Constitution Day: The forgotten holiday
Sept. 17 is Constitution Day, arguably the most forgotten designated day in America. The mainstream media will say nothing of it. No parades or city council proclamations. No three-day weekend, beer busts, or barbecues in its favor. It is as though it never happened. Probably not one in 10 can tell what happened this day in 1787, it has been forgotten for so long.
Still, on this day, the Constitutional Convention ended, and the Constitution was sent to the states for ratification, thus institutionalizing liberty in America more fully. This positively affected everyone in the United States and is probably the most important day in our history — so special that millions flood our borders illegally to benefit from it.
For nearly 6,000 years of recorded history, governments best described as regimental dominated mankind. Only for a few fleeting moments in the past has individual man had anything to say concerning the restrictions leveled on him. Under an occasional benevolent monarchy or an unconcerned king, man has in rare instances been left to himself and thus somewhat free. And even more rare were the instances when as in Athens, Rome, or at Runnymede, the people, sometimes through persuasion and often by force, instituted changes allowing individual freedom to flourish for a brief time.
Our experiment with liberty was one of them.
Still, until 1787, man did not know how to harness government. Liberty is, in fact, freedom from excessive government, and the biggest enemy to individual liberty is and has always been government. But the Constitutional Convention, ending Sept. 17, did just this.
We abolished kings forever in favor of presidents selected by the state legislatures (before the 17th Amendment) for a short but defined period of time. We took away the president’s power to make decrees (even laws or rules) over us, allowing him in a state of the union address to merely suggest changes but otherwise only to either sign or veto law made by the legislative branch.
The legislative branch, consisting of representatives for the states (the U.S. Senate) to protect states’ rights from federal intrusion and the peoples’ representatives (the House of Representative) to protect the people from federal intrusion, made all of the law. Both legislative branches from different perspectives had to approve every law imposed upon the people, and all law had to adhere to the constitutional list (Article I, Sec. 8, Cla. 1–18).
Historically, the two areas most sensitive to the people were excessive taxation, as all monies expended were extracted from the people, and unpopular wars, as all injuries, deaths, and suffering were absorbed by the people. Under the Constitution, there can never be an unpopular war as the peoples’ representatives (The House of Representatives) have total power over raising and funding the army. They must consent to the war by declaration (because they provide blood and brawn for it), and they alone authorize the treasure for it (Art. 1, Sec. 8, Cla. 11): “All bills for raising revenue shall originate” with them (Art. 1, Sec. 7, Cla. 1). The Constitution, if followed as designed, ended for all time both unpopular taxes and war. America became the first nation in history placing the people in charge of both. Moreover, funding for war could not be extended for more than a two-year time period, thus requiring that the war remain the will of the people (Art. I, Sec. 8, Cla. 12).
The Constitution is marked by four divisions of power, the first and most important being between the states and the federal government with a fear of a national government being dominant. Our Founding Fathers, under a new concept called federalism, allowed two governments to co-exist, neither to be over or under the other, with primarily external issues governed by a federal government and internal issues by the states: equal partners, like a marriage. All power not specifically listed in the Constitution remained with the states. The federal government’s powers were listed in Article I, Section 8, Clauses 1–18 or what the states agreed to give them later, but anything thereafter added by amendment required three-fourths of the states to approve (Article V). It was decidedly a limited government from the outset with few federal laws restricting the individual.
The other three divisions divided power at the federal level. Separation of powers is basic to the Constitution with one body, the legislative branch, making federal law; another, the executive branch, enforcing it; and a third, the judicial branch, adjudicating it. But none of these branches were to legislate, execute, or adjudicate in a manner to erase or undermine the first division of power between the states and the federal government. No Founding Father supported this.
The Bill of Rights, demanded by the states as a condition of their ratification of the Constitution, further restricted the federal government. Amendments 11–27, thereafter approved by three quarters of the states, altered some parts of the Constitution. Still, the federal government remains limited and on notice to remain subservient to the people.
The Constitution remains an enemy to big government, largely supported by both political parties and liberals and conservatives alike, because big government is an enemy to individual liberty. Perhaps this is the reason why so few wish to honor it or bring attention to it on Constitution Day. Americans might awaken to their extensive loss of liberty.
The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.
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