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On March 1, 1781, the American people ratified the Articles of Confederation to officially establish the United States of America. This was kind of a big deal then, but it’s not something we celebrate today—remarkably, the birthday of our union doesn’t even merit a calendar entry as a simple reminder of its historical significance.

All for good reason, of course: the Articles of Confederation was an abject failure. The aim of government in America, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, was to preserve the people’s natural rights to life, liberty, and property. The Articles, however, created a national government that was much too weak to accomplish this end.

In fact, the Articles really didn’t create a national government; it established a “league of friendship” among the 13 sovereign states. Each state, no matter how large or small, had a single vote in Congress, and a two-thirds majority was needed to pass all laws. Although Congress could enact legislation to manage “the general interests of the United States,” it could do no more. It couldn’t implement or enforce the law, and it couldn’t even collect taxes needed to repay debts accumulated during the Revolutionary War. Due to the feeble nature of this organization, the states often acted in their self-interests, and weakness was projected abroad. In short order, the union was at risk of dissolution.

So in the summer of 1787, the American people sent delegates to a special convention in Philadelphia to address the shortcomings of the Articles. The delegates ultimately decided that, to preserve the union according to their ideals, they’d have to scrap the Articles altogether and construct a new constitution. And so they did.

Our founding fathers understood that weak national governments in confederacies had historically led to disunion and were therefore incompatible with lasting liberty. But they also knew that the opposite extreme was equally undesirable, for powerful centralized governments were prone to corruption, abuse, and tyranny. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or of France, or of the aristocrats of a Venetian Senate.”

Naturally, when the founders gave force to the federal government under the new Constitution, they were very careful to avoid tipping the scales of power too far toward tyranny. They had no intention to create an overbearing centralized government. Instead, they increased federal power only where necessary for it to perform its limited national functions. James Madison explained:

     The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will for the most part be connected. The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people; and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the state.

This division of power between the federal and state governments was meant to safeguard American liberty by forming “a double security to the people,” according to Alexander Hamilton. He trusted that the people, who would “hold the scales [of power] in their own hands,” would “always take care to preserve the constitutional equilibrium between the general and state governments.” When necessary, the people could augment the power of either government “by throwing themselves into either scale . . . . If their rights are invaded by either, they can make use of the other as the instrument of redress.”

The scales of power are nowhere near in balance today, because in the last century we’ve been seduced by the progressive idea that the federal government, if properly empowered, will better protect and care for us. So we’ve let politicians and judges obliterate all limits in the Constitution to expand the scope of federal power. As a result, we now have a tax code that surpasses 67,000 pages and touches every kind of productive activity, costing Americans at least $225 billion in compliance costs each year. We now have more than 163,000 pages of restrictive federal regulations that govern all sorts of activity and burden Americans with hidden taxes totaling more than $1.75 trillion each year. And we now have a national debt that exceeds $16 trillion, due in large part to unconstitutional social welfare spending that first began during the Progressive Era and now comprises close to 60 percent of the federal budget.

Our wasteful and domineering government is failing its intended aim to secure our natural rights, just as the Articles of Confederation did so long ago. The difference, of course, is that the Articles failed to secure these rights due to its weak and virtually nonexistent national government, while our omnipotent and omnipresent federal government has become the problem today.

Importantly, our Constitution is not the reason for the rise of our authoritarian state—after all, it was designed with limits on federal power. Our diminished liberty today results from our long toleration of illegitimate federal action taken by those abusing their power in government. Thomas Jefferson aptly wrote that “certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights . . . yet experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”

If we hope to honor the legacy of our founding and correct our country’s current wayward course, then we must own up to our failures in upholding the Constitution and begin enforcing its limits on federal power. This is no easy task, but it can be done—for it has been done before. Let our transition from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution serve as a reminder to us that, in spite of our failings, we still have the power to effect real political change in the United States. Our destiny as Americans is still ours to choose.

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BRIAN VANYO is a political columnist, a board member of the Constitution Leadership Initiative, and the author of “The American Ideology: Taking Back our Country with the Philosophy of our Founding Fathers.” A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, the U.S. Naval War College, and the University of Virginia School of Law, he served in the U.S. Navy and is a veteran of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Visit him at brianvanyo.com.

8 COMMENTS

  1. Brian Vanyo’s commentary raises several salient points, which I’m much inclined toward to agree with.

    1. “…..we now have a tax code that surpasses 67,000 pages and touches every kind of productive activity, costing Americans at least $225 billion in compliance costs each year. We now have more than 163,000 pages of restrictive federal regulations that govern all sorts of activity and burden Americans with hidden taxes totaling more than $1.75 trillion each year.”

