I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That ‘all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people’ (10th Amendment). To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to any definition.
Category: Constitution
Limits on general welfare
Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.
The growth of the General Welfare and Commerce clauses
Under our Constitution, the federal government has delegated, enumerated and thus limited powers. Power is delegated by the founding generation or through subsequent amendment (that makes it legitimate); enumerated in the constitution (that makes it legal); and limited by that enumeration. As the 10th Amendment says, if a power hasn’t been delegated, the federal government doesn’t have it.
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Right-sizing government
I want a government small enough to fit inside the Constitution.
Usurping our sovereignty
Under this Constitution … the states, respectively protected by the National Government under a mild, parental system against foreign dangers, and enjoying within their separate spheres, by a wise partition of power … It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and a usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin.
One-world governance vs. the Constitution
Here is the basic problem for transnational progressives: If the U.S. Constitution remains vital, their ultimate goal of global governance is unattainable.
The basis of our republic
Constitutions are checks upon the hasty action of the majority. They are the self-imposed restraints of a whole people upon a majority of them to secure sober action and a respect for the rights of the minority.
Democracy is a threat to the American republic
The media’s daily outbursts about the danger to democracy posed by the current administration, while highly amusing, omit a key piece of information. The United States is not a democracy; the United States is a republic.
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Separation of powers
Congress’ inability or unwillingness to pass a law desired by the executive branch does not default authority to the executive branch.
Limited government
No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words ‘no’ and ‘not’ employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights.