(LifeSiteNews) — The rule book of government is the Constitution of the United States.
But government is not a game, nor are the rules of government the playthings and toys of the falsely characterized “three co-equal branches of government.”
It does not follow, however, that politicians follow the rule book of government, which is, of course, the federal and state constitutions. What politicians usually are trying to preserve are not their constitutions, but what the accepted and long-standing violations have been. These violations usually – but not always – have been initiated by what is supposed to be the weakest and least significant of the three branches, the judiciary. And these violations have become a body of conglomerated court opinions, also known as “case law.”
Please note that the federal Constitution begins with the phrase “We the People.” This moniker was controversial even in 1787, because while a convention is a temporary assembly of representatives chosen by the citizens, it is at best only an imperfect instrument of their will. No convention or constitution can be perfect because it is part of an imperfect and fallen world. Yet, oaths are taken, mostly calling upon God as a witness, to follow the rules.
In 1787, it was argued by some of the Founding Fathers that the style “We the People” ought to have been “We the States.” It would have fit better into the Declaration of Independence, which made no pretense of being an act of the people, but rather the “unanimous declaration of the thirteen united [sic] States.” Everyone knew that there was a serious problem with British Loyalists, who by many estimates were a full one-third of the populace.
Furthermore, “We the People” opened the door to “democracy,” a phrase used constantly today, but which was considered pure poison by the Founding Fathers, and cannot be found anywhere in the Constitution.
Indeed, Ben Franklin’s famous admonishment was not “a democracy, if you can keep it.”
The next step was approval of the Constitution, which had to be certified by state conventions. A state referendum, or plebiscite, where all the citizens voted approval or rejection, might have been a better method, but was unheard of in 1788. It certainly would have been more “democratic.”
The advantage of a convention is that it allows for elected representatives to debate and convince each other, something a referendum cannot possibly do. Let’s encapsulate how the speeches of Patrick Henry made prescient warnings that the new Constitution might be a Trojan Horse:
“Mr. Madison speaks of imaginary checks and balances. What good are they, sir? A consolidated government means a government by force, and the death of liberty. The tax power will enslave our people.”
But this brings us back to the question of “Who owns the Constitution?” Because “We the People” is the accepted explanation, we should be grateful that it is not “We the Legislators” or “We the Elite of the United States.” But “We the States of the United States,” just may have eliminated some confusion in our day. It would demonstrate that the Constitution is a creation of the states, not the other way around.
Do I hear a voice that says, “But the subsequent states were created by the federal government!”
Yes, they were. But they were admitted as fully equal to the original thirteen, so once admitted, they possessed complete sovereignty over federal control, except in the few exceptions cited in Article 1, Sec. 10.
Let us evaluate some of the accusations against Donald Trump about violating the Constitution. Some are valid, but they are thrown by people who themselves are very content with constitutional violations that they happen to like.
I will not attempt to go into the details as to how and why the following constitutional violations occurred in the past. If you try to confirm the allegations by a Google search, good luck, because the algorithms have been tampered with by the Deep State.
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For violations of the federal Constitution, let’s begin with the Bank of the United States, signed into law by one of our greatest Americans, George Washington.
Next up would be John Adams, signing into law the Sedition Act, in 1798.
Then there is the false understanding, accumulated by mostly liberal historians, of mandatory obedience to judicial review, which actually did not occur in the 1803 Marbury v. Madison case. If the case had gone against Jefferson, he would not have enforced it anyway.
Which is exactly what Andrew Jackson did in the Worcester v. Georgia case. And it is these same historians who say that Jackson’s refusal to obey the Supreme Court was unjust, but that is not the point. Andrew Jackson’s defiance of mandatory obedience to judicial review was perfectly constitutional, proving that the executive, and not the judiciary as was cited in Federalist No. 73, is the true “final filter” regarding court decisions.
Attention, citizens: SCOTUS decisions are merely advice, not law, to be taken or rejected by the executive.
