Assault on the Principle of Federalism

By Douglas V. Gibbs

I was accused recently, by a hard left liberal, of not understanding the concept of American Federalism. That is akin to a communist accusing me of not understanding freedom. Be it Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, or Barack Obama, the assault on the Constitution, and the principle of federalism, has been unrelenting.

True federalism was intended to be the constitutional restraint on the federal government's powers, where the citizens of the states should be the masters, rather than the servants, of their government. The American Revolution was fought against a highly centralized state (British Empire) that was headed by a despotic chief executive (King George III) who pulled the strings of the British mercantilist economic system as an instrument of using the colonists as a mere source of revenue. The Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution in order to give the American federal government limited powers, while still guarding against governmental consolidation, dominant executive power, and mercantilistic policies.

A mercantilistic economic system is built on protectionism, government franchise monopolies, a state-run banking system, and interventionism that benefits the government and its supporters, at the expense of the general public. This kind of hyperinterventionist approach to the economy is anything but capitalism. Adherence to such a intrusive system flies in the face of federalism. The liberal reverence for intrusive statist systems initiates a journey that always leads to economic interventionism, social engineering, and bigger government that uses the powers of the federal government to achieve some kind of "national fairness," while attempting to eliminate the constitutionally afforded sovereignty of the individual states.

Federalism from a Jeffersonian point of view teaches that the closer government is to the people, the more likely it is to be the servant of the people, rather than the master. Local government best governs over local issues, and a federal government should only serve as a protector, and preserver, of the union that binds together the local governments (or, the states). If the power is transferred from the states into a consolidated federal governmental power, the inevitable consequence is despotism. A concentration of power in a few hands leads men to a mentality of gangsters battling for control. All power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely. (1)

The Founding Fathers understood the danger of a consolidated, centralized federal government. The worst tyrants have always been consolidationists, or the enemy of concepts like American Federalism, and States' Rights. Knowing this, the supporters of big government statism must try to convince the public to trust centralized government power. Creeping incrementalism needed to be used to slowly introduce the concept that all political power consolidated in the hands of the federal government can be trusted to serve the general will, rather than the self-interests of those in power. Of course the entire idea is a lie, and the Founding Fathers knew it. James Madison's dictum in the Federalist Papers states that if men were angels, there would be no need for government at all. Just because statists promise to act in an angelic manner "for the public good" if they are given enough power doesn't mean they will.

Statism of this kind is nothing new, and the Founding Fathers were well aware of its existence, and the tactics that accompanied such a concept. Eighteenth century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the mind behind the methods of the French Jacobins that eventually led France into the destructive upheaval of the French Revolution, supposed the existence of a"general will" that does not necessarily appear as something obviously expressed by the general public, but is presumed to be known by the ruling elite. A kind of "we know what you want and what is best for you" attitude that supposedly exists simply because of their elite positions and higher-institution intellectualism.

The Founding Fathers denied the existence of a general will, nor did they believe the federal government should follow policies for the general idea of the public good. Such a view collided head on with American federalism, as provided by the U.S. Constitution. The majority of the founding fathers were in fact repulsed by Rousseau's theory that the best way to govern was to "dissolve the people into a homogeneous mass, abolish decentralization, and remove representative institutions." The Founding Fathers saw such a view of government as a system that could not be in sharper contrast to the American traditions of constitutionalism, federalism, localism, and representation. (2) In fact, the Founding Fathers that held on to the Jeffersonian idea of a limited federal government hated and feared the Jacobin theory of "general will," believing that such a concept would subject all voluntary associations to government control in the name of "the people," and their "will," as interpreted by a ruling elite, which would ultimately lead to serfdom, and the end of individual liberty. (3)

Coupled with the concept of an ever-expanding government as a threat to federalism is also the concept of consolidated taxing and borrowing powers in the federal government, which the Founding Fathers that adhered to limiting principles believed would lead to "a suppression of the republican state assemblies, by depriving them of political importance, resulting from the imposition of dispensation of taxes." (4)

The fears of governance through centralized government chipping away at the principles of federalism came to reality when the big government politicians of the Federalist Party came to power in 1790. From 1790 to 1800 Congress's spending skyrocketed, as did taxation and governmental borrowing. More government debt was accumulated than necessary for any government expenditure programs, as was the plan. The objective was to concentrate economic and political power in the federal government, and effectively abolish federalism and states' rights. (5)

