“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite.” (James Madison, “The Federalist Papers, No. 45)
“To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical [fanciful] idea” (Madison).
I suspect every member of Congress would say that America has a “limited” government, and a few might even agree with Madison that no government can “secure liberty and happiness” unless the people are virtuous. The problem is, what people SAY and what they DO are often two very different things, and in no case is this truer than with the current American national government, from top to bottom.
China might claim to have a “limited” government, too, but that requires the question of how to define limited government. Obviously, the only limitations the Chinese government has are limitations the government places on itself. That is one theory of “limited government”—government has all authority, and thus the only restrictions it has on its powers are completely self-imposed. Actually, that is largely true in America today as well, especially among the Democratic Party, which would love to have the power the Chinese Communist Party has. This theory of “limited government” is better called “totalitarianism”—the government does whatever it wants to do, or can get away with, which amounts to about the same thing.
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But that is not the theory America was founded upon, which is exactly why the Left, Harvard, and the Democrats are doing everything they can to destroy the traditions and foundations of the country. The first quote above by James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” give us a second definition of “limited government,” one called “constitutionalism,” i.e., a country writes a “constitution” which is designed to protect the freedoms of its people by delineating exactly what the powers of the government are. That is precisely what America’s Founding Fathers did.
The powers our Constitution gives the federal (national) government, according to Madison, are “few and defined.” Congress is especially “limited” because it is the legislative branch of government, which has the authority to make laws, and it is laws that restrict freedom (often necessarily so). The President and the Courts have no constitutional authority to make laws. They both do it all the time now, but they aren’t supposed to—not under the Constitution as written by our Founders. All three branches pretty much do whatever they can get away with, fight it out amongst themselves, and only pay attention to the people when they need their votes, which politicians do everything they can to buy with the people’s own money. You talk about a corrupt system, but, folks, every government in history has been corrupt. Period. The American government is no exception. “Power corrupts,” Lord Acton wisely, and accurately, wrote, and that is true in the United States as well. Our Founders hoped to limit that corruption, but in vain.
Notice this interesting quote from Madison: “The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society, and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.” One purpose of the Constitution is to provide for the election of wise, virtuous rulers, and to ensure they stay that way as long as they hold office. Is that what we have in America today?
Our Constitution specifically defines, in Article 1, Section 8, what the powers of Congress are. There are about 17 of them, you can read them in two minutes if you are a slow reader. The first 10 Amendments to the Constitution tell Congress what it CANNOT do. I encourage the reader to compare what Congress is doing today with the powers listed in Article 1, Section 8, and see if you can find 99% of what our current Congress spends taxpayers’ money on. They pay absolutely no attention to the Constitution. They do what they can get away with; we can, and do—occasionally—vote some of them out, but does that change anything? Do the ones we “vote in” abide by the Congressional powers listed in the Constitution? Not so much.
Ultimately, as Madison said, a government of, by, and for the people that murders babies, allows the mutilation of children, opens its borders to non-citizens, and 1,000 other unconstitutional things is not the kind of government Madison and our Founders hoped America would have. And a people who allow such aren’t the “virtuous” people he said would be needed to “secure safety and happiness.” Only two things can prevent unlimited government: a totalitarian government that limits itself, which is basically a contradiction of terms, or a virtuous people who elect honest, virtuous representatives who will faithfully abide by the powers given to them in the Constitution. Ultimately, in America, the problem rests with the people, not our representatives. The people must be virtuous to elect virtuous leaders, or we will never have an honest, limited government. A people with little virtue will mean a corrupt, virtual totalitarian government, e.g., the Democratic Party, the CCP. We all complain about the government, but “the government you elect is the government you deserve” (Thomas Jefferson). We have no one to blame but ourselves. The American people are the problem, not the politicians. AOC and Jasmine Crockett would never have gotten where they are if thousands of people hadn’t voted for them.
Madison put it succinctly: “The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded.” America has abandoned that, and we are not the better for it.
My substacks are a little unique. Not just current events, but history, our Founding Fathers, what America was meant to be, and Biblical exegesis. Check them out. “Mark It Down! (mklewis929.substack.com), and “Mark It Down! Bible Substack” (mklbibless.substack.com) Both free. Follow me on “X”: @thailandmkl. Read my western novels, Whitewater , River Bend, Return to River Bend, and Allie’s Dilemma all available on Amazon.
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