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Ravaging the Republic (Part 1)
By davidjeffers | July 17, 2008
“Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.”
John Quincy Adams
The brilliance of the United States Constitution is its balance of powers; three branches of government where no one single branch becomes autocratic over the others. Today’s republican form of government is upside down and if the ship is not righted it will continue to circle the drain until it is deposited into history’s trash heap. The blood of too many Americans have been spilled defending our freedom to allow that to happen.
A closer look at the three branches of government at the state and national level will show government working quite contrary to what the Founding Fathers envisioned.
If any branch of government would be stronger than the other, it would have to be the legislative branch. Our legislators are elected by the people and are supposed to represent these people. Congress has the constitutional powers to pass laws, declare war, impeach and try the President and judges, just to name a few. This power is tempered by judicial review of laws as pertaining to their constitutionality and by the President’s right to veto. It was further tempered by having two houses in the legislature. That advantage has been lost since the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment (more on that in a bit).
The House of Representatives was designed to be directly influenced by the people and to keep those elected officials on a short leash, hence being elected every two years. We read in Federalist Paper # 52 the intent of the Framers for the House of Representatives:
As it is essential to liberty that the government in general should have a common interest with the people, so it is particularly essential that the branch of it under consideration should have an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people. Frequent elections are unquestionably the only policy by which this dependence and sympathy can be effectually secured.
The House of Representatives is elected every two years and the apportionment of seats determined by population. On the other hand, the Senate was to represent each state equally, regardless of size, and the original intent was the state selected its two senators. The state would have real power at the federal level by its two representatives in the Senate. This allowed the smaller states the same power as the larger states. We read in Federalist Paper #52:
In this spirit it may be remarked, that the equal vote allowed to each State is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual States, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty. So far the equality ought to be no less acceptable to the large than to the small States; since they are not less solicitous to guard, by every possible expedient, against an improper consolidation of the States into one simple republic.
Again that advantage was lost to the states because they no longer have control over their senators; they are elected by general election like the House of Representatives. The state no longer has its senators on a short leash; there is no direct influence by the governor or the state legislature. Influence is solely upon the will of the people. We need to rescind the Seventeenth Amendment and bring the balance of power back to its original intent.
When senators are elected by the people every six years, they are under less restraint than if they were beholden to the states. This is why you see career senators who can build up huge campaign war chests and are practically immovable from office. Only a highly informed and involved electorate can keep a senator in line.
We now have a US Congress, and in some cases, state legislatures who have usurped their constitutional powers of passing laws. One oxymoron that has become part of the American lexicon is “judicial tyranny.” That is pure nonsense! Tyranny is defined as “arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority.” It is impossible for the judiciary to be tyrannical because it has no powers to exercise or abuse. The public has been lied to when it is told that some court has enacted some law through judicial tyranny.
We will take a closer look at the judicial branch next week.
Topics: David Jeffers |
2 Responses to “Ravaging the Republic (Part 1)”
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July 23rd, 2008 at 6:33 am
Excellent post. I have been questioning this 17th Amendment for over a decade, and I’ve wanted to return to it. It is like voting for Congressmen for 6 years! When we had over 30 states that were Republican, we should have had 60 Senators. This was not so. We are not as divided as the msm would like to think we are. When 2 or 3 counties can determine the fate of the Senate, that is where we really lose. Yes, I’m referring to the large cities. Am I wrong? Look at the votes…
March 11th, 2009 at 2:39 am
[…] It is this misunderstanding of our founding documents that we are told the courts can make law or some court ruling is the law of the land. Many conservative organizations, some of them Christian, claim that they need our money to fight judicial tyranny. I wrote in my Talon series “Ravaging the Republic”: […]