5000 Year Leap (24 page)

   No principle was emphasized more vigorously during the Constitutional Convention than the necessity of limiting the authority of the federal government. Not only was this to be done by carefully defining the powers delegated to the government, but the Founders were determined to bind down its administrators with legal chains codified in the Constitution.

   It will be recalled that one of the reasons many of the states would not adopt the original draft of the Constitution was that they feared the encroachments of the federal government on the rights of the states and the people. The first ten amendments were therefore added to include the ancient, unalienable rights of Anglo-Saxon freemen so there could be no question as to the strictly limited authority the people were conferring on their central government. Notice how carefully the Ninth and Tenth Amendments are worded:

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

   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.

   The people felt that the hedging up of federal authority was absolutely essential because of their experience with corrupt and abusive governments in the past. Alexander Hamilton commented on this by saying:

   "There is, in the nature of sovereign power, an impatience of control that disposes those who are invested with the exercise of it to look with an evil eye upon all external attempts to restrain or direct its operations.... This tendency is not difficult to be accounted for. It has its origin in the love of power. Power controlled or abridged is almost always the rival and enemy of that power by which it is controlled or abridged. This simple proposition will teach us how little reason there is to expect that the persons entrusted with the administration of the affairs of the particular members of a confederacy [the federal government] will at all times be ready with perfect good humor and an unbiased regard to the public weal to execute the resolutions or decrees of the general authority. The reverse of this [expectation] results from the constitution of man."
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   The separation of powers between the states and the federal government was designed to reinforce the principle of limited government. The federal government was supreme in all matters relating to its responsibility, but it was specifically restricted from invading the independence and sovereign authority reserved to the States. The Founders felt that unless this principle of dual sovereignty was carefully perpetuated, the healthy independence of each would deteriorate and eventually one or the other would become totally dominant. If the federal government became dominant, it would mean the end of local self-government and the security of the individual. On the other hand, if the states became dominant, the federal government would become so weak that the structure of the nation would begin to fractionalize and disintegrate into smaller units. Alexander Hamilton emphasized these views of the Founders when he wrote:

   "This balance between the national and state governments ought to be dwelt on with peculiar attention, as it is of the utmost importance. It forms a double security to the people. If one encroaches on their rights, they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, they will both be prevented from overpassing their constitutional limits, by certain rivalship which will ever subsist between them."
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   The Founders felt that by having a wholesome balance between the federal and state governments, the people would have recourse to one or the other in case of usurpation or abuse by either. Commenting further on this, Hamilton said:

   "Power being almost always the rival of power, the general government will at all times stand ready to check the usurpations of the state governments, and these will have the same disposition towards the general government. The people, by throwing themselves into either scale, will infallibly make it preponderate. If their rights are invaded by either, they can make use of the other as the instrument of redress."
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   But would the states be able to protect themselves from the might of the federal government if the Congress began legislating against states' rights? Originally, the states could protect themselves because U.S. Senators were appointed by the state legislatures, and the Senate could veto any legislation by the House of Representatives which they considered a threat to the rights of the individual states. Unfortunately, the protection of states' rights by this means was completely wiped out by the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913.

   That amendment provided that Senators would thenceforth be elected by popular ballot rather than appointed by the state legislatures. This meant the states as sovereign commonwealths had lost their representation on the federal level, and their Senators would be subject to the same popular pressures during an election campaign as those which confront the members of the House of Representatives.

   Since that time, there has been no veto power which the states could exercise against the Congress in those cases where a federal statute was deemed in violation of states' rights. The Senators who used to be beholden to their state legislatures for their conduct in Washington are now beholden to the popular electorate. Federal funds appropriated for a state are generally a source of popular acclaim, and Senators, like Congressmen, usually hasten to get them approved. Too often it has been of little consequence that those funds might be expended in violation of basic powers reserved to the state.

   Sometime in the not-too-distant future, the people may want to take another look at the present trend and consider the advantages of returning to the Founders' policy of having state legislatures in the United States Senate. It might give us another generation of Senators like Daniel Webster, John Calhoun, and Henry Clay.

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...." (Inscription on the Statue of Liberty)

   
   "Give me your tired, your poor,
   your huddled masses yearning to breathe free ..."
   -- Inscription on the Statue of Liberty

   One of the most serious mistakes in the structure of the Articles of Confederation was the requirement that no changes could be made without the approval of every one of the states. During the Revolutionary War several vital changes were suggested, but in each instance a single state was able to prevent the needed change from being adopted.

   Delaying action until it had the unanimous approval of all concerned can be disastrous in a time of emergency. It even inhibits healthy progress in normal times. Unanimity is the ideal, but majority rule becomes a necessity. The theory of majority rule was explained by John Locke as follows:

   "When any number of men have ... consented to make one community or government, they are thereby presently incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the majority have a right to act and conclude [bind] the rest....

   "It being one body ... it is necessary the body should move that way whither the greater force carries it, which is the consent of majority, or else it is impossible it should act or continue one body....

   "And thus every man, by consenting with others to make one body politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation to every one of that society to submit to the determination of the majority, and to be concluded [bound] by it."
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   John Locke then dealt with the problem of having to wait on unanimous decision before any action can be taken. He stated:

   "For if the consent of the majority shall not in reason be received as the act of the whole ... nothing but the consent of every individual can make anything to be the act of the whole, which, considering the infirmities of health and avocations of business which ... will necessarily keep many away from the public assembly; and the variety of opinions and contrariety of interests which unavoidably happen in all collections of men, it is next [to] impossible ever to be had."
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   It has sometimes been argued that a bare majority of one person scarcely justifies the making of a final decision for the whole body. It has been argued that it would be better to have a substantial majority of perhaps two-thirds or three-fourths. In the Constitution a provision of this type was incorporated in the text for the purpose of initiating amendments. A two-thirds majority is also required for the purpose of overriding a Presidential veto. Nevertheless, this requirement was considered dangerous when applied to the routine business of the Congress. Alexander Hamilton explained it as follows:

   "To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision) is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser number.... The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority....

   "The public business must in some way or other go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority in order that something may be done must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater and give a tone to the national proceedings. Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good."
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   Nevertheless, the American Founders had suffered enough from the tyrannical conduct of Parliament to feel highly sensitive to the rights of minorities. Thomas Jefferson referred to this in his first inaugural address on March 4, 1801, when he said:

   "All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression."
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   We have already treated the problems faced by minorities. It is important for us to remember that every ethnic group in the United States was once a minority. We are literally a nation of minorities. However, it is the newcomers who feel they are not yet first-class citizens.

   It is the responsibility of the minorities themselves to learn the language, seek needed education, become self sustaining, and make themselves recognized as a genuine asset to the community. Meanwhile, those who are already well established can help. The United States has built a reputation of being more generous and helpful to newcomers than any other nation. It is a reputation worth preserving. Once upon a time, we were all minorities.