Principle 28 The United States has a Manifest Destiny

The United States Has a Manifest Destiny to be an Example and a Blessing to the Entire Human race.

 D&C 109: 54 

54 Have mercy, O Lord, upon all the ^anations of the earth; have mercy upon the rulers of our land; may those principles, which were so honorably and nobly defended, namely, the ^bConstitution of our land, by our fathers, be established forever.

One of the most important characteristics of the first American settlers was their strong sense of mission.  They had a conviction that they were taking part in the unfolding of a manifest destiny of divine design, which would shower blessings on all of mankind.  Historian John Fiske writes,

"They believed they were doing a wonderful thing.  They felt themselves to be instruments in accomplishing a kind of 'manifest destiny.'  Their exodus [from Europe] was that of a chosen people who were at length to lay the everlasting foundations of God's kingdom upon earth....This steadfast faith in an unseen ruler and guide was to them a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night.  It was of great moral value.  It gave them clearness of purpose and concentration of strength, and contributed towards making them, like the children of Israel, a people of indestructible vitality and aggressive energy."

 It has continued to be a theme, that can be found in many inaugural addresses given by the presidents of the United States.  Just to clarify, this is a mission of a nation, and not about any kind of superiority.

John Adams wrote,

"I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence for the illumination of the ignorant, and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth." 

And Alexander Hamilton wrote,

"It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force."  

He also went on to say that if the people of the United States failed in this mission, that is would bring about the "the general misfortune of mankind."

John Adams later said that if the people abandon the freedom that they have gained by the adoption of the Constitution, it would be "treason against the hopes of the world."

The Founders knew that they were taking part in something new, something different from anything else on the face of the earth.  They pursued the more noble course.  Shall we too go forth in such a noble cause? 

D&C 58:27 Verily I say, men should be ^aanxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness;
28 For the power is in them, wherein they are ^aagents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their ^breward.

There is no greater cause than the liberty of mankind.  It was in the war in heaven that this mission began, and it is here that it continues.  This nation has and will yet face tough and trying times, but it has a mission to fulfill, and the Lord has decreed that it will be fulfilled.  It is up to us, if we will accept the call to come to our nation’s aid, or if we will deny our responsibility and be cut off.

3 Nephi 21:11 Therefore it shall come to pass that whosoever will not believe in my words, who am Jesus Christ, which the Father shall cause ^ahim to bring forth unto the ^bGentiles, and shall give unto him power that he shall bring them forth unto the Gentiles, (it shall be done even as Moses said) they shall be ^ccut off from among my people who are of the covenant.
12 And my people who are a remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles, yea, in the midst of them as a ^alion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep, who, if he go through both treadeth down and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver.
13 Their hand shall be lifted up upon their ^aadversaries, and all their enemies shall be cut off.
14 Yea, wo be unto the Gentiles except they ^arepent; for it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Father, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy ^bchariots;
15 And I will cut off the cities of thy land, and throw down all thy ^astrongholds;
16 And I will cut off ^awitchcrafts out of thy land, and thou shalt have no more soothsayers;
17 Thy ^agraven images I will also cut off, and thy standing images out of the midst of thee, and thou shalt no more worship the works of thy hands;
18 And I will pluck up thy ^agroves out of the midst of thee; so will I destroy thy cities.
19 And it shall come to pass that all ^alyings, and deceivings, and envyings, and strifes, and priestcrafts, and whoredoms, shall be done away.
20 For it shall come to pass, saith the Father, that at that ^aday whosoever will not repent and come unto my Beloved Son, them will I ^bcut off from among my people, O house of Israel;
21 And I will execute ^avengeance and ^bfury upon them, even as upon the heathen, such as they have not heard.
22 But if they will repent and hearken unto my words, and ^aharden not their hearts, I will ^bestablish my church among them, and they shall come in unto the covenant and be ^cnumbered among this the remnant of Jacob, unto whom I have given this land for their ^dinheritance;
23 And they shall assist my ^apeople, the remnant of Jacob, and also as many of the house of Israel as shall come, that they may build a city, which shall be called the ^bNew Jerusalem.
24 And then shall ^athey assist my people that they may be gathered in, who are scattered upon all the face of the land, in unto the New Jerusalem.
25 And then shall the ^apower of heaven come down among them; and ^bI also will be in the midst.
26 And then shall the work of the Father commence at that day, even ^awhen this gospel shall be preached among the remnant of ^bthis people. Verily I say unto you, at that day shall the work of the Father commence among all the dispersed of my people, yea, even the tribes which have been ^clost, which the Father hath led away out of Jerusalem.

