Celebrate the Constitution by honoring its text

In a recent article by Mr. Thomas M. Hall, “Our Flawed Millennial Founders,” Mr. Hall lauds our system of government and its enduring for 230 years as a result of our Constitution and the tools provided within it. Mr. Hall begins by noting that our Founding Fathers included men who would be defined as millennials today. Apparently, this comparison was based strictly on their ages. Jefferson was 32 when he “penned the Declaration of Independence.” He notes that Madison and Hamilton were 32 and 36, respectively, when they wrote the Federalist papers.

I was then prepared to become aware of similar feats by our current batch of millennials and was left wanting in this regard. He next described how those out-of-power criticize those in-power until the former become the latter, only to then adopt much of the same ideas and conduct previously criticized. In this Mr. Hall is certainly correct.

However, I must disagree with Mr. Hall, in his honoring the 230th birthday of our Constitution, and claiming that our country has survived thus far because of our Constitution and the tools contained therein. Mr. hall cites no evidence for this claim.

The truth is that we have survived largely by rewriting this great document, by unauthorized means, to the point where none of the Founding Fathers would recognize it. Subsequent to the 1803 decision of Marbury v. Madison, wherein the Supreme Court assumed power not granted it by the Constitution, and the 1819 decision of McCulloch v. Maryland wherein the Supreme Court rewrote the “necessary and proper” clause as the “convenient or appropriate” clause, Mr. Jefferson, in 1820, penned to William C. Jarvis, the following:

“To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passion for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps .... their power more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as other functionaries are, to elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.”

The Founding Fathers would be amazed at our current batch of Supreme Court justices and their adept ability to discover new constitutional rights, such as a constitutional right to an abortion (Roe v. Wade, 1973), a right to marry another of the same sex (Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015), and for the government to take private property from one private entity and grant it to another private entity (Kelo v. City of New London, 2005) After poring over the original text and all 27 amendments, I submit they would remain unable to find such “rights.” They would be forced to conclude that their more modern counterparts were, and are, truly magicians.

And to the oft-quoted query purportedly asked of Ben Franklin — what form the new government would take — he replied “A republic, if you can keep it.” I submit that Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton would most assuredly conclude that we did not keep it. It was replaced by an oligarchy, as presaged by Mr. Jefferson, i.e., rule by a few, specifically, the Supreme Court or “nine lawyers in robes” as described by the late, great Justice Antonin Scalia.

Let us celebrate the birthday of our great Constitution by honoring its precise words and its clear intent and put an end to distorting and defiling it by de facto amendments submitted and ratified by nine lawyers in robes.