Constitution-less

Dominion of Revisionists

Constitution-less

Greatest breaches

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            If American success can be measured by the least national debt, Andrew Jackson is arguably the best president of our country’s history.

            Jackson left the office with something like .000002 % of the current debt balance. He was what Utah’s Ken Ivory refers to as an American leader who understood what privatizing lands actually meant to the American experiment. Lands must be placed into the hands of American citizenry to a) create economy and b) reduce the national debt.

            The modern equivalency of Jackson doesn’t exist or at least doesn’t exist in a capacity to influence any change in the head long descent toward system failure. What has taken his place is a morass of leadership that identifies with a citizenry who believes that government intrusion is not only the more civilized approach to living … it is more sustainable.

            The cadre of federalists

            Hamilton was the most visible founder of the movement that culminates today in the progressive, liberal front.

            Yes, he and Madison brandished the torch for free and independent men in their dueling efforts in the Federalist Papers, but their interpretation of the role of the state versus the individual changed as they matured. Hamilton became the promoter of British mercantilism with its underpinning to control the citizenry through a powerful central government. Madison became more Jeffersonian.

            That Hamiltonian line of thinking remained the under card influence into our second century, but the sparks were always there.  Henry Clay must be considered one of the most influential promoters of what became “the American System”. His place in history is most profound if nothing other than his influence on another young politician and the antithesis of Jackson, Abraham Lincoln.

            Lincoln was enamored by Clay. He was Lincoln’s beau ideal, and, during the eulogy of his loved and revered teacher, Abe elaborated on the virtues of the man. What they believed together and what Lincoln installed without constitutional authority was an all powerful central government intent on financing internal improvements by predation of the citizenry, controlling the money system through a national bank, and directionally applying protectionism that effectively created tax on segments of the population and not on the others … the supporters of the cause.

            In the process, Lincoln altered the entire paradigm and accelerated the fundamental destruction of states rights. Lincoln became the greatest of the American revisionists. Ultimately, he even argued that the union was in existence before the states and, therefore, the matter of state’s rights was a charade of words and philosophy.

He not only fractured the union he broke the foundation. Clearly, it has never been the same.

            He also set in motion an ever expanding federal government in reach and dominion. Men like his general, Grant, overtly used their positions for personal gain. The system became more British than the British whose tyrannical forces erupted into the Revolution that supposedly ushered into the world our unique system that was founded on citizenry rather than governance.

            Others will suggest variants, but Woodrow Wilson expanded the federalization of private property rights of the West (which had been accelerated and commandeered by Teddy Roosevelt), and set into motion the debacle of today. He engineered the coup-de-grace of vested state representation with the 17^th Amendment with its elimination of direct state control of its representation in the Senate. Rather than state control of senators, the senate is now controlled by special interests. Those forces are the money exchangers who provide the direct path to wealth that accompanies each election into that chamber.

            It is a travesty of historic proportions, and … it doesn’t reflect in any form the document still referred to as the Constitution.

            The greatest breaches

             In our history, Benjamin Franklin should have argued more vigorously our moral compass was best served by its assignment to the House of Representatives and not the Supreme Court. The Court has demonstrated that issues are more important than the framework of the Constitution. This major breach of our destiny was installed before the ratification of the document.

            Lincoln is the second, most crippling breach. Without constitutional or congressional authority he invaded sovereign American states. In the bloody process, he savaged basic rights north and south of the Mason Dixon Line. He cannot find defense on the matter of slavery, either. Civilized countries throughout the 19^th Century ended slavery by compensated emancipation. Only the United States killed its citizenry over the matter. Battle field deaths reached over 625,000 and generations of families were thrown into a permanent abyss. It would have been much cheaper to buy every slave a mule and 40 acres and set them adrift than the cost of that war. Lincoln’s goal was the American system and he succeeded. In the process, he necessarily destroyed the sovereignty of the states and unilaterally dismembered the last, best, and most powerful tool of our system … secession. We must remember it was the central tool we used in the Revolution!

            Lincoln declared that the union was the constitution, and he demonstrated he was the master.

            The 17^th Amendment was the third great breach. Remember the discussion in history class about the conflict between the big states and the little states. Do we also remember how we were taught the Constitution eliminated that concern? Every citizen today should think about what that mechanism actually implies. It was eliminated when state legislatures were stripped of their right to appoint their own, vested representation to the Senate. With equal representation in the Senate, the small states could effectively defend their rights. That is gone. Today, the Senate is a chamber controlled by special interests. No senator has to stand in front of his state legislature to secure his continued passage to wealth. He has only to look to his handlers, the money sources of his continuing reelection campaign, to stay in office. The only time he has to implore the values of the Constitution is when he stumps for reelection. It makes good speech material. It fires up the masses, but there is no protection for little states. The states look on with incredulity assuming they have vested representation. It has been crippling. At least 11 states have effectively become wards of the Union.

Indeed, the 17^th amendment altered a most vital course of our history and a key component of our system. We are ruled by big states, special interests and British style imperialists … we have only the king to arrive to complete the transformation.

            The Fourth pillar of government

             Before the king arrives officially, his council, the grandest breach, has already taken their seats in the throne room.

            The federal agencies of the executive branch of the government effectively control a great portion of the nation and especially the West. Examples are too abundant to list, but several issues have arrived for added complexity of our lives in recent Federal Register announcements. The first is the expanded authority of the BLM police. By regulation rewrites, they have added the control of open containers and drug paraphernalia to their authority. Their organic legislation doesn’t even allow direct law enforcement. The agency is supposed to contract with local law enforcement all matters of state criminal codes … but now, through extralegal means, the BLM is on course to be the next layer of substance abuse police.

            Another sidelong money pit expansion is arriving in the form of protective measures for some chub fish in the Gila drainage. Ostensibly, the chub has to be saved from introduced species. What is not discussed is the real threat to all fish species in the drainage. The Forest Service’s destruction of the water shed through its annual catastrophic and uncontrolled wildfire burn rate of over 100,000 acres has systematically killed fish without regard with soot load in the streams … but now their science is going to point to introduced species.

            The biggest impact on rural economies is the executive order that henceforth all actions taken on federal lands must be countered by mitigation. This measure, unilaterally determined in the oval office, potentially has no bounds. Its most obvious impact is a zero net sum loss of undisturbed federal land. That means when any linear object approved by one of the agencies goes across the landscape an offset of untouched land must be added to the federal system. In the West, where government controls over 60% of the landscape, more private land will be sniped and added to the king’s forest.

            As the world watches blood hosed from Parisian streets this morning, Americans must realize that we can do little if our own house is so egregiously mismanaged. Without our foundation, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men … will never put this back together again.

            Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “We have long been Constitution-less. It exists only in pep talks and reelection campaigns. Beware of the politician who claims it is alive and well.”