Wistful reflection is a mighty force; it can turn The Great Depression into The Good Ol' Days or the 18th Century into the halcyon days of power to the people, unlike today when pointy-headed elitists are enslaving us by straying from our founders’ ideals. I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or scream as I watch Tea Partiers not only pine for these days but argue that anyone who doesn’t is historically ignorant. Before I explore this I want to state clearly that I have tremendous admiration for the architects of our democratic republic. I do, however, believe that a society should endeavor to perfect itself over time. I won’t presume to speak for our Founding Fathers, but I suspect they would agree. My quarrel is not with our nation’s founders but with my contemporaries who think we’ve veered dangerously off course ever since powdered wigs went out of vogue.
I first want to clear up the misconception that the Constitution was designed to reduce the size and scope of the federal government. On the contrary, it was drafted in order to increase the power of the federal government. Before the Constitution was ratified, the U.S. was operating under the Articles of Confederation, which created a central government that was far too weak. While the delegates to the Constitutional Convention feared a central government that was too powerful and they did seek to limit its intrusiveness, they understood above all that we needed to make the federal government stronger if we were to survive as a nation.
Federalists who were pushing for this Constitution with greater power vested in the national government were essentially in campaign mode trying to persuade those who feared central authority that it wouldn’t be so bad. I’m not suggesting that the authors of the Federalist Papers weren’t legitimately interested in small government, but that circumstances compelled them to spend an inordinate amount of time stressing limited government in order to gain the requisite support for a new constitution which, as a matter of necessity, created a more powerful federal government.
We campaign in poetry and govern in prose. Idealized visions are great but they tend to fall apart once exposed to reality. It’s unfair and meaningless to compare person A’s campaign promises to person B’s administration because the latter involves actually dealing with the real world. For example, with the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson gave us one of the world’s great masterpieces. In that document he points to the self-evident truth that all men are created equal and that their rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness are unalienable. That’s terrific except Jefferson was a slave owner. In this regard, Jefferson’s actions repudiate his own eloquent words. Such is the nature of the conflict between the very tidy theoretical world and the messier, far more complex real world.
At our nation’s inception, many Founding Fathers supported slavery and feared a powerful government. We see their preferences reflected in the early days of the republic. We also see an elitist form of very limited democracy. Only rich (land owning) white males had any political franchise at all. They could vote for Representatives, but for Senator or President, they could only vote for those who vote for these elected officials. Women, Blacks, Native Americans and Whites who didn’t own land had no say whatsoever.
As circumstances change we need to adapt. I’m willing to bet that Microsoft didn’t have an employee handbook when it was run out of someone’s garage. So what? We can endlessly debate the appropriate size and reach of government and still come no closer to a definitive answer than if we were debating whether green or purple is the prettier color. Hamilton, Jay and Madison were brilliant men, but luckily we’re not bound to follow in perpetuity whatever they imagined in the 18th Century. Through Constitutional amendment, reasonable if controversial interpretation, or changes regarding matters on which the Constitution is silent, we’re no longer bound by some of the less enlightened 18th Century conventions and therefore not condemned to live in a country without a truly free and democratic society.
