Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host
Excerpt from my upcoming book: 7 Worst Constitutional Liars
Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson
The Progressive Era was a grave threat to the United
States Constitution. Defenders of the
Progressive Era explain that the time period from around the 1890s until the
end of the Woodrow Wilson presidency in 1921 was designed to overthrow
corruption in politics, and that the way to accomplish the deed was to initiate
a system of government more in line with direct democracy. Along the way the progressives strengthened the
role of the President of the United States (largely through the use of
executive orders and self-proclaimed “war powers”), established the Federal
Reserve, enacted the 16th and 17th Amendments, established legislation
targeting “political machines” and “large corporations”, and initiated a litany
of programs that allowed government to intrude upon local issues through “social
programs” and “social reform.”
The early emergence of the progressive political
movement is largely associated with political leaders such as Theodore
Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. In truth,
the cast of characters was vast, and contrary to academic opinion the political
beliefs of those players leaned more towards the teachings of Karl Marx, than the
foundation of principles laid out by the delegates of the Constitutional
Convention in 1787.
The
turn of the century was promising industrial change and technological advances
that convinced the progressives that the old world order must be swept away. Only a new world order would be able to
survive the coming changes. Resolutions
for the old problems, and the capacity for managing a rapidly growing
congregation of new ones, from the point of view of the progressives, required
government intervention to be activated at every level so as to be actively
involved in all of the allegedly necessary reforms. The Constitution, according to the
progressives, was outdated, and a dynamic system of direct democracy based on a
living and breathing constitution that evolves with the developing wave of
social change was the instrument needed to lead the charge into the new
century.
The plans of the progressives, however, were at
direct odds with the American System as it was established through the U.S.
Constitution. The original intent of the
United States Constitution demands that the federal government’s authorities
are expressly enumerated, and that the three branches of government are
separate and distinct. The States, as
the authors of the Constitution (through their delegates at the convention in
Philadelphia, and through their debates during the State ratification
conventions), were originally the parents over the federal government. The central government in Washington, D.C.,
was established to serve the States and We the People, not the other way
around. To guard against corruption, a
series of checks and balances were established, not only in an effort to limit
the power of any one person or segment of government, but also to ensure that
the excesses of pure democracy did not engulf the republic. As with politicians with too much power, the
people, as well, with too much democratic power, could not be trusted to keep
the system limited and true to its original established functions. The Founding Fathers both feared and despised
the destructive nature of pure democracy, and utopianism (progressivism by
another name), and specifically wrote the Constitution in the manner that they
did so that it may stand the test of time, and resist statist concepts such as
the General Will, Jabobism, and the impending assault by progressivism.
The Progressive Era, appearing scarcely more than
100 years after the ratification of the United States Constitution, sought to challenge
the thinking of the Founding Fathers, endeavoring to replace the concept of laissez faire with the more modern
scheme of collectivism through government schemes (policies championed by
supporters of Marxism, and Fabianism).
James Madison wrote in Federalist #45 that “The
powers delegated by the proposed constitution to the federal government are few
and defined.”
Thomas Jefferson, while not a participant in the
Constitutional Convention, was highly influential in the delegation,
corresponding daily with a number of the participants, including James
Madison. During his presidency,
Jefferson sought to put into practice the limiting principles of government
embedded in America’s founding documents.
Legislative accomplishments during the Jefferson
Presidency were few and far between, not because it was a failed presidency or because
America had a do-nothing Congress, but because the men of that era understood
the importance of keeping federal legislation within the scope of the
authorities granted by the U.S. Constitution.
Jefferson called good government a “noiseless course.” No new laws were needed, according to
Jefferson, and the laws that were put into play should not be complicated or
fit into some kind of long agenda that politicians believe to be necessary in
order to justify their existence.
Thomas Jefferson stated, “Laws are made for men of
ordinary understand, and should therefore be construed by the ordinary rules of
common sense. Their meaning is not to be
sought for in metaphysical subtleties which make anything mean everything or
nothing, at pleasure.”
Jefferson challenged the British Parliament,
condemning the legislature across the Atlantic Ocean of writing acts that were “tautologous,”
involved, and parenthetical jargon.”
From Jefferson’s point of view, British statutes were “barbarous,
uncouth, and unintelligible.”
While presidents like James Madison revealed how
important it was that the President of the United States served as a check
against unconstitutional legislation with his veto of the “Bonus Bill” in 1817,
which would have unconstitutionally earmarked federal funding for internal
improvements (an obligation that was considered to belong to the individual
States), it was never intended for the President to serve as a check against
Congress once the law was in place.