In verse 20, we see the key, we must repent and come unto Christ in order to avoid being cut off as prophesied.  In order for the United States to fulfill her mission, we must each personally fulfill ours, to become sanctified, purified, and having cleansed our inner vessels, so that we may then be filled with the power of God, and be instruments in His hands.  There is no other way.

Principle 27 Debt is Destructive

The Burden of Debt is as destructive to Freedom as Subjugation by Conquest

"We encourage you wherever you may live in the world to prepare for adversity by looking to the condition of your finances. We urge you to be modest in your expenditures; discipline yourselves in your purchases to avoid debt. . . . If you have paid your debts and have a financial reserve, even though it be small, you and your family will feel more secure and enjoy greater peace in your hearts."
—The First Presidency, All Is Safely Gathered In: Family Finances, Feb. 2007, 1 

President N. Eldon Tanner taught: "Those who structure their standard of living to allow a little surplus, control their circumstances. Those who spend a little more than they earn are controlled by their circumstances. They are in bondage” ("Constancy Amid Change," Ensign, Nov. 1979, 81).  

Slavery is the result of either Subjugation by conquest or succumbing to the bondage of debt.   Debt is when you borrow against the future.  You get a present advantage for a future obligation.  Not only do you have to pay your debt back that you borrowed, but interest on top of that as well.

The Founders knew that borrowing can be an honorable procedure in a time of crisis, but they still deplored it just the same.  They looked at it as a temporary handicap that should be alleviated as soon as possible.  They had enough experiences with debt to now the effects that it can have; leading to the corruption of both individuals and nations.

With the individual excessive debt limits the liberty and freedom of the debtor.  It can be depressing.  They can be afraid to change their profession, pass up financial opportunities, which a free man might risk.  Heavy debt taints an individual's happiness.  They carry a perpetual burden every waking hour.  They seem to feel a sense of also being perpetually threatened as they 'ride the razor's edge of potential disaster'.  There is also the looming feeling of waste, like a man that is making payments on a dead horse.  This results from spending money on wants or even needs that have long since past.  It means sleepless nights, a burden of grinding weight on your shoulders that increases with every tick of the clock, and often at usurious rates.

The age of the Founders was a time when debt was recognized for what it really is.  They considered frugality a virtue, and even when an emergency came up and they needed to borrow, they believed in borrowing frugally and paying it back promptly.  

Thomas Jefferson said, "The maxim of buying nothing without the money in our pockets to pay for it would make our country one of the happiest on earth.  Experience during the war proved this, and I think every man will remember that, under all the privations it obliged him to submit to during that period, he slept sounder and awoke happier than he can do now."

The Founder felt that the worst kind of debt is that which results from splurge borrowing, going into debt to enjoy temporary luxury of extravagantly living "beyond ones means."  They also knew how this behavior could be a snare to those that are watching others do this.  However, all the illusions of debt-financed prosperity disappear rapidly when it comes time to really pay for them.  The results are often bankruptcy, abject poverty, and even gnawing hunger from the lack of the most basic necessities of life.  Just like the Prodigal son that would have filled his belly with the husks that the pigs ate. (Luke 15:16)

The Founders believed that debt should be abhorred like the plague.  They saw excessive indebtedness as a form of a cultural disease.  Benjamin Franklin said, "Think what you do when you run in debt; you give to another the power over your liberty."

