I have received a great deal of positive feedback from last week’s article, especially regarding the need for many citizens to retake a civics class. For that, I thank you. As an educator at heart, I would like to conduct an in-depth, multi-installment study of our Constitution. These studies will not be every week. With our current political climate, as events unfold before us, they will need to be addressed.
It is a good idea to look at what is actually said and not said in our Constitution. I have found that few have read it cover to cover and when cherrypicked, they miss important parts. With that being said, a little background first.
For the first eight years of this nation’s history, 1781-1789, it was governed by what is known as the Articles of Confederation. The Articles were a “league of friendship” among otherwise sovereign states.
Trying to break away from a strong central government, these 13 independent states purposely created a weak government with the intent that the states would retain most, if not almost all, of their powers. A few exceptions were given to the central government, but it is clear from the document that the authors’ greatest fear was losing their freedoms to a strong centralized government.
The entire government under the Articles was composed of a single legislative body. Delegates from the states served one-year terms with a maximum of three years; after six years they could run again. Each state chose as many delegates as they wanted between 2-7, but each state only had one vote, so each state’s delegates had to come to a consensus.
Article VI placed some restrictions on the state’s rights. States could not send or receive ambassadors to or from any foreign nations nor could they make treaties. States were also restricted from making alliances with each other, nor could they put import taxes on foreign goods on top of what the Congress placed.
The rest of Article VI and through Article VIII all deal with war.
Only Congress – not individual states – could declare war. States were also restricted from maintaining any standing armies; only militias of the people and a number of naval ships were allowed by Congress. The British Army had secured and amplified King George’s tyrannical rule over American colonists, and the authors of the Articles of Confederation did not want to repeat that mistake.
As for legislation, two-thirds, or nine of the 13 states, had to agree for any bill to pass into law. To amend Articles, all 13 states as well as their state legislatures had to agree to the proposal.
Such requirements made it almost impossible to pass any laws, and completely impossible to pass amendments. But that was the point. A government that could not pass laws could not become tyrannical. What really crippled the Articles was that the national government had no way to collect taxes from the states. The national government could basically requestion monies, but the states could simply decline.
For the average American, the Articles worked just fine. They had little to do with the national government nor did they care to. However, there were men like James Madison, Edmund Randolph and most importantly, Alexander Hamilton, who believed the weakness of the government was stifling growth and was doomed to fail. The government could not raise revenue to pay its bills let alone pay down the massive debt it had incurred. Without a revenue stream, no nation or private citizen would ever loan America money, and Congress could not regulate trade – both of which were stifling the economy. Men such as these three tried to fix issues through amendments, but under their system any changes were normally blocked, oftentimes by Rhode Island alone.
In an attempt to reform the Articles, in 1786 several delegates from five states met at Annapolis, Maryland, to attempt to figure out how to make change possible, especially with interstate and foreign commerce.
Realizing the difficultness of their task, the delegates instead made a new proposal. In May 1787 they invited all the colonies to send delegates to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to propose changes to the Articles of Confederation. That meeting would later turn into the Constitutional Convention.
When the delegates finally met that hot summer, they had a difficult task: create a stronger government they knew they needed yet were afraid of. Luckily these men were well schooled in political philosophy and history. They studied all forms of government, both real and theoretical. One such political philosopher, Baron de Montesquieu, whose book “The Spirit of Laws,” suggested that a separation of powers was the key to stopping a stronger central government from falling into tyranny. By creating three branches of power and separating them from each other and in some ways pitting against each other, no one branch could get too strong. Last week’s article on the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the Executive Branch’s decision on bump stocks is a perfect example of separation of powers.
Our Constitution may not be perfect. But, to completely misquote Winston Churchill, it’s the worst form of government except for all the rest. Its goal was to accomplish two objectives: protect the people from the government and to protect the government from the people. The Founders were scared of both.
Our Constitution has gone through several changes over the years – 27 in fact – but at its heart it remains the same.
I heard something recently that I appreciated: “Maybe instead of trying to change the Constitution we should try reading it.”
We must reintroduce ourselves with our Constitution. We should read it line by line so that hopefully we gain a clearer understanding of what is in it. As Margaret Thatcher once said, “Constitutions have to be written on hearts, not just paper.”
James Finck is a professor of American history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He can be reached at HistoricallySpeaking1776@ gmail. com.
