Wednesday - February 06, 2002
How the Federal Government Finally Conquered the States, or How the War
Between the States Really Ended
The history of our nation can be described as a
continuous fall from grace starting in 1789 when the US Constitution was
ratified, although it might be better to say the unauthorized convening of the
Constitutional Convention was the real beginning of the decline. The War Between
the States was the biggest challenge to state power, with the final nail in the
coffin of states rights being driven in 1913 with the ratification of the
seventeenth amendment which negated the effect of the Great Compromise and
destroyed all state power within the federal government. That year can be said
to be the real end of that war, with the federalists finally vanquishing forever
any semblance of state power.
Okay, that was a bold, and some might say,
blasphemous statement. But I don't hate the Constitution, I just think that it
came about because a contingent of politicians wished to increase the power of
the federal government. The brilliance of the Constitution is that great men
like George Mason and John Randolph were able to stymie these federalists by
forcing the attachment of the Bill of Rights, and by insisting on protecting
state power with the result of the adoption of the Great Compromise. Their move
succeeded in stemming the growth of federal power for seventy-some years before
Lincoln was elected to power and invaded the Southern states. (It's offensive to
some anymore to even suggest that the Southern states had a legitimate cause
apart from their vile support of slavery, but the entire tragedy of that war was
that the repugnance of slavery was juxtaposed with states rights. I am not
down-playing the seriousness of slavery, but it has little directly to do with
other political issues. That the two issues were linked was a
disaster.)
Perhaps this background will
offend many people who have been poorly taught in the subject of US history or
who happen to have different view points, but I want to show how the drive to
increase federal power is not simply a result of Franklin Roosevelt, as is often
claimed, but a tendency throughout our nation's history, and it can be claimed
is a natural human tendency. I also wanted to remind everyone of the nature of
politicians, and that with rare exceptions, they were just as partisan and
power-hungry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as they are
now.
Okay, I've rambled a bit, but
here's the gist of my point: The Great Compromise, as you'll recall from your
high school civics classes, was the reason we have a bi-cameral legislature - -
that is we have a House of Representatives and a Senate. There were two agendas,
one for a legislature that represented the states, and one for a legislature
that represented the people. Unable to decide which was better, they brilliantly
made both.
But we no longer have the
same bicameral legislature. The original version of the Constitution had the
Senators chosen by the state legislatures, making the Senators the
representatives of the States. The Senator was expected to look out for the
interests of the states over the interests of the federal government. In 1913
the seventeenth amendment stripped this power from the state legislatures and
provided for the direct election of Senators by the population of the state.
Thus, there is no longer any difference between a US Representative and a
Senator, except for the term of office. It is popular to pretend that the Senate
is a more "deliberative" body, but in truth they are even more reactionary
because the Senators have four years each to hide before anyone cares about
looking at them for re-election.
How
did this happen? Well, in the corruption that was rife during Reconstruction,
the people were led by power hungry federalists to fear the power of state
governments, and rather than elect new state governments, they enacted the
seventeenth amendment and let the federal government take charge of all
government power.
The result of this
abrogation of power? It's been obvious, hasn't it? There is no longer any check
on the reach of federal power. When the feds wanted to meddle in welfare, the
states couldn't stop them. When the feds wanted to curry favor with voters by
creating social security, the states were powerless to prevent it. Now the
federal government is itching to have total control over the minds of our
children by controlling all education, and there is nothing the states can do to
stop it except to feebly protest. There is no longer ANY limit on the reach of
federal power, nor do the people even seem to imagine that there ever was. Now
the feds want to rescue us from every snowstorm with FEMA , control our health
care, and they've already been controlling cable television content and
prices.
The federal government has
increased its reach for the simple reason that it can. There is nothing to stop
them, they are immune to any attempt at restraining them. The checks and
balances set up in the Constitution between the branches of the federal
government are important, but without any restraint on the three branches, they
have ganged up on the states and robbed them, and ultimately us, of their
sovreignty and freedom.
No attempt to
limit the growth of federal power can succeed until the seventeenth amendment is
repealed and power returned to the states. Almost any other attempt at reform
would be meaningless.
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