The Founders believed that the debts of a nation are no different than the debts of an individual.  The fact that this debt is shared by the whole of the people does not make it less of a burden.  While they knew that in a case like war, the nation may need to borrow, they still believed that the nation should get out of debt as quickly as possible in order to enjoy complete solvency and prosper.  Thomas Jefferson said, "I, however, place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared."

When it comes to passing on the debts of one generation to the next, the Founders had a very clear viewpoint.  The generation that created the debt should pay for it so that the next generation would be truly free politically and economically.  It was their belief that passing their debts onto their children would mean that they were born into bondage or involuntary servitude, that they did not vote for nor subscribe to.  They stated that it would be in the very literal sense taxation without representation and a blatant violation of a fundamental republican principle.  Jefferson considered inherited debt to be immoral.

It is very clear with the nation that we live in today, that we are sending the next generations inheritance, if not two generations or more!  There is no way that the amount of debt that we have can be liquidated.  In addition to this fact, we are also committed to pay for additional future liabilities!  

Can we return to the Founders Formula?  Only if the people awaken to the situation and they determine to go through fiscal withdrawal and kick the habit of splurge spending.  The author, W. Cleon Skousen, of The 5000 Year Leap states that he has a proposal that is in the book entitled "The Healing of the Nation."  While there was the possibility at the time that the author wrote this book, I do have to wonder myself if it is still possible in this day.  His plan avoided a very deep depression, which I think that we are going to head into one no matter what now.  There seems to be no repentance option left, except for the painful one.  We have been told in the scriptures, that if we will not humble ourselves, we will be compelled to be humble, perhaps, that is what it will take for our nation to repent of the excessive debt that we all now find ourselves in.

The 28 Principles of Liberty| Principle 24

"A Free People will Not Survive Unless They Stay Strong"

A civilized society of free people tend to always go towards prosperity.  It has only been when the federal government has usurped authority and meddled in the free-market economy that this prosperity has become inhibited..

When there is the fruits of prosperity, beautiful cities, flourishing commerce, fruitful farms and thriving industry, it tends to attract the predatory greed of other nations, and even crooked politicians.  By themselves, they may not be considered as much of a threat, but once they are united together, the may present total desolation to a free and prosperous people.  Before the free people know it, their destruction is upon them.  The Founders felt that it was the kind hand of Providence that allowed the United States to come forth as the nation of free people in modern times, and that we would be blessed with freedom and prosperity only as long as we remained virtuous and adequately armed as a nation.

While the Founder's had the goal of peace for this nation, they believed that strength was the means of maintaining it.  Benjamin Franklin said,

Our security lies, I think, in our growing strength, both in numbers and wealth; that creates an increasing ability of assisting this nation in its wars, which will make us more respectable, our friendship more valued, and our enmity feared; thence it will soon be thought proper to treat us not with justice only, but with kindness, and thence we may expect in a few years a total change of measures with regard to us; unless, by neglect of military discipline, we should lose all martial spirit, and our western people become as tame as those eastern dominions of Britain [India], when we may expect the same oppressions; for there is much truth in the Italian saying, "Make yourselves sheep, and the wolves will eat you."

Franklin has a low opinion of those that waved the flag but really did little to defend liberty.  He called for action to back up words.

George Washington is often described as "First in peace, first in war, first in the hearts of  his countrymen."  He fought the Revolutionary War with no Navy of any consequence, no trained professional army, and not outpouring of general support from the states that he was trying to save.  No man wanted peace more then he did.  He said, "To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means to preserving peace."  He also saw the fallacy of a policy of interdependence with other nations which made our nation only more vulnerable in time of war.  He spoke in the first annual address about the necessity of the people to work towards being independent of others for essentials, and particularly military supplies.  He cautioned the American people about being lured in by politics or world circumstances into a position of complacency.  That vigilance is the price of freedom and if it was not promoted that our future as a nation was in jeopardy.

