I wrote the following article for Human Events.

“At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebears, and true to our founding documents…. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.”

Barack Obama delivered these magnificently eloquent yet baneful and inaccurate statements during his first inaugural address. They are pregnant with historical fallacies and present Americans with a clear question that must be answered in the next four years: does America need to be “remade?” And, as a corollary, would Americans remain “true to our founding documents” by following Obama’s advice? It certainly is not, as he suggests, the tradition of our “forebears,” men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams or any other man from the founding generation, and they would not support “remaking” America by spitting on the Constitution or ignoring it entirely. The Constitution limits the power of government, and those limits cannot and should not be ignored by either the government or the American public.

The most troubling and damaging fallacy of his first inaugural rests in his apparent belief that the Founding Fathers were romantic, egalitarian, utopian, centralizers bent on “creating” something “new” in the founding documents of the United States. Many Americans have seemingly subscribed to this interpretation of history. They don’t realize that Jefferson copied much of the Declaration of Independence from fellow Virginians George Mason and Richard Henry Lee and his most famous phrase, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness…” was simply a shortened version of Mason’s “all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights…namely the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and maintaining happiness and safety.” And, of course, all Americans in the founding generation recognized the maxim that the right to “life, liberty, and property” originated in the ancient constitutions of England, including the Magna Carta of 1215 and the English Bill of Rights of 1689 and were best articulated by the British philosopher John Locke. Jefferson himself stated that the Declaration was not a statement of “new principles, or new arguments.” It was the English tradition applied to American circumstances.

Additionally, no one in the founding generation would have agreed to the idea that American can be “remade” through extensive centralization in the hands of one individual or even 535 members of Congress. To them, the state governments offered the best protection for the liberty and happiness of the people and were the keystone of the federal government. William Davie of North Carolina, a Revolutionary War hero, member of the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 and proponent of the Constitution, said during the state ratification convention that, “If there were any seeds in this Constitution which might, one day, produce a consolidation, it would, sir, with me, be an insuperable objection, I am so perfectly convinced that so extensive a country as this can never be managed by one consolidated government.” Samuel Huntingdon of Connecticut, a signatory to the Declaration of Independence and governor of his state, argued during the Connecticut ratification convention that, “The history of man clearly shows that it is dangerous to intrust [SIC] the supreme power in the hands of one man,” and he thought that the state governments would “not be endangered by the powers vested by the Constitution in the general government.” He believed in their necessity and rights as sovereign political entities.

The conviction that America can be “remade” through executive action and consolidation of government is damaging to the American tradition of limited government and jealous maintenance of state authority. Americans have a right to “life, liberty, and property” and, as the founding generation continually emphasized, these rights cannot be abridged by government, particularly a consolidated government in Washington, D.C. Taxes confiscate property, and the more government takes from the private sector the less liberty and independence individual Americans have, thus a violation of the founding documents and the founding principles of the United States. If Obama and the progressives in the modern federal government wish to “remake” America, and they do, they should not cloak their designs in the language of the founding generation. To a man, the Founders would have resisted everything the current government does in the name of the “general welfare” of the “people.” Rather than preserve the “ideas of our forebears,” nationalization, from health care to auto companies to “cap and trade,” destroys liberty, freedom, and independence.

Connecticut native and patriot Oliver Wolcott once said, “Mankind may become corrupt, and give up the cause of freedom; but I believe that love of liberty which prevails among the people of this country will prevent such a direful calamity.” Other members of the founding generation echoed this sentiment. Alexander Hamilton, considered by many to be the American architect of “big government,” thundered during the New York ratification convention: “Sir, can it be supposed that the state will become the oppressors of the people? Will they combine to destroy the liberties and happiness of their fellow citizens, for the sole purpose of involving themselves in ruin? God forbid! The idea, sir, is shocking. It outrages every feeling of humanity, and every dictate of common sense.” This generation could not foresee Americans willingly giving up their liberty or freedom for convenience and security in the name of what Franklin D. Roosevelt called the fear of fear.

The current mess in Washington can be resisted, but it depends on the willingness of the states and the people of the states to grow a backbone.

The following is an article I wrote for www.LewRockwell.com.

Two million people travel annually to South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore. The imposing sculptures of Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln have become a symbol of the American spirit. The artist in charge of the project, Gutzon Borglum, intended his work to be a summary of the first 150 years of American history, but the choice of figures has helped create a lasting problem in American history: who owns the founding tradition? Borglum has led many Americans to believe that Lincoln and Roosevelt constitute the bridge between the founding generation and the modern era. While there were certainly times Lincoln and Roosevelt could rhetorically sound like the Founders, their actions do not mesh with the principles of that generation. Lincoln and Roosevelt helped create a “new” United States, perverted the founding documents and ruined the founding principles of limited government and state sovereignty.

The true expositors of the founding tradition are not the sectional president, Lincoln, or the first progressive president, Roosevelt; they are two Unionists who are often classified as Southern extremists: John C. Calhoun of South Carolina and John Randolph of Roanoke, Virginia. These men were on the cusp of the founding generation. Calhoun was born in 1782 and Randolph in 1773. They were too young to participate in first events of the early republic but knew many of the participants. Most importantly, they understood what the founding generation meant by “union.”