    After having read this, I’m immediately reminded of an oft other quoted utterance: “read the bill.” I got out a calculator and did a bit of rudimentary math with two figures given above. A 67,000 paged tax code if read by any presumed average person within one year, that’s about 183 pages a day to take in. Not improbable to accomplish but WHO IN A PROPER FRAME OF MIND IS DEVOTED ENOUGH DAILY (LET ALONE ASIDE FROM THEIR OWN LIFE PURSUITS AND LIVELIHOOD) FOR ASBORBING THAT MANY PAGES WITHIN AN ENTIRE YEAR?!!!

    Oh but wait, this only get better and far more rich (especially to the statist elites.) How about sorting through 163,000 pages of federal regulations in one year? Don’t tell me your typical lawyer or prominently certified degree professional shall photographically commit to self memory that exact content of 446.575 PAGES EACH DAY OF MOSTLY INCESSANT DRIBBLING!!!

    And those without an idea among our public at-large wonder why the blood pressure of some can be affected by government! Give me liberty from and NOT death by empty suits on a relentless beauracratic Obamacare panel.

    2. And the award for best use yet ever thus far of a Thomas Jefferson quote: “certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights . . . yet experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”

    Yes (as Brian so nailed it in his commentary,) “the scales of power are nowhere near in balance today.” Both the means to lead and the manners in how to follow are vastly way astray. Look at what we in this country have by way of astonishing example: 1. a Congress with a public confidence rating the lowest at any time in history. 2. a Judicial Branch setting and not interpreting precedences and (the yet most ironic) 3. an Executive Branch prone to treating executive privileges like the federal reserve does currency printing presses.

    So what additional reasons might else explain the rise in authoritarian state and yet waning of our representantive democratic republic? Three already need not be but are too many enough.

  2. Whoever would need to sort through the entire tax code or all the regulations? The doctor needs to know every stipulation affecting the lawyer and the realtor? We do need a simplified tax code, but it’s not like progressives alone are to blame for all the current complications (or for Congressional dysfunction).

    And those without an idea among our public at-large wonder why the blood pressure of some can be affected by government!

    I understand it very well. I understand your concerns even though I don’t always share them. But it seems like a lot of you folks really enjoy being mad. A lot of you folks seem to confuse the Founding Fathers with the apostles and the Constitution with the gospels. There are other things to form your identity around besides how those lousy lazy liberals are trying to steal your all-important liberty.

  3. Amazing Ken. Amazing, I could say all what you said Ken, without even having once said here “progressives” or “liberals.” ☺

  4. Ken:
    Could have left off ‘ but it’s not like progressive alone are to blame for all the current complications.
    Well I ain’t one of those folks. I deal with folks on both side of fence and they are addicted to their angry / neing mad. I am not one of those who confuse the Founding Fathers with apostiles, and Constituion with the gospel.
    We have a mess on our hand but it is easier to bitch, moan and cry poor little old me. Instead of working on a solution.

  5. Yes there are a lot of angry (and intransigent) people on the Left too, but bitching and moaning and crying “poor little old me” is just what one hears an awful lot of on the Schilling Show, especially from a certain regular caller with whom the host agrees. Is the sequester a solution? That’s what you get when the Tea Party marginalizes the Republican Party and the only power it has left is to obstruct compromise. The country does need strongly conservative voices, but “moderate” and “pragmatic” shouldn’t be dirty words. Labeling Republican centrists “RINOs,” like Rob does, is historically ignorant.

  6. Ken:
    I do listed to allot of radio and hear allot of individuals call and are preaching doom and gloom.
    I am quilty of calling Rob show and doing the glood and doom routine. But I am not naive enough to think I am making an impact in a positive or negitive away. Most people really are too tied up in their own world to give a dam about anyone elses. Liberal I have found are no better than the other side when come to doom and gloom. Sequester has never been the solution. The problem inside the beltway is they have forgotten why they are there. From the White House down the road to Hallowed Hall of Congress. Well I had to look up centrists and I don’t think it fits either party at this moment in time. However it is Rob show and I do use the lable Rinos for some so call republicans in Charlottesivle. As I label the democrat as Dino. why, it is easy to run one’s mouth, write a check, instead of getting out and talking to people about upcoming election. Sometimes I have found that we have too many words in English language that are dirty words. Like Gay which mean happy when I was growing up, now mean something else. The word boy, has a totally different meaning today than when we were young. I agree we the country does need a strong conservative voices. However I remember my mother -in- law seem to enjoy ragging on Reagan when he was in office. For her, a conservative was worthless. And no I never really knew why she felt that way. Government from the local to national level are too busy pointing fingers at each other for someone failure to do their job. Who pay for this, we do the citizen. For me, I have decide I will be calling in less with doom and gloom, all it really does is cause my b/p to go up. And beside have either one of us changed the world here in Charlottesville or any place else. NO!

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