At the time of Washington's fifth annual address, he could already see the predatory monarchs of Europe wanting to slice up the United States and divide it among them.  He felt that we must take the position that we are at all times ready for war.

Samuel Adams stressed that it is a moral responsibility to preserve our heritage of freedom and the rights that we have been endowed with by the Creator.  That once they had been vouchsafed, that is was wicked and unnatural to allow them to languish by neglect or apathy.  Thus the Founders passed on to their posterity a policy of peace through strength.  They were peace-loving, but not pacifists.  They saw the foundation of security as a bustling, prosperous economy with a high standard of public morality, and they saw the necessity for a level of preparedness which discouraged attack from potential enemies by creating a rate of risk that would be so high that the idea of waging war against this nation would be an obviously unprofitable undertaking.

Thus we point out that this belief was in defense of this nation, on this land, and not by invading other lands.  The Revolutionary War was fought here, not abroad.  It was fought for the basic rights of life, liberty and property.  America does not go aboard seeking for monsters to destroy.  John Quincy Adams said it best,

"America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."

The Principles of Liberty| Principle 23

"A Free Society Cannot Survive as a Republic Without a Broad Program of General Education"

The English colonists in America undertook the education of the whole people.  They believed that they must prepare themselves for a most unique and important role in the unfolding of modern world history.  Universal education was considered an indispensable ingredient for this preparation.

The movement for universal education began in New England, in the 1647 the legislature of Massachusetts passed a law requiring every community of 50 families or households to set up a free public grammar school to teach the fundamentals of reading, writing, ciphering, history, geography and Bible study.  In addition to this, every township with 100 families or more was also required to set up a secondary school in advanced studies to prepare boys for attendance at Harvard.  John Adams said that this program was designed to defuse knowledge generally through the entire body of the people.  He Said:

"They made an early provision by law that every town consisting of so many families should always be furnished with a grammar school.  They made it a crime for such a town to be destitute of a grammar schoolmaster for a few months, and subjected it to heavy penalty.  So that the education of all the ranks of people was made the care and expense of the public, in a manner that I believe has been unknown to any other people, ancient or modern.

The Consequences of these establishments we see and feel every day (written in 1765).  A Native of America who cannot read and write is as rare as a comet or an earthquake.  It has been observed that we are all of us lawyers, divines, politicians, and philosophers.   And I have good authorities to say that all candid foreigners who have passed through this country and conversed freely with all sorts of people here will all say that they have never seen so much knowledge and civility among the common people in any part of the world.  Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.  They have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers."

The way that this system was designed made good local school boards very important.  Not only did they choose what textbooks would be used, they also chose which teachers they would issue certificates to.  It was important that the board have a rotation of officers every three years.  And that it was 1/3 that was always being rotated, that way, there were those on the board with experience (2/3 of the board) that could help keep things maintained while the new board members got familiar with the system.

Something that we should note about this time period, is that at this time illiteracy was quite common in Europe among the common people.  France, for example, had over 24 million inhabitants, but only 500,000 could actually read and write.

In the American colonies, the intention of this education system for the children was so that they could grow up to become well informed citizens through their own diligent self-study.  This also explains why the Founders were so well read having had limited formal education.  After learning the fundamentals, they went on to develop knowledge through a self-learning process.

This system of education was so wide spread, that by 1831, when Alexis de Tocqueville came to visit the United States, he was amazed.  He said that to find a person that was ignorant of the doctrines and evidences of his religion, the history of his country, and the leading features of the Constitution was very rare, a phenomenon. 

Education includes Morality and Politics.  Alexis also stated that" instruction that enlightens the understanding is not separated from the moral education.  The American learns to know the laws by participating in the act of legislation; and he takes a lesson in the forms of government from governing.  In the United States, politics are the end and aim of education."

