Henry Kissinger once famously asked, "Who do I call if I want to call Europe?" The question drew laughter, as if he was trying to make a joke, but Kissinger was serious. Since then, European leaders that would like the eclectic European nations to join under one federalist tent have been trying to produce an answer to that question ever since. The folks working to create a unified Europe have done everything they can, from staging a constitutional convention, to bullying any country that disagrees with the idea. And the result became a European Union both weak in structure, and weaker in unity. It turns out that holding together a union of nation states with different languages, cultures and backgrounds is harder than it looks.
The individual colonies that were destined to become the United States of America weren't much different. Though each colony shared the same language, English, everything else was as different, if not more so, than the current collection of European states that are now trying to get along under a single flag. The difference, however, is that the American Colonies had a common interest that united them, and a wise group of statesmen that understood the union was only to serve the purpose that forced the new states together into a single nation.
Independence.
The American Colonies desired independence, and each of them knew that by themselves, as individual entities, they could not defeat the mighty British Empire. Any chance for victory depended upon the willingness of the eclectic colonies to get together, get along, and take down the enemy in unison.
Britain, angry that the petulant colonies were willing to disobey the Crown's demands, tightened her grip, and the Americans detested the Empire for it. Determined to squeeze revenue out of the complaining colonists, partly for revenue, and partly as punishment, the Crown devised various taxes and strong arm tactics like the Quartering Act. The Colonists disobeyed, and organized into a union to overthrow the shackles of an oppressive regime.
Europe, the Founding Fathers determined, did not use a system conducive to liberty. Therefore, the rag-tag union of sovereign entities needed a system of government different than any in existence in Europe. In other words, the Founding Fathers purposely made the American Form of Government unlike anything in Europe.
The difference proved to make America exceptional, prosperous, and eventually a super power.
A centralized government with too much authority tends to become corrupt, and dictatorial. Therefore, the goal was to decentralize the federal government as much as possible, giving it only the power it would need to serve the union. In other words, the founders were determined to limit the federal government's authorities to the point that the states would remain separate, self-governing, self-reliant, individual entities.
The fear of too much power in the federal government led to the creation of the Articles of Confederation. The fears, however, fueled the creation of a union that left the federal government so weak that the government was unable to protect the union of states sufficiently, nor enable the workings between the states to flow freely. The states bickered over everything, imposing trade tariffs upon each other, stifling commerce between each other. Something had to be done, and something had to be done quick, to either make the union more perfect, or disband the union altogether.
The call for a meeting to fix the Articles of Confederation went out, in order to give the federal government slightly more power. Determined to keep the limiting principles of the Articles intact, and for the new country to not be anything like Europe, the Founding Fathers carefully wrestled with their dilemma. One thing they were sure of was that in Europe the citizens only knew what it was like to live under big government led by monarchies, dictators, and despots, and America had no desire to be like that.
It turned out that the Articles of Confederation were unable to be fixed to their satisfaction. A new document would need to be hammered out. A Constitutional Convention convened, behind closed doors, mostly in secret. Various schools of thought fought it out for five months, arguing with each other to the point of fist fights, and delegates walking out. In fact, New York's delegates were so upset with the demand for limiting principles, and the allowance to give the agricultural southern states as much say in the new government as the industrial north, that all of the delegates walked out, leaving only Alexander Hamilton behind. Hamilton, a big government guy, without his Federalist brethren in his corner, became more of a listener by then, realizing that his radical ideas of making America more European was not going over well with those who had the dominant opinion that the federal government should remain as limited as possible with its authorities.
In 1787 the patriots unveiled their labor of love, and the U.S. Constitution was born. Article I, Section 8 carefully listed the powers granted to the federal government by the states. Article I, Section 10 carefully listed the few things the states were not allowed to do, so that they could not hinder the federal government's few authorities. Madison was later asked to write a bill of rights, and the first ten amendments were prepared, proposed with the purpose of ensuring that the federal government not trample on the God-given rights of men, nor the sovereignty of the states. At the end of that Bill of Rights, just to make sure it was all understood, the ninth and tenth amendments were present as the crowning touch.
The 9th Amendment states that just because some rights are not listed as something the federal government can't trample on in the Constitution, or the first eight amendments, it does not mean that the federal government can betray those rights. The 10th Amendment, the ninth's companion, adds that any powers not granted to the federal government by the U.S. Constitution belongs to the states. The states are self-governing entities brought together into a union only due to the need to protect them, and the federal government is there only to protect, and preserve, that union, and nothing more.
