The Unlimited Blessings of Limited Government June 20, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Articles of Confederation, checks and balances, Constitution, Dr. Robert Owens, Enlightenment, Natural Law
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The battles were over and the war won now the hardest task of all: how to secure the rights fought for while providing a government strong enough to endure. The Framers gathered in Philadelphia for the purpose of proposing amendments to the Articles of Confederation. Within days they decided instead to frame a new government launching an experiment in centralized but limited government.
That they believed the people to be the source of legitimate authority is exposed in the Preamble which begins, “We the People.” They based this belief upon the Enlightenment concept of Natural Law, that God endowed men with unalienable rights. Many people in Western Civilization believed in Natural Law realizing that these rights, though endowed by the Creator as inherent prerogatives, would not continue to exist in organized society unless protected by limitations on government power. The Framers believed Natural Law not only conferred rights it also established limits to the scope of government and man-made law. In their mind no legitimate law violated the possession and enjoyment of the rights of man. In declaring independence our ancestors proclaimed their purpose as assuming the station, “to which the laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them.”
Knowing all this was one thing, but devising a manner in which not only authority but also power could be conceded from society in general to a government which by the nature of organization consists of a much smaller number was quite another. How was this power to be limited? How were the rights of all to be protected from the power of the few? What was to stop the concentration of power into the hands of factions combined for their own benefit? How to provide a government with sufficient authority and power to ensure the security and order necessary for everyone to enjoy their natural rights, and yet restrained enough to allow them to do so? This was the problem which confronted those locked in Independence Hall in 1787 devising a government strong enough to do good, yet limited enough to do no harm.
The concept of a written Constitution was the first step. England had no written constitution. It was ruled by tradition and precedent. After the Revolution the Framers knew traditions and precedents can change. So they looked to a written Constitution to provide a framework and guide for the new government, thus setting boundaries and establishing them for all to see. They provided a means for change in the amendment process, but they made it difficult and cumbersome so that change would not be easy or readily accessible to the whim of a moment or the rulers of the day.
Beyond this primary recourse to a lasting written code the Framers sought to employ two vehicles for the limitation of government; a federal system wherein power is divided between the parts and the whole, and representation through which the voice of the people would speak. To accomplish these twin goals the States retain their sovereignty and provide a legislature made up of two houses: the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives was and still is popularly elected by all eligible voters. Every two years these closest of all national leaders return to the people for affirmation and a renewed mandate. And the Senate, which was originally elected by the states through their legislatures who were all at least partially elected by the public thus, ensuring both: more input from the people and the federal nature of the government. The President and Vice President were and still are indirectly elected by the members of the Electoral College, which are chosen in accordance with procedures designated by the individual states, thus once again enhancing the federal nature of the government. The President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, chooses the judges of the Federal Courts.
This system, which we’ve come to call checks and balances, provides that no law can be enacted without a majority vote by representatives elected directly by the people, representatives chosen by the States and signed by the President, whose election is a result of a combination of the people and the States. Thus the authority of the people is employed, the voice of the people is heard, yet the indirect manner in which it is applied and the muted manner in which it is heard seeks to ensure a government insulated from the volatile passions of the day.
What the Framers sought was a government of reason. The Enlightenment thinkers believed through the use of reason people discover natural rights and natural law. They also believed reason is the source of a government capable of protecting those rights by enforcing that law. To this end they created a federal system to diffuse power and a representative republic to provide a voice for the people safeguarded from the emotions of the moment. They hoped that reasonable people working within a federal government divided between branches and surrounded by a written constitution would ensure the authority of the many would pass through the hands of the few for the blessings of all. At least that was the hope.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
We Must Know Who We Are to Decide What We Will Be April 12, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Articles of Confederation, checks and balances, Constitution, democratic, Dr. Robert Owens, federal, private property rights, republic, separation of powers
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Forget about the debate the government parties and the geriatric media want us to have, “Are you a Republican or a Democrat?” The debate we need to have concerns what we were meant to be, not who they tell us we should be. Instead we should discuss issues of substance such as, “Are we a Republic or a Democracy?” for this will lead us to the truth. In today’s polarized political atmosphere conservatives shout “Republic!” while progressives scream, “Democracy!” In truth, neither term fully describes the boldest experiment to provide individual freedom and release human potential in the history of mankind. There is a third term needed if we are to grasp the qualities which makes us who we are.
