Return to the Constitution

The Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America. It was carefully constructed to protect individual liberty and had built in checks to keep the government from overstepping it's enumerated jobs. The states had a voice, the people had a voice and when they got out of hand, SCOTUS was there to keep them in line. The checks and balances were not only built into the government, but the citizens had checks as well. The 1st Amendment to the Constitution prohibits Congress from passing any law that limits free speech, freedom of the press, the right to assembly; giving the citizens at large the right to speak up against their government, elected officials and the laws and policies. The states used to have voice, but the progressives took that away. State legislatures used to elect Senators and their job was to protect the states interest on the federal level, since the states created the federal government. The Founders knew that the federal government would never limit their own power, that's why their powers were limited in the Constitution.

Just as the Founders had anticipated, Congress repeatedly tried to over step their bounds and the Supreme Court was there to keep them in line. Congress usually relied mainly on 3 clauses to justify their overstepping of granted powers. The first is the "General Welfare" clause, which is not a power granted by the Constitution. General Welfare being mentioned in the preamble does not give it force of law. Article 1 Section 8 does mention general welfare, but it is mentioned with the power to tax, provide FOR common defense and general welfare of the United States. That doesn't mean providing defense and general welfare, only the means, through it's limited powers. The second clause is the "Necessary and Proper" clause. This clause allows the Congress to pass laws that are necessary to carry out it's limited, enumerated powers. Congress has taken this as an elastic clause, stretching the meaning to imply anything that has a justifiable end. The last and often most abused is the "Commerce" clause. Congress is allowed to regulate trade between foreign countries, Indian tribes and between the states. Congress has abused this by claiming that anything that can effect commerce falls under this clause.

For the most part, SCOTUS rejected these unconstitutional power grabs by Congress. It was after FDR threatened to "pack" the courts with new appointments, including "assigning" junior justices when any justice of the Supreme Court reached 70, potentially raising the number of Supreme Court justices and creating and appointing federal judges at all levels below. I haven't figured out why the court rolled over, but they did and allowed Congress and the socialist President to greatly expand it's power. FDR appointed more Supreme Court justices than any President except for Washington, so I guess in a sense he did get to "pack" the court. It took nearly 60 years for SCOTUS to find it's spine.

The Constitution is written in plain English and is available for all to read. I get irritated by those that say it's a living document, in a sense it is, it allows for itself to be amended. The liberal sense, they mean it's living so they can reinterpret the meaning to fit what they want it to mean. "the admin" claims it is a document of negative liberties (in a sense he's right) because it tells what the federal government can't do to you, "the admin" feels it needs to say what the government must do for you. In America, we do for ourselves, or at least we used to. The other irritating item is those that claim the Constitution is a racist document, they often cite the 3/5 compromise. They claim the Founders were racist because they listed slaves as 3/5 of a person in census counting for determining Representatives to Congress. Actually, the northern states argued that slaves should not be counted, southern states wanted slaves counted. The result was the 3/5 compromise. Anyone that thinks the Constitution is a racist document needs to read up on Fredrick Douglass.

What can we do? Can we do anything?