The likes of Alexander Hamilton had hoped the Constitutional Convention would shed the limiting principles, and make America more "European," but alas, those that clung to the principles of a limited government prevailed. Ever since, those that believe in the power of a strong, centralized government have been chipping away at the Constitution through the misrepresentation of the document, and legal trickery through the courts designed to subvert the Constitution and take the power out of the hands of the states.
The Federalist Party faded by the 1820s because the people rejected the party's big government ideas, and chose the principles of limited government instead. The Democrats of the 1800s were men of Constitutional principles, determined to abide by the limiting principles of the federal government, which included battles to eliminate two centralized national banks, and a drive to eliminate deficit spending.
The Whig Party picked up the big government baton from the Federalists, later dissolving under the pressures of the abolitionist movement. Out of the ashes of the dying Whig Party emerged the Republican Party, a party that originally stood for big government, and was even willing to use federal troops to force the Southern States to "obey" the federal government's mandate, rather than enable the states to use their sovereign abilities to come to the conclusion themselves. The Cotton Gin, and an onslaught of abolitionist groups in the South would have brought the era of slavery to a close within the next decade or so, but the big government Republicans desired that the states be made to abandon slavery because the federal government made them do so. 700,000 lives later, Abraham Lincoln got his wish, and the unconstitutional war of northern aggression came to a close.
Progressivism infested the GOP, eventually leading to the first purely progressive president, Theodore Roosevelt. Then, somehow after the presidency of the man that carried a big stick came to a conclusion, the roles reversed, and the progressives gained control of the Democrat Party, and the Republicans moved into a more conservative direction, first fiscally, and later morally and socially. Progressivism has plagued both parties over the last century, but the GOP was able to produce three non-progressive presidents that served as counter-balances against the rising authoritarian progressive agenda. Harding, Coolidge, and Ronald Reagan appeared at times when the nation was on the verge of economic ruin, and their conservative strategies of lower taxes, deep spending cuts, and deregulation created periods of economic prosperity.
Harding and Coolidge, after creating the prosperity of the Roaring 20s, however, were followed (and preceded if you consider the damage caused by Woodrow Wilson) by a line of progressives that led to a Great Depression, and a federal power grab that had never gripped this nation during the 1800s, save for the unconstitutional actions of Abraham Lincoln.
Ronald Reagan, despite his tremendous actions as president, allowed spending to increase again later in his presidency under the demands of a Democrat Congress. He also made the error of amnesty for illegal aliens. In other words, even the great Ronald Reagan was susceptible to the aggressive and unrelenting attacks by the leftist agenda of progressivism.
Aside from those three presidents, every other president in the past one hundred plus years have been big government guys one way or another. Even George W. Bush, who is admired by most conservatives for his willingness to take on an enemy that uses tactics never before seen by this nation, was a big government guy when it came to most of his domestic policies. Bush's willingness to cut taxes, however, led to temporary prosperity, a prosperity eventually derailed by a progressive strategy in the housing market that eventually led to a collapse that hurled this nation into an economic downturn not much unlike the ones that Reagan and Harding faced at the beginning of their presidencies.
The choice was simple. In the face of an economic crisis we could lower taxes, cut spending, and the federal government could back off from its ridiculous regulations that creates a hostile environment for businesses, or we could continue down a path of progressive politics that would lead us closer to the dangerous path of being more like Europe. With blind faith in a big grin, and a guy who can read the heck out of a teleprompter, we stupidly chose the latter.
America was not ready to have the sovereign states supplanted in key matters of their own self-governance by an expanding federal government during the years following the Revolutionary War, but after over two hundred years of whittling away at it, the big government progressives have turned the American government into an overpowering, centralized leviathan that can only be tamed by the states flexing their sovereign muscles. The question is, are the states willing to follow through in nullifying the unconstitutional advances of the federal government, or will the states lack the unity it takes to combat the federal government's attempts to increase its influence over the affairs of the states?
Who will answer the phone of the future at 3:00 am? A president who understands the importance of state sovereignty and understands his primary role is to protect and preserve The Union? Or a big government progressive that desires we this nation to be more like the socialist states of Europe?
The decision is ours, should we choose to act while we still have a choice.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
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