Are there any more examples? Lots of them. Thomas Jefferson violated the Constitution with the Louisiana Purchase, and admitted it. However, he did not admit to the Embargo Act being a violation in 1808, but it certainly was. It was a self-inflicted blockade of our own ports!
James Madison attempted a national conscription draft into the military during the War of 1812. It failed, thanks in part to Daniel Webster.
In the 1820s Quincy Adams was in favor of the Bank of the United States, and favored federal “internal improvements.” These would have been mostly advantageous to the North, thus making Southern states share the burden of expense.
In 1857, the judiciary outlawed congressional control of the territories regarding slavery, in the Dred Scott decision. That is the true reason that northern opinion was infuriated, not because of sympathy for Dred Scott and slaves. This would supposedly lead to a planter aristocracy instead of smaller, and more numerous, family farms. President James Buchanan liked it, so he enforced it.
The violations of Abraham Lincoln are too numerous to mention. He was no wise and patient sage, but rather a poorly educated, and always a crafty, “more-government” politician, working for a centralized (fascist) constitutional interpretation. The throne of the Lincoln Memorial is flanked by fasces, the symbol of Mussolini’s and Hitler’s centralization, and quite fashionable even in America for a brief time, when the Memorial was dedicated – in 1923.
Lincoln did not know American history nor our constitutions (Declaration, Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution), except very selectively. Pretty much how we define a liberal today.
His worst violation was the most obvious: he suppressed secession, which is a natural law right and is specifically recognized in the Declaration, accepted by the British in the Treaty of Paris, confirmed in the Articles of Confederation and implied in the Constitution. It was also a condition for joining the union, laid out by New York, Virginia and Rhode Island, and therefore implicitly accepted by all the other ten states.
Secession was also confirmed by former presidents, such as Jefferson, Madison, Quincy Adams, Pierce and Tyler. And in Jefferson’s case, he did so while he was president, in his very First Inaugural!
Lincoln’s paved highway of a centralized, non-constitutional government is cemented with the blood of 610,000 lives. His tenure as president perfectly justified Patrick Henry’s warning, “A consolidated government means a government by force, and the death of liberty.”
From here, it should not be hard to list what both Roosevelts and both Bushes, Wilson, Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Clinton, Obama and Biden have done. Undeclared wars, national parks, forests, refuges, monuments. Wage and price controls. Outlawing private ownership of gold. The Federal Reserve Bank. Fiat currency. Entangling alliances. The welfare state. Foreign aid.
The presidents not herein listed merely accepted what the ground-breakers performed. I will not spare even Coolidge, but his violations were indeed few.
Perhaps Grover Cleveland may be exonerated, but I will listen to any voice that suggests I have missed something regarding his presidency.
Donald Trump is violating the Constitution regarding tariffs and funding of in-vitro fertilization. He is not when it comes to the defunding of the bureaucracy, for the Treasury Department is part of the executive branch, and the executive branch carries out the will of Congress. But it gets to decide if the congressional actions are constitutional.
So, Trump also has an oath to the Constitution. Whatever violations he is performing, he still has the authority to halt those done by the other branches. All foreign aid, not just USAID, is obviously unconstitutional. See the 10th Amendment. If Congress disagrees and thinks it is serious enough, then they can impeach him. That is their ultimate weapon against a rogue president.
And good luck with that. He has survived not only one, but a second one that was clearly… UNCONSTITUTIONAL!
Nor is he acting unconstitutionally by using executive orders that reverse previous executive orders that are unconstitutional. Two negatives make a positive.
Yes, he is reckless with his words regarding Greenland and Canada. It could lead to war. If this appears to be inconsistent with his obvious efforts regarding ending the Ukraine war, you are correct. It reminds me that we once had a popular war-mongering president who won the Nobel Peace Prize: Teddy Roosevelt.
It would appear that Donald Trump’s understanding of and devotion to the Constitution matches perfectly with an extremely long list of American politicians and presidents. And it includes all four faces on Mt. Rushmore.
If you wanted a perfectly constitutional president, Ron Paul would have fit the bill. And he would have had one valuable asset not possessed by Trump: humility.
But he would have been equally vilified.