Article II specifies that the President “shall take Care that the Laws
be faithfully executed.”
President Theodore Roosevelt over a century later
used executive orders (1,006 of them) to take “independent action.” He believed a “strong President” may use
executive orders to do anything not specifically prohibited by the
Constitution.
In slightly over 100 years, the view of the
Constitution had evolved from the doctrine of enumerated powers, which said the
federal government could do nothing except what the Constitution authorized, to
Roosevelt’s progressivism, which said it was the “duty” of the president to do “anything
that the needs of the Nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the
Constitution or by Law.” Roosevelt later
admitted, “I did greatly broaden the use of Executive power.”
Woodrow Wilson took office in 1913 after an election
during which Theodore Roosevelt (a former Republican) ran as the “Bull Moose Progressive
Party” candidate with a specific intent to split the Republican vote. Incumbent Republican President William Howard
Taft rejected the idea of a central bank run by international bankers in charge
of America’s currency, therefore, he refused to support the new Federal Reserve
proposal. Democrat Woodrow Wilson vowed
to sign the act (among others) and was given the presidency through Roosevelt’s
interference.
In 1913, Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act, and
the States ratified the 16th Amendment (enabling direct taxation against the
people) and the 17th Amendment (changing the appointment of U.S. Senators by
the State legislatures to a popular vote).
The following year, war broke out in Europe. While the United States did not declare war
until April of 1917, America was involved in many ways in the War in Europe
from the very beginning.
During the First World War, President Wilson used “war
powers” to impose his progressive will against the United States at all levels
of American life. Wilson’s “implied
authority” led him to lead the charge in economic and industrial change, using
executive orders and administrative regulations to dismantle Article I, Section
1 of the U.S. Constitution.
Article I, Section 1, declares that “All legislative
Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which
shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”
During the Nineteenth Century Chief Justice John
Marshall had established the practice of judges legislating from the bench
through the unconstitutional concept of judicial
review, and during the early years of the Twentieth Century Presidents
Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson perfected the practice of legislating
through executive fiat – while, all along, claiming they were not usurping the
U.S. Constitution.
The War to End All Wars (World War I) did not
accomplish its aim of ending all wars.
It did, however, create an opportunity for socialism to take a major
leap forward. Woodrow Wilson took advantage
of the opportunity created by The Great War to implement his own idealistic proposals
for global governance, as well.
Progressive efforts in the United States expanded to a series of new
collective efforts aimed at addressing worldwide problems that were believed to
be beyond the capacity of individual nation-states to solve. While supporters of internationalism, such as
Woodrow Wilson, claimed that the right of nations to self-determination would
remain to be respected, the ultimate goal of many of those who sought a New
World Order was a global governance system.
They claimed that the loss of individual sovereignty of the various
countries was for the purpose of the “global good”. The early proposals led to the formation of
international organizations such as the League of Nations, the United Nations,
and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Other international organizations, such as
the Bretton Woods system (1944-1971) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade (GATT, 1947-1994) also emerged as a result of their collective drive for
globalism.
Progressives and socialists (the differences between
the two are few and far between) embraced these new international organizations
and regimes in the aftermath of the two World Wars, and worked to expand their
scope of power in the hopes of spreading the political principles of
collectivism worldwide.
Woodrow Wilson suffered a severe stroke October 2, 1919. Without Wilson’s support, the League of
Nations was never ratified by Congress.
Wilson served his remaining time in the presidency as an invalid,
relinquishing the Office of the Presidency to William Harding March 4,
1921. Wilson died only a few years
later.
The end of the Wilson presidency also brought to a
conclusion the Progressive Era. President
Harding, a Republican, campaigned on a motto of a “return to normalcy.” His successor, Calvin Coolidge, a strict
constitutionalist, would lead America away from federal intrusion into the
States, and into the most economically prosperous decade of her short history. The progressives, however, would return just
in time to send the world into a Great Depression. A manipulation of the currency by the federal
reserve, ill-timed protectionist trade laws, and a return to federal intrusion
into the States (largely through new social programs and public works programs)
through the presidency of Herbert Hoover, and then through nearly four terms of
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Teddy’s fifth-cousin), made sure the return to
normalcy was short-lived.
Theodore Roosevelt passed away January 6, 1919. After cheating death his entire life, he died
in his sleep at his Long Island estate.
He was 60 years old, and had been undone by a coronary embolism. Rumors have always swirled that say something
along the line that Teddy Roosevelt verbalized regret for his progressive ways
while on his death bed. The rumors have
never been confirmed, and while the gesture would be a welcomed one, if it
existed it came too late. Roosevelt, and
his fellow progressives, had already done their damage.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
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