When our politicians can change the meaning of the Constitution just by finding a new and creative way to interpret the text, there is no realistic limit on government power. If we allow them to do that, the federal government can change the Constitution without getting permission from the American people or the states – or going through any process. In that scenario, there is virtually nothing you can do to stop them. That leaves the government holding all the cards and puts you in a vulnerable position.
Is the U.S. Constitution Dead? Follow along to learn more about the Constitution and how it is interpreted today. Born in 1787 and primarily written by founding Father James Madison (with input and editing by Thomas Jefferson), this document, the first single-written constitution, remains sacred for most Americans. It lives mainly because it describes the structure of government and the rules for its operation, consistent with the fundamental human liberties proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence. Soon after the U.S. Constitution was published and talked about, other countries began to copy some of the basic concepts contained within the document. Poland was the first, in 1791.
The U.S. Constitution is important because it established a central government with power distributed across three federal branches and the states. The Constitution is also important because it protects individual rights and liberties while allowing the United States to function under a democratic system.
The Constitution originated out of a need for a stronger central government. Although the Articles of Confederation from the Revolutionary War established a union among the states, it left most powers to the states. The Articles only granted limited powers to a one-house Congress at the federal level, and there was no executive branch.
The Constitution also divides power between the national and state governments. This vital arrangement is called federalism, a shared basis of power between the central government and the states. Further, the Constitution protects individual liberties from being abused by the government. A significant accomplishment of the Constitution was finding a means to agree on this basis of power.
Likewise, the states’ ratification, or approval, of the Constitution needed to occur. This meant overcoming the divide between those who supported ratifying the Constitution, called Federalists, and those who opposed it, the Anti-Federalists. This was primarily accomplished by the agreement to add the Bill of Rights to the Constitution during the first meeting of Congress.[1]
The Constitution remains valuable in the modern day in many ways beyond those discussed above. For instance, it guarantees that each state will have a republican government. It also allows individuals to gather and protest or vote in an election.
Today, the American Constitution remains the main structure for keeping the nation together. The president, any person in Congress, or the Supreme Court is accountable to it, not above it. The states still reserve certain powers to themselves. Both federal and state governments still protect individuals.
The U.S. Constitution, written in 1787 and ratified by nine of the original 13 states a year later, is the world’s longest-surviving written constitution. But that doesn’t mean it has stayed the same over time.
The Founding Fathers intended the document to be flexible to fit the changing needs and circumstances of the country. In the words of Virginia delegate Edmund Randolph, one of the five men tasked with drafting the Constitution, the goal was to “insert essential principles only, lest the operations of government should be clogged by rendering those provisions permanent and unalterable, which ought to be accommodated to times and events.”
Since the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791, Congress has passed just 23 additional amendments to the Constitution, and the states have ratified only 17. Beyond that, many changes in the American political and legal system have come through judicial interpretation of existing laws rather than adding new ones by the legislative branch.
When one reflects that the Communist Democratic Party of today despises our Constitution as they move the country to a tyrannical form of government. But neither Biden nor the progressives who support him say much about protecting the U.S. Constitution. This is perhaps because they fear that the nation’s charter, written in 1787 by 55 elite white men who wanted to curb an “excess of democracy,” wasn’t designed with them in mind.
This is why we hear so much about the second phrase of the Second Amendment — “ … the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” But for all its limitations, the Constitution remains the supreme law of the land in America, the one document that can guarantee the rights and liberties that Democrats correctly see as under threat from Republican extremism.
As such, they need to rediscover its pro-democratic dimensions so they can work with the document. We must adhere to more freedom and less government. The Founding Fathers understood this, so they carefully created a limited government that left most of the power to the states and the people through the Tenth Amendment.
The Constitution is the most excellent governing document in history, and I support an originalist interpretation of the text. The Founders included the separation of powers and a system of checks and balances to protect against tyranny. Unfortunately, presidents and agency officials within the executive branch have continually overreached and enacted unconstitutional mandates not approved by Congress.
Unfortunately, Congress has not effectively used its power of the purse and has instead lazily passed bloated massive trillion-dollar omnibus spending bills that no one has time to read, which fuels enormous inflation. Legislating from crisis to crisis differs from what the founding fathers had in mind..[2]
America’s Founders established the United States on a foundation of rock-solid principles that allowed our country to become the strongest and most prosperous bastion of freedom and liberty in the world. These principles include the limited republican government of, by, and for the people, private property, a written Constitution, equality of man before God and the law, and individual rights that come from God, not the government. Those rights include freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and due process of law.
These founding principles led to the developing of a set of values unique to America and Americans. These values include individualism, personal responsibility, equal opportunity, looking to the future, learning from the past, achievement, a positive work ethic, efficiency, practicality, informality, upward mobility, success, humanitarianism, and patriotism. The founding principles, coupled with these traditional American values, set our country apart from all others in ways that benefitted not just our citizens but the entire world and made the United States the destination of choice for immigrants worldwide.
Patriotic Americans are beginning to say, “Enough is enough.” My blueprint for saving America contains seven critical strategies for defeating leftist ideologues and restoring our country to the principles and values that made it great. These strategies include:
- Achieve an American spiritual revival.
- Preserve the Constitution and Bill of Rights
- Reject historical revisionism and refute the big lies of the secular left!
- Preserve capitalism and reject socialism.
- Restore patriotism and love of the country.
- Overcome specific domestic threats to America’s End Game
- Overcome specific foreign threats to America’s End Game [3]
We must never let our precious Constitution die!
MG Vallely is a Flag Officers 4 America member and Chairman of the Stand Up America US Foundation.
Distributed by the Stand Up America US Foundation; www.standupamericaus.org
Contact: suaus1961@gmail.com
[1] Constitution US.com
[2] Lauren Boebert on the Constitution
[3] Americas Endgame for the 21st Century 2023
This article was originally published at Stand Up America
The views expressed in CCNS member articles are not necessarily the views or positions of the entire CCNS. They are the views of the authors, who are members of the CCNS.
