Does “Limited Government” Mean Anything Any More?

Listening to Liberal pundits and politicians, one would think not. 

What has happened to the concept that infused the deliberations in the Constitutional Convention of 1787?

Having thrown off the yoke of Imperial Britain a few years earlier, America’s founders were keenly aware of the need to restrain the power of the national government.  Interestingly, the Constitution that was made public in September of that year did not contain a formal limitation on Federal authority.  James Madison, the charter’s primary author, argued in The Federalist Papers that such a pronouncement was unnecessary because the Constitution recited powers possessed by the National Government; implicitly, those not mentioned were excluded. 

Such assurances, on this and other concerns, were not satisfactory to many, Thomas Jefferson included.  Thus, to obtain approval by the States, the Bill of Rights was appended.  On the subject at hand, the Ninth Amendment stated: 

            The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be

             construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

And in an apparent effort to make sure that this language would be understood as a limitation on Federal authority, the Tenth Amendment provided:

            The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
            prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or
             to the people.

That is the meaning of “limited government.”  Is its preservation important? 

The Founders understood human nature well.  Those in authority desire to exercise power over others.  This fact does not require that those in power be malevolent to pose a danger.  But there is an urge to make people do what they “should do” regardless of their wishes.  Those with power to rule typically think that they know best.  Without restraint, such attitudes pose a grave threat to liberty.  The road to hell – to tyranny – is indeed paved with good intentions. 

Borrowing from Montesquieu, the Constitution enshrines the principle of balance of power within the Federal Government (Executive versus Legislative versus Judicial) with a Constitutional limitation on the scope of such powers over the States and individuals. 

So what are we to make of Nancy Pelosi’s incredulity when asked in 2009 whether Obamacare is constitutional?  One got the impression that she considered the query irrelevant.  The legislation was seen as good policy; that’s all that mattered.  Her view is hardly unique on the left, including both political and legal circles.

Of course, all national leaders take an oath to uphold the Constitution.  But how many are truly sincere?  When pressed, some claim adherence to a “living constitution”, meaning it permits implementation of desired policy.  Others consider it but a guide, as if obedience to the law of the land is optional.

Some are even bolder in their abandonment of the constitutionally-induced inhibitions on Federal authority.

Last year, for instance, a Georgetown University law professor (of constitutional law!) commented on the constitutionality of President Obama’s health reform by saying “what we ought to be talking about is whether this is a good idea or not, not whether James Madison would have thought this is a good idea”.

Isn’t that rather like saying it’s ok to ignore a law if it proscribes what a person wants to do?  The appropriate position one might have expected a constitutional scholar to take is rather obvious.  Amend the Constitution.

To proceed as the professor and his brethren in and out of the academy would have us do would be to increase the assault upon the Founders’ plan to insure, in perpetuity, that America would be a nation of laws, not of the transient will of men.