Frankly, anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with the thinking of the framers – all of them – is well aware that the fear of an overpowering federal government was a prime concern among everyone. It’s why Madison mentions at only briefly and says it was the part of the Constition that would be most popular.
Denying the founder’s fear of an over-powerful federal government is, frankly, historically illiterate. It’s as sensible as “the civil war was not about slavery,” or “native Americans lived in peace and harmony before the white man.” It’s a ridiculous argument only made because someone is trying make some political point.
You’re way better off sticking with “Fuck the founders.”
I’m far from a scholar on the Founding Fathers, but it seems to me to paint all the Founding Fathers as unified on this (or any other) point is to totally distort the disagreements that many of them had.
How do you reconcile the views of Hamilton and Jefferson on the strength of the central government? In my humble view, it seems like you’re trying to say that Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul agree on a range of issues.
Well, Sanders and Paul are both opposed to tyranny, but they seem to have very different ideas about how to prevent it. Just like the Framers came to the table with very different ideas on the powers of the central government, and they made many compromises, but when you get down to it, Hamilton and Madison seem to argue rather passionately that the power of the central government, while limited, needs to be increased.
Therefore, the term “too powerful central government” isn’t really a descriptive phrase. It’s like saying neither a mild-tongued Midwesterner nor a Szechuan-born Chinese like food that is “too spicy.” A “too powerful” central government seems to have very different definitions to different Founders.
Because even Hamilton – the most pro-big federal government guy you could name – never imagined a US government as powerful as it now is. Pretty much no government in the world of 1776 was as intimately involved with the everyday lives of its citizenry as our is now. We’re off the charts in terms of their frames of reference.
That doesn’t mean they were necessarily right – there is a credible argument to be made that the world has changed so much in 220 years that we need to redo the whole thing, etc, etc. (Hence my comment to stick with “fuck the founders.”) I don’t happen to agree, but there’s a case to be made.
However, the claim that an overpowerful central authority was not a prime concern of the framers, and one they specifically sought to address in the Constitution, is one for which no credible case can be made.
Slavery. Jefferson opposed a government that would both be opposed to it and strong enough to abolish it.
That’s the origin of all that states’-rights stuff - slavery. Later it became segregation. There were excuses and simple lies about that all the way through, and it is disappointing to see them continue now that the basic historical reasons are gone.
We’re also off the charts on everything else they also conceived of the United States. Let’s just take the military – Hamilton wanted a strong standing military, as I understand it. But how could he ever imagine what we have today? Nearly three-quarters of a trillion dollars spent on the armed forces each year. Millions of men and women in uniform. The ability to destroy enemies with the press of a button, not to mention having the fate of the earth depending on the President’s willingness to adhere to mutually assured destruction.
As far as any of that was from anyone’s conception in the 18th century, I’m not sure how one can say that it is unconstitutional to have two and half million Americans under arms.
Similarly, although it may have been inconceivable to the founders that there would be, say, an Environmental Protection Agency that gets in everyone’s business while in furtherance of the commerce clause, that doesn’t mean that’s unconstitutional, either.
I’m just not seeing too much substance to this argument that if there are conflicting views on what the Founders could imagine, versus what the Constitution allows, that we should limit ourselves to what the Founders knew about.
As I was writing that I was including reservists in the total. But since my point was about the size of our standing armies, you’re totally right.
But since there was somewhat fewer than four million people in the US at the time of its founding, I think one and a half million is still a pretty astounding number.
I think you miss the entire point of my participation in this thread. You may want to go back and see where I came in.
I came in to address one very incorrect idea: that the framers did not see the need for a check on the federal government. They did, and put it in there, only to have it later removed. Those are facts beyond reasonable dispute.
That was my main point. Full stop.
I also opined that the removal of it was unwise, and outlined some of why. But as I said earlier: I’m not here to argue political theory; I was just pointing out that the current balance of power was not, in fact, what the framers intended.
I do not think the founders were all-knowing or all wise. I do not think they anticipated the world we live in today. I do not think every problem is best resolved by asking WWTFFD? You’re making a lot of incorrect assumptions about my ideas – you’re arguing against things I didn’t say and don’t think.
I apologize if I’m misrepresenting your argument, but you did seem to say that the 17th Amendment was a mistake because it undermined the Founders’ intent, and you also said that pork barreling (among other things) were undesirable.
You then went on to say that the Founders all agreed on the danger of a “too powerful” central government.
I’ve just said that the things you find undesirable are, in fact, constitutional, and that what the Founders thought 200 years ago shouldn’t be more important than the actual powers they agreed the government should have.
I’ve also just said that I disagree that the Founders should be considered a unanimous bloc against a “too powerful” government, because they seem to have had different ideas on what “too powerful” meant.
I’m not trying to misrepresent you, I guess I just don’t understand why I have done so.
Reverse the order of the two things. I started by saying the founders feared a central government, and took measures to prevent it, which were later removed. Thus, the balance of powers we have now is not what they originally envisioned.
That’s what I came in to say. Are we agreed there? Yes? If so, my main point is made. Finis, done. Whether the change has been salutory or not is a separate issue from whether or not such a change has been made. That is a matter of clear record.
Stop. Long pause.
Separate from that empirical, factual observation, I offered my opinion that such safeguards were wise, that the 17th amendment was a bad idea, and that I prefer local government to distant; but as I’ve indicated repeatedly, one can reasonably disagree with that opinion, and many here undoubtedly do.
And whether or not something is constitutional has nothing whatsover to do with my opinion of its wisdom of its advisability. Lots of things that I dislike are perfectly constitutional.
Should a 2/3rds majority on Congress be allowed to repeal a state law?
I mean, it seems to be that it’s a federal system. The federal government makes federal law, and state governments make state law. Why should one be able to veto the other?
Because the scope of federal law has crept into the areas formerly the exclusive province of state law. The original idea was that the federal government was one of supreme power in its domain, but its domain was limited to the specific grants of power.
Now we live in a world where the federal government can legislate on virtually any subject, under the theory that it’s all “interstate commerce.”
If you think there’s a problem, solve the problem you want to solve.
If you believe the problem is that the definition of “insterstate commerce” has been abused, the logical amendment would be one that more clearly defines interstate commerce.
Avoiding the problem you say you want to solve and giving the states veto power over federal laws - even ones that are unquestionably in federal jurisdiction - has “unintended consequences” written all over it.
Except that the repeal amendment doesn’t have a damn thing to do with the appointment of senators. You might as well say that the Founders would have supported agriculture subsidies because they believed in farming.
