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The Constitution
Read
the constitution here.
Return to the Fine Highway
"The complexity of social organization does not change. Our
technologically sophisticated industrial society is more complex than the
agrarian society of America in the eighteenth century. In this regard, that was
"a simpler world." But the complexities of politics (politics
here meaning the science of governing) do not change much. The basic
political problems confronting the Framers of our Constitution were as complex
as our political problems today -- perhaps more so, because they were striking
off into the dangerous unknown, whereas all we need do is return to the fine
highway we were once on." (Georgia U.S. Congressman, Lawrence Patton
McDonald, We Hold These Truths, p. 13, ‘76 Press, 1976)
The Federal Government Shall Not...
"The words, the federal government shall not, run through our Bill of
Rights like a refrain. This was the spirit of liberty, the keystone of our
greatness. But the Bill of Rights operates only against federal power. It does
not affect state power. It prohibits no action by state governments, orders
none, and provides the people no protection against usurpation by the various
states...
"Under the principles of English common law which were grafted into the
first eight amendments of the American Bill of Rights, every person has
inviolable rights to certain things (freedom of speech, assembly, religion). If
he illegally harms others in the exercise of any of these rights, he is subject
to punishment, after fair and impartial trial, by the government to which he is
answerable for his private activities.
"That is why the Founding Fathers directed the Bill of Rights
exclusively at the federal government: people were to be answerable for their
private activities only to the state authority, except with regard to powers
which the Constitution clearly gives to the federal government." (Lawrence
Patton McDonald, We Hold These Truths, p. 39,41-42, ‘76 Press, 1976)
A Miracle
"It appears to me, then, little short of a miracle, that the delegates
from so many different states (which states you know are also different from
each other in their manners, circumstances and prejudices) should unite in
forming a system of national Government, so little liable to well-founded
objections." (Letter from Washington to Lafayette, 7 Feb. 1788, quoted in
Chaterine Drinker Bowen, Miracle at Philadelphia, Boston: Little, Brown,
and Co., 1966, p. xvii)
The Delegates
"The success of the [Constitutional] convention was attributable in
large part to the remarkable intelligence, wisdom, and unselfishness of the
delegates" (Dallin H. Oaks, The Spirit of America, p. 15, Bookcraft,
1998)
"There never was an assembly of men, charged with a great and arduous
trust, who were more pure in their motives, or more exclusively or anxiously
devoted to the object committed to them." (James Madison, quoted in William
O. Nelson, The Charter of Liberty, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co.,
1987, p. 44)
"When you assemble a number of men to have the
advantage over their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all
their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local
interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect
production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system
approaching so near to perfection as it does... The opinions I have had of its
errors, I sacrifice to the public good." (Benjamin Franklin, Notes of
Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Reported by James Madison, p. 653,
quoted in Nelson, The Charter of Liberty, p. 57)
The Great Experiment
"We owe every other sacrifice to ourselves, to
our federal brethren, and to the world at large to pursue with temper and
perseverance the great experiment which shall prove that man is capable of
living in a society governing itself by laws self-imposed, and securing to its
members the enjoyment of life, liberty, property and peace; and further, to show
that even when the government of its choice shall manifest a tendency to
degeneracy, we are not at once to despair, but that the will and the
watchfulness of its sounder parts will reform its aberrations, recall it to
original and legitimate principles, and restrain it within the rightful limits
of self-government." (Thomas Jefferson, as quoted in W. Cleon Skousen’s, The
Making of America, pp.238-239)
Separation of Powers
"In dividing the federal government into three branches, the Framers of
the Constitution not only created a means of balancing state power against
federal power, but also a way to divide and balance federal power against
itself. They knew the intrinsic nature of government: power is its essential
ingredient, and love of power the primary motivation of governing officials.
They were giving the federal government great power, and attempted to chain it
down by telling it what it could and could not do. But what if it disobeyed?
The Constitution makes the three branches separate, but not independent. It
provides overlapping responsibilities for all branches, and gives special
prerogatives to each. This makes them rivals, each jealous of its own power.
Each branch has the means to inhibit, if not prevent, the actions of the others.
This rivalry was deliberately created, and it was intended to act as a restraint
to keep any of the three branches from disobeying the Constitution."
(Lawrence Patton McDonald, We Hold These Truths, p. 30-31, ‘76 Press,
1976)
"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." - U.S. Constitution
10th Amendment
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