Uncommon Sense | All American Blogger

Thomas Paine once quipped, “…a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right…” These words may not be familiar to most Americans but the pamphlet they came from, Common Sense, is an integral part of this Nation’s history. As Payne points out, anything that is left unchallenged for long enough eventually gains the appearance of being fact. On this point Payne went on to say that, “Time makes more converts than reason.” This is precisely what has happened with regards to popular understanding of the Constitution.

For instance, what is the common view of what Congress’ powers are as laid out in the Constitution? What are they forbidden from doing? How do you think most Americans would answer these questions?

Article I: Section 8 of the Constitution lays out specifically what the powers of the Legislative branch are:

To lay and collect taxes, duties, and imports and excises
To pay the debts of, provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States
To borrow money on the credit of the United States
To regulate commerce
To establish uniform rule of naturalization
To establish uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies
To coin money
To fix the standard of weights and measures
To provide punishment of counterfeiting the currency of the United States
To establish post offices and post roads
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries
To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court
To punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years
To provide and maintain a navy
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over the District of Columbia (Washington D.C.)
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof

Where in that list does it bestow upon Congress the power to purchase capital in companies in the private sector? Where does it mention Congress has the ability to develop healthcare programs? Where is education mentioned? Where is their ability to control gun ownership?

There is one phrase in the list above that has been manipulated to essentially give Congress limitless power: “to provide for…. the general welfare”

Providing healthcare could be taken to fall under “providing for the general welfare” as could controlling the ownership and bearing of guns (assuming we ignore the Second Amendment of course). In fact, nearly anything can be construed in some way to fall under “providing for the general welfare.” It’s really not a question of Constitutionality anymore. This being the case, what limits does Congress really have? Why did the Founders go to such lengths to spell out the powers given to the three branches of our government if they are all essentially allowed to do nearly anything anyway?

Thomas Jefferson wrote repeatedly of such potential abuses of the Constitution:

“Aided by a little sophistry on the words “general welfare,” [the federal branch claim] a right to do not only the acts to effect that which are specifically enumerated and permitted, but whatsoever they shall think or pretend will be for the general welfare.”

-Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1825. ME 16:147

“To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, that is to say, “to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare.” For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union.”

- Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on National Bank, 1791. ME 3:147

“They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please… Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straitly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect.”

- Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on National Bank, 1791. ME 3:148

“Where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy.”

- Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:386

“I suppose an amendment to the Constitution, by consent of the States, necessary [for certain objects of public improvement], because the objects now recommended are not among those enumerated in the Constitution, and to which it permits the public moneys to be applied.”

- Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806. ME 3:424

“The construction applied… to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate to Congress a power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imports, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States,” and “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof,” goes to the destruction of all limits prescribed to [the General Government’s] power by the Constitution… Words meant by the instrument to be subsidiary only to the execution of limited powers ought not to be construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument.”

- Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:385

“In every event, I would rather construe so narrowly as to oblige the nation to amend, and thus declare what powers they would agree to yield, than too broadly, and indeed, so br
oadly as to enable the executive and the Senate to do things which the Constitution forbids.”

- Thomas Jefferson: The Anas, 1793. ME 1:408

“I say… to the opinion of those who consider the grant of the treaty-making power as boundless: If it is, then we have no Constitution. If it has bounds, they can be no others than the definitions of the powers which that instrument gives.”

- Thomas Jefferson to Wilson Nicholas, 1803. ME 10:419

Jefferson makes a pointed case. If the Constitution gives Congress boundless authority, then we have no Constitution. The founders made efforts to spell out what the specific powers all three branches were to have and spelled out a process with which to amend the document to add or remove powers should the people wish to do so. In recent years we have seen abuses by all three branches of our government in which they assume authority and power not specifically spelled out for them in the Constitution: Justices which apply decisions on grounds outside of written law, ever-expanding executive authority, and the ability of Congress to pass laws concerning anything and everything imaginable. If there are no limits on the branches of our government, then what value does our Constitution truly hold? What value are amendments if our government simply skips amending and applies new powers to itself under no authority except its own will?

Where does the power truly lie in our Nation: with the people, or those that seek power in our government? Simply holding elections does not implicitly mean the power lies with the people. Even dictators hold elections.

If the people are not asked to bestow a specific power upon their government before the government uses that power, then the power could not possibly lie with the people. Government is simply exercising a power it believes it already has. If it asks for nothing, then it believes it has everything.

“Government is an institution in which the people who have the greatest drive to get power over their fellow men get in a position of controlling them.”

- Milton Friedman

In the 200+ years since the Revolution we have allowed our government to become one that in many ways mirrors the very government we sought to break away from. If this is the place we were to eventually find ourselves, then why was the Revolution even necessary?

We the people should be the sole holders of power not those who assume they have been given limitless power simply because they won an election.

We should be able to bear the fruits of our labor; not break our backs as slaves only to see ever increasing portions of our fruits carried away to pay debts that will never be repaid for decisions our government never had the power to make. Our children’s, children’s, children’s, children are now condemned to be slaves to debt and to pay for unsustainable programs and other commitments even before their grandparents are born.

“Time makes more converts than reason.”

Indeed. Reason and common sense were abandoned long ago when our nation forgot the Constitution.