The Founders forged a union based on the consent of the States – a compact among them – for their benefit through defense and commerce. They recognized sectional differences and knew that these differences should be respected. Thus, many in this generation, Northerners and Southerners alike, cautiously guarded the interests of their communities through the sovereignty of the states. As long as the benefits and burdens of the union were distributed equally, they suffered and prospered together. Such had been the case in the War for Independence. No one conceived that one section or one faction should have the right to plunder the other. Madison insisted in Federalist No. 10 that the Constitution was written to protect against such infractions. Early American documents are littered with statements in defense of a mutually beneficial union. All that ceased in the following two generations.

In an 1833 speech, Calhoun made the following observation:

“In the same spirit, we are told that the Union must be preserved, without regard to the means. And how is it proposed to preserve the Union? By force! Does any man in his senses believe that this beautiful structure – this harmonious aggregate of States, produced by the join consent of all – can be preserved by force? Its very introduction will be certain destruction of this Federal Union. No, no. You cannot keep the States united in their constitutional and federal bonds by force. Force may, indeed, hold the parts together, but such union would be the bond between master and slave: a union of exaction on one side, and of unqualified obedience on the other.”

Such is what Lincoln accomplished through the War Between the States. The South was forced to remain “loyal” under the yoke of the federal government. He preserved the “union,” but not the union of the Founders. It was a union of Lincoln’s and the Republican Party’s creation.

Randolph, in similar fashion, lectured Northern secessionists during the War of 1812 for their stand against the good of the whole. He reminded them that the South had stood shoulder to shoulder with the North during the Revolution and that Virginia had sacrificed far more for the good of the Union by ceding her western lands to the central government than any Northern state in the history of the confederation. Each section suffered due to British hostility, and though Randolph personally opposed the war and foreign alliances, he believed secession during a time of war damaged the prospects of opposition. New England had its chance to secede in 1807 following the Embargo Act, a time of peace, but 1814 was a different story. He said, “Our Constitution is an affair of compromise between the States, and this is the master-key which unlocks all its difficulties.”

Randolph was the consistent defender of state sovereignty throughout his career, and he clung to the union of the “good old thirteen states.” Likewise, Calhoun insisted that state’s rights was the traditional policy of the founding generation. He called Jefferson “the true and faithful expositor of the relation between the States and General Government,” and labeled the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 “the rock of our political salvation” in a letter to the citizens of Philadelphia. Only through a firm reliance on state’s rights could the government be brought “back…to where it was, when it commenced.”

It must be noted that Randolph did not trust Calhoun, and he considered nullification a foolish doctrine (he preferred secession, and did not see how a state could remain in the Union after it nullified a federal law), but when Andrew Jackson as president threatened to use force to coerce South Carolina during the Nullification Controversy of 1832, Randolph said he would strap his “dying body” to his horse “Radical” and enter the field of battle rather than see a sovereign state threatened by the bayonet.

From the 1880 through the 1908 presidential election, there was consistently a clear divide between the North and South. The South voted one way, the North another. Both sections implicitly recognized that the Union was dominated by the North, and no election showcased this more clearly than Roosevelt’s victory over Alton Parker in the 1904 election. Roosevelt was not a “national” candidate; he was a sectional one with sectional support. He was not the heir of the Founding Fathers and the founding principles of limited government, state’s rights, neutrality, and peaceful trade. He was a bully, an imperialist, and a man who used executive power in a way the founding generation consistently warned against.

Why does this matter? Because Americans are still burdened by factional government and the tyranny of elected despots. We now witness a rural/urban conflict along with a North/South split. Half the population can take from the other half and Americans feel helpless in wake of the political onslaught of “progressivism.” But there is hope. Americans still have power in their state and local communities. The states are still sovereign, and Americans have more control over their state and local representatives than those in congress or the executive branch. If Americans recognize that the Union must burden and benefit all equally, as the founding generation, Calhoun, and Randolph emphasized, than there is still hope to salvage the founding principles of the United States. Otherwise, the Founding Fathers will continue to be eliminated from our historical consciousness or will be perverted by progressives such as Barack Obama who invoke their name but know nothing of the founding principles. Mount Rushmore should be split between Jefferson and Roosevelt. That way, Americans could see the canyon – not the bridge – between them.

The following is an article I wrote for www.LewRockwell.com.

The recent rejuvenation of interest in State’s rights, nullification, and secession has been a welcome result of the explosion of federal power since the housing and credit bubbles burst last fall. The 10th Amendment movements and “tea parties” are, at least on one level, a pure form of “republicanism.” Unfortunately, there are those who call themselves Republicans who have little understanding about the history of the republic, namely how the Founding generation conceptualized the “united States” as Jefferson called it in the Declaration of Independence. “Country club” Republican “protesters” have jumped on the bandwagon, and as folks on the LRC have documented, these individuals are purely pawns for the demagogues in the GOP, a party that has never truly been either for State’s rights or limited government. Simply rallying against unconstitutional taxes, expansive federal programs, or shallow assaults on the Democrats and Barack Obama is not enough. You can chant about the 10th Amendment till you go hoarse, but without understanding the principles behind State sovereignty, your voice will be useless.