The United States was birthed in the fire of revolution against the denial of personal freedom and the expropriation of resources by an authoritarian government. The first attempt to balance the rights of the people, the prerogatives of their local states and the need for a centralized structure to face other nations on the world stage, the Articles of Confederation proved inadequate. Then the Framers crafted a constitution establishing a democratic federal republic. All three terms democratic, federal, and republic are needed to express the unique nature of the American Experiment. Not one of them conveys the strength of the three and therefore cannot stand alone. Together they outline the form of government and the manner in which it shall be chosen, yet even these loaded terms leave unstated the inner essence of the last best hope of humanity. For it is the separation of powers, private property rights and the checks and balances built into the system that has safe guarded liberty and unleashed the potential of the American people.
The fact that instead of a reasoned debate about who we are, where we came from, and how we got here we stand on opposite sides of barricades shouting slogans at each other highlights the need for all of us to educate ourselves in the history of the principles and values upon which our country was founded. The current public educational process is a government mandated system which forces teaching to a test that’s forgotten as soon as it’s passed. The teaching of American History has been presented as a boring jumble of names and dates for a few semesters in 12 years since before any of us were born. It’s time for anyone who wants to understand what’s going on in our rapidly evolving political landscape to dig in and educate ourselves. We cannot allow those who want to subvert the home of the brave and the land of the free either to the right or the left to sway us with slogans and catch phrases. We have to know enough to know when we’re being conned by ideologues with a hidden agenda.
Ideologues reduce all things to the dimensions of their own thoughts. They oversimplify and overload words with meaning effectively blocking the channels of communication. They turn complex political, social and economic principles into cat-calls, catch-phrases and campaign slogans designed to move masses to emotional responses not individuals to reasoned reactions. It was the ideologue Karl Marx who reduced history to a conflict between capital and labor, charged all problems to the inequalities of capitalism, projected a continually deteriorating situation and then pointed to communism as the only answer.
We must resist the temptation to reduce our American experiment to an ideology. We cannot allow this bait-and-switch tactic to lead us to the mirage of a collectivist utopia. We need to understand this would deny and distort the constitutionally limited government we inherited. Ideologies start with a conception of mankind as made-up of interchangeable parts projects universally comprehensive answers and ends with enforced uniformity in society. In contrast America has facilitated diversity, individualism and a variety of life paths.
So, “Are we a Republic or a Democracy?” First of all, we need to understand these are not equivalent or interchangeable terms. Today both republic and democracy have become loaded with ideological baggage as in the Democratic Peoples Republic, or Social Democracy. To be specific: republic describes a form of government wherein representatives stand in place of others to deliberate, decide and lead. Democracy means from the people. But there is the third term that must be reckoned with if we’re to understand America: federal. Federal means a form of government in which a union of states recognizes a central authority while retaining certain residual powers of government. Putting this all together, the United States of America was designed to be a federation of states with a republican form of government chosen through a democratic process.
Those who declare we’re a democracy want majority rule while striving to build a majority of people dependant on the government tax, tax, tax, spend, spend, spend, elect, elect, elect. Those who say we’re a republic have problems with the direction taken by the representatives whose very existence proclaims this to be a republic. This is where the third word fully impacts the other two. The federal nature of the American experiment declares to all that this is an elected representative government of limited power and separated authority. We are not a centrally-planned unitary government based on mob-rule. If we will learn who we are perhaps then we will see clearly who we will be.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
