area in which a public official can serve to his utmost ability, but at the same time provide strict limitations to chain him down from mischief. In every human being there is a natural tendency to practice Parkinson's law of perpetual expansion and to exercise personal proclivities toward ego-mania and self-aggrandizement. As we indicated earlier, Madison was very concerned about human frailties in the leaders of the people. He said:
"It may be a reflection on human nature that such devices [as Constitutional chains] should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? ... If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. [But lacking these,] in framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this:
you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself
."
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Never
Be Obsolete
And that is what the Constitution is all about -- providing freedom from abuse by those in authority. Anyone who says the American Constitution is obsolete just because social and economic conditions have changed does not understand the real genius of the Constitution. It was designed to control something which
has not changed and will not change -- namely, human nature
.
Furthermore, the Founders knew from experience that the loss of freedom through the gradual erosion of Constitutional principles is not always so obvious that the people can readily detect it. Madison stated:
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.... This danger ought to be wisely guarded against."
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In 1785, Madison had occasion to issue a vigorous warning to his own state of Virginia:
"It is proper to take alarm at
the first experiment on our liberties
. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution.
The freemen of America
did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences [of governmental abuses] in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle [on which the abuses were based]. We revere this lesson too much ... to forget it."
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But where are the encroachments of abusive rulers most likely to attack? Is there some basic right which self-aggrandizing politicians seek to destroy first? The Founders said there was. Mankind has so many rights that it is sometimes difficult to keep a watchful eye on all of them. Therefore, the Founders said we should especially concentrate on the preservation of one particular right because all other rights are related to it. This special object of concern is identified in the next principle.
as the right to property is secure.
Under English common law, a most unique significance was attached to the unalienable right of possessing, developing, and disposing of property. Land and the products of the earth were considered a gift of God which were to be cultivated, beautified, and brought under dominion. As the Psalmist had written:
"... even the heavens are the Lord's: but the earth hath he given to the children of men."
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Development of the Earth Mostly by Private Endeavor
Without Property Rights, Four Things Would Occur
A Person's Property is a Projection of Life Itself
How Is Ownership Acquired?
Property Rights Sacred?
Primary Purpose of Government Is to Protect Property
Property Rights Essential to Liberty
Should Government Take from the "Haves" and Give to the "Have Nots"?
Redistribution of the Wealth Unconstitutional
Property Rights the Foundation of All Civilizations
Caring for the Poor Without Violating Property Rights
John Locke pointed out that the human family originally received the planet earth as a common gift and that mankind was given the capacity and responsibility to improve it. Said he:
"God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life and convenience."
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Then Locke pointed out that man received the commandment from his Creator to "subdue" the earth and "have dominion" over it.
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But because dominion means control, and control requires exclusiveness, private rights in property became an inescapable necessity or an inherent aspect of subduing the earth and bringing it under dominion.
It is obvious that if there were no such thing as "ownership" in property, which means legally protected exclusiveness, there would be no subduing or extensive development of the resources of the earth. Without private "rights" in developed or improved property, it would be perfectly lawful for a lazy, covetous neighbor to move in as soon as the improvements were completed and take possession of the fruits of his industrious neighbor. And even the covetous neighbor would not be secure, because someone stronger than he could take it away from him.
Note that if property rights did not exist, four things would occur which would completely frustrate the Creator's command to multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and bring it under dominion:
1. One experience like the above would tend to completely destroy the incentive of an industrious person to develop and improve any more property.
2. The industrious individual would also be deprived of the fruits of his labor.
3. Marauding bands would even be tempted to go about the country confiscating by force and violence the good things which others had frugally and painstakingly provided.
4. Mankind would be impelled to remain on a bare subsistence level of hand-to-mouth survival because the accumulation of anything would invite attack.
Another interesting point made by Locke is the fact that all property is an extension of a person's life, energy, and ingenuity. Therefore, to destroy or confiscate such property is, in reality, an attack on the essence of life itself.
The person who has worked to cultivate a farm, obtained food by hunting, carved a beautiful statue, or secured a wage by his labor, has projected his very being -- the very essence of his life -- into that labor. This is why Locke maintained that a threat to that property is a threat to the essence of life itself. Here is his reasoning:
"Though the earth and all inferior creatures be common [as the gift from God] to all men, yet every man has a "property" in his own "person." This, nobody has any right to but himself. The "labor" of his body and the "work" of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that Nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labor with it, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property....
"He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself. Nobody can deny but the nourishment is his. I ask, then, when did they begin to be his? When he digested? or when he ate? or when he boiled? or when he brought them home? or when he picked them up? And it is plain, if the first gathering made them not his, nothing else could."
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