Founding Fathers & Federalism

[Steve Schear <azur@netcom.com>]

Joseph Sobran


Founding fathers thought the federal government should be kept on a short leash

The word "federalism" is enjoying a new vogue these days, as Republicans
promise to give power "back to the states." But the way the power is given
"back" has little to do with what the founding fathers meant by
"federalism."

In the current welfare reform bill, for example, the states are given power
to regulate welfare programs, but with strings attached. The power is
considered
to come from the federal government, which supposedly "grants" it to the
states.

This is a reversal of what our ancestors meant by federalism - namely, that
the states were the source of the federal government's powers. The states,
through the Constitution, "delegated" a few carefully specified powers to
the federal government. Whatever wasn't delegated was "reserved" to the
states and the
people.

The federal government was supposed to be kept on a short leash, lest it
claim powers never given to it. Today it routinely claims countless powers
unmentioned in the Constitution. When a national health-care program is
proposed, for example, we no longer ask the basic question: Just where does
the Constitution grant this power?

Answer: Nowhere. Then how did the federal government acquire so many
unlisted powers? By the insidious process of "consolidation," which the
Constitution was meant to prevent. So why didn't the Constitution prevent
it? Because the federal government systematically reinterpreted the
Constitution in its own favor.

In the 1798 Kentucky Resolutions, Thomas Jefferson warned that the federal
government must never be allowed to become the final arbiter of the extent
of its own powers. His warning was disregarded. Eventually the Supreme
Court was allowed to treat the Constitution as a "living document" - one
whose meaning was not fixed but fluid, alterable at the discretion of those
currently in power. Of course this defeats the whole purpose of a
Constitution, or indeed any written law.

What would a truly federal system look like? The possibilities are
infinite. If the states were permitted to keep their individuality, we
might have a checkerboard of socialist and free economies, instead of a
single "mixed" economy imposed on all. Americans who preferred a welfare
state, even if it meant higher taxes, might move to New York; Americans who
preferred laissez-faire might migrate to Texas.

In the long run, the states that imposed too many burdens on their citizens
would lose population, business and finally tax monies to freer states. A
federal system would create a sort of "market" in states, with citizens as
consumers choosing among them.

To the founders it was axiomatic, that government should be limited not
only in the number of powers it exercised, but in the extent of territory
it ruled. The small and local were preferable to the vast and national. If
one state or local government should exceed its proper powers, citizens
should be able to escape it without leaving the continent.

"Federalism" has come to sound complex, abstract and technical. But it's a
simple principle: Keep power as local as possible. Give a central
government very few powers, and hold it strictly to them.

The idea will become vivid to anyone who reads the Federalist Papers, the
writings of the Anti-Federalists, the works of Jefferson, and of course the
Constitution itself. The whole debate over ratifying the Constitution
revolved around the question whether the federal government, given a few
powers, would proceed to "usurp" more power - tyrannical power.

All sides in the ratification debate would have agreed that the federal
government should never be permitted to reach, or even approach, the size
and
scope it has achieved in the late 20th century. The chief difference
between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists is that the Federalists
insisted that it could never happen under the Constitution. History has
proved the Anti-Federalists right.

It's a scandal that so few realize this. It's also an indictment of our
educational system, which blandly purveys the view that America's history
has been one of smooth continuity and "progress." The more the Constitution
is disregarded, the more we're assured that it's being "fulfilled."

The remedy isn't private militias. It's guerrilla education, to ensure that our
children learn what the schools won't teach them.

Joseph Sobran is a syndicated columnist.


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