Young children were taught the value of the Constitution, the book was called "Catechism on the Constitution."  Early Americans knew that they had a unique and invaluable invention of political science and they were determined to promote it on all levels of education.

Many Early Americans spoke with great eloquence, and this was due to their extensive education in reading the Bible.  A great example is Abraham Lincoln, whose great speeches cannot be attributed to a college education since he did not have one.  The Founding Fathers felt that the strength of America's moral character came from the studying of the Bible.  "The book teaches man his own individual responsibility, his own dignity, and his equality to his fellowman. " One need not go very far today to find a school that has eliminated the Bible reading from their curriculum, nor the removal of curriculum for children of the same caliber as "Catechism on the Constitution."  One could also say that this Bible verse says it all,
Hosea 4: 6
6 ¶ My people are destroyed for lack of ^aknowledge: because thou hast ^brejected ^cknowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the ^dlaw of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

Thomas Jefferson Warns of Dangers of National Debt

Benjamin Franklin Calls for Prayer at the Constitutional Convention

The Principles of Liberty | Principle 22

"A Free People Should be Governed by Law and Not the Whims of Man"

If mankind are governed by the whims of men they are subjected to every changing inclination of sudden illogical changes of mind, ideas, or actions of those in power.  This is ruler's law at its worst.  In this kind of society, no rights are secure and nothing is dependable; things are in a constant state of flux.  Nothing is fixed nor predictable for the future.

The Founders defined law as a 'rule of action', which was binding on the ruler as it was upon the people.  It was designed to give society a stable frame of reference so the people could feel secure in making plans for the future.  John Locke said:

Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to everyone of that society. and made by the legislative power erected in it.

Under established law, every person's rights and duties are defined.  Such a society gives the people a feeling of liberty, liberty under the law.  The American Founders believed that without the protection of law there can be no liberty.

John Locke also pointed out that unless a society can provide a person with a code of fixed and enforceable laws, he might as well have stayed in the jungle.

To this end it is that men give up all their natural power to the society that they enter into, and the community put the legislative power into such hands as they see fit, with this trust, that they shall be governed by declared laws, or else their peace, quiet, and property will still be at the same uncertainty as it was in the state of Nature.

John Adams also agreed when he said:

No man will contend that a nation can be free that is not governed by fixed laws.  All other government that that of permanent known laws is the government of mere will and pleasure.

 Aristotle said:

Even the best of men in authority are liable to be corrupted by passion.  We may conclude then that the law is reason without passion, and it is therefore preferable to any individual.

 And from this we can see that Aristotle disagreed with his mentor Plato, who believed that that the ideal society should be governed by a few who would rule according to scientific principles and make on the spot decisions and force the people to do what is good for them.  He said that if there was not a man with this scientific knowledge, then law would be required, but it was only the second best thing.

the difference appears to be perspective.  Rather then looking at law as a merely a code of negative restraints and prohibitions, the Founders considered it to be a system of positive rules by which they could be assured of enjoying their rights and the protection of themselves, their families and their property.  John Locke said it best:

The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.  For in all the states of created beings, capable of laws, where there is no law there is no freedom.  For liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others, which cannot be when there is no law.

The Founders were sensitive to the fact that people only have confidence in laws that they can understand, as well as feel that it is of relative permanence, which will not be continually changed.  James Madison said this so well:

It will be of little avail to the people that the law are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be revealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow.  Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known and less fixed?

 Thomas Jefferson resigned from the congress in 1776 in order to return to Virginia to make certain that the state laws were rewritten so that when independence had been won, the people would have a model system of legal principles which they could both understand and support.  The complex codes and laws of our day could be similarly improved with such a great housecleaning as Jefferson did for Virginia.  Imagine what James Madison would think of our legislature and senate who pass bills that are so large that they have not read them when they vote on them, that vote on bills that are not yet even written!

The 28 Principles of Liberty| Principle 