With a national debt that grew to over $80 million by 1800, the statism was rejected and the Federalist Party was removed from power in a close vote in 1800. The big government Federalist Party disbanded by the 1820s, and it took 35 years to pay off the national debt, which was accomplished (despite increases to the debt because of two wars) by Andrew Jackson. In fact, on January 1, 1835, the government had a positive balance of $440,000, and was free from public debt. The debt free economy lasted for two years, and during that time the federal government was running a surplus, the government practiced true federalism, operating on the concept of a limited federal government. In return, stability was given to our republic, which in turn secured the blessings of liberty. (6)

Unable to seize control of the federal government through political prowess, and unable to destroy the constitutional limiting principles of federalism in such a manner, the statists turned to the judiciary. The original intention of the founders was for the judicial branch to be the weakest, and the least dangerous to liberty, of the three branches of the federal government. John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the United States, and an adherent to the concept of a powerful, centralized federal government, sought to whittle away at federalism through the courts, declaring that federal judges were "supreme" over the elected representatives of Congress. Marshall, and his fellow nationalists, sought to assert the court's "supremacy" over both state legislatures, and state courts, politically neutering the states in the federal system. (7)

According to Madison's notes on the Constitutional Convention (8), and John Taylor's "New Views of the Constitution of the United States" of 1823 based on the notes taken on the Constitutional Convention by Robert Yates (9), the argument that the federal government should have veto power over the state courts was rejected. In fact, the Constitutional Convention also denied the U.S. Congress the power to veto acts of state legislatures. The dominant agreement was that there should be no possible infringements of states' rights, including through the courts. The states were to remain sovereign, and the only job the federal government was supposed to have was to protect and preserve the union. "The word union is inexplicit. It may imply either a perfect consolidation; or an association for special purposes, reaching only stated objects, and limited by positive restrictions. Of civil unions, the matrimonial is the most intimate; and yet the parties to it are invested with separate and independent rights." (10)

In Marbury v. Madison in 1803, Marshall established the courts as the final arbiters of the Constitution, against the original intent of the Constitution, in his written opinion of the ruling of the case. In Fletcher v. Peck in 1810, Marshall attempted to subvert the constitutional concept of states' rights. John Marshall was attempting to establish precedent, a tangled web of court rulings that would eventually create a legal structure of constitutional law that would ultimately work to reject the Constitution itself, and establish the courts as the final stop for all legislation and power, virtually giving the judiciary the power of an unelected oligarchy. (11)

To attempt further compromise against the concept of states' rights, John Marshall deployed a lie originated by statist Alexander Hamilton that indicates the states were never sovereign, and that the birth of the Constitution, and the basis of federalism, was the result of a national plebiscite. "The whole people," wrote Marshall, "gave the national government its powers, and no state can interfere with the exercise of those powers." (12)

Judge Andrew P. Napolitano has written that Marshall's theory is both historically incorrect, and intellectually dishonest. Article VII of the Constitution disproves Marshall's notion by stating that the ratification by ". . . nine states shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution." (13)

In the end, the opponents of federalism realized that the main tenant of the limiting principles could not be defeated so easily because the true source of liberty is explained in the Declaration of Independence where it is provided that our rights are God-given. If God is the source of the rights of men, then government would never be able to convince the public that it is in the general will for the federal government to take those rights away, and provide for other rights determined, and provided, by the elite, intellectual class of progressive bureaucrats. Therefore, in order to grant liberty, and take liberty away, the government needed to become the sole arbiter of all things, and the only way to do that is to subvert the Constitution, and eliminate God.

The present administration, in true statist fashion, is passing unconstitutional legislation in an effort to subvert the Constitution while handing the federal government unprecedented powers, while declaring that America is no longer a Christian nation (and doing so in foreign countries, no less) - just as the enemies of the true principle of federalism would expect from one of their own.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

(1) British Historian Lord Acton's Famous Declaration, Hamilton's Curse by Thomas J. DiLorenzo, page 21.

(2) America the Virtuous: The Crisis of Democracy and the Quest for Empire by Claes Ryn, Page 72.

(3) Freedom and Federalism by Felix Morley, page 41.

(4) The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition of America, 1788-1828 by Saul Cornell, pages 177-178.

(5) The Federalist Era: 1790-1801 by John C. Miller, page 53.

(6) Hamilton's Curse by Thomas J. DiLorenzo, pages 49-51.

(7) Ibid, page 84.

(8) James Madison's Notes on the Constitutional Convention of 1787

(9) New Views of the Constitution of the United States by John Taylor of Caroline

(10) Ibid

(11) Hamilton's Curse by Thomas J. DiLorenzo, pages 86-87.

(12) Ibid, page 88.

(13) The Constitution in Exile by Judge Andrew Napolitano, page 49.