It becomes clear, then, that those who push for reasserting State power must know how the Founders defined a republic in both size and scope and what they meant by republicanism. Returning to the founding principles of the United States is an obvious way to end the insanity in Washington D.C., but it won’t happen if State’s rights are consistently viewed as a knee-jerk reactionary response to unconstitutional federal legislation. Yes, the 10th Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights, but why did the Founders insist on state sovereignty? Rather than a theoretical fabrication at the 1787 Philadelphia Convention or the State ratification conventions, State’s rights were explicitly linked to the stability of the United States from the Revolutionary War forward. That is the key to the State sovereignty movement.

Thomas Jefferson made two interesting statements concerning republics in 1816. In a letter to fellow Virginian John Taylor – one of the most insightful political economists and theorists of his day – Jefferson said that a republic “is evidently restrained to very narrow limits of space and population. I doubt if it would be practicable beyond the extent of a New England township.” He also told Isaac Tiffany that “A democracy [is] the only pure republic, but impracticable beyond the limits of a town.” In other words, a republic is only plausible over a small distance. Anything beyond that would destroy the ability of the people to control the government, and that is the foundation of republicanism. Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that legislative powers were “incapable of Annihilation” because “they return to the People at large for their exercise.” State and local governments were most responsive to the people and thus the most republican in form.

To the Founders, diffusing power over large groups of people and then placing it in a small number of representatives violated the principle of direct control of the government, and more importantly, the Founders understood that the States stood as a hedge against factionalism. George Mason, speaking at the Philadelphia Convention, succinctly addressed this issue: “From the nature of man, we may be sure that those who have power in their hands will not give it up, while they can retain it. On the contrary, we know that they will always, when they can, rather increase it.” Only the States could check arbitrary abuse of power which is one reason why Mason said he would rather cut off his right hand than sign the Constitution without a bill of rights. Factions, either sectional or personal, could destroy the interests of the people without recourse; the States provided that recourse.

Thus, the founding generation believed that the United States was nothing more than a federal union formed solely for defense and commerce. John Taylor, writing in his Tyranny Unmasked, explained that “the experiment of a consolidated republic, over a territory so extensive as the United States, is at least awful, when we can recollect no case in which it has been successful. If the people had believed it practicable, it would have been preferred to our system of division and union….” Patrick Henry argued during the Virginia ratification convention that State sovereignty was the only safeguard against the “infinitude” of the Constitution. He declared that “the delegation of power to an adequate number of representatives, and an unimpeded reversion of it back to the people, at short periods, form the principal traits of a republican government,” and feared that the Constitution would lead to despotism and the subversion of republican principles.

The number of Americans who consistently believe their vote does not count on the federal level is a testament to the fact that the people have truly lost their hold on the “representatives” in Washington. Jefferson, Taylor, Mason, and Henry all understood that the people had greater control over their State and local representatives. They lived among them, went to church with them, socialized with them, and maybe even had family ties. Four hundred people protesting in Washington D.C. won’t make a difference, but four hundred people protesting in front of the local courthouse will. It was, and is, simple economy of scale. Henry said, “The governing persons are the servants of the people.” State sovereignty ensured that they remained the servants of the people and that the culture and customs of local communities would be preserved.

And, this wasn’t just a component of Southern political philosophy. Northerners relied on State’s rights to protect their local traditions, too. John Adams once wrote that he considered federal representatives to be nothing more than “ambassadors” from the several states. Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, one of most ardent nationalists at the Philadelphia convention, considered the Senate as originally designed before the perversion of the 17th Amendment the only protection for the commercial States of the East. Moreover, if the sections could not mesh politically, he urged the following: “instead of attempting to blend incompatible things, let us at once take a friendly leave of each other.” That was 1787. Roger Sherman of Connecticut considered the Articles of Confederation to be insufficient for the facilitation of commerce and defense, but he thought the powers of the States should be protected in order to safeguard the cultural integrity of each community. “Each state, like each individual, had its peculiar habits, usages, and manners, which constituted its happiness. It would not, therefore, give to others a power over this happiness, any more than an individual would do, when he could avoid it.” Even Alexander Hamilton once said that the federal government could not coerce a State. Incidentally, Massachusetts conditionally ratified the Constitution with the understanding that a bill of rights would be added. State sovereignty was number one on the list.

Jefferson affirmed that the States were “FREE AND INDEPENDENT” in the Declaration of Independence. Nothing changed that, not the Constitution or efforts to reduce State influence and power by successive generations. Instead of focusing on the narrow issues of taxes and “big government,” advocates of the 10th Amendment movement should emphasize that the State is the most responsive level of government, the most democratic, the purest form of a republic, and the political entity most able to ensure republican principles, which Jefferson listed as “simplicity, economy, religious and civil freedom.” All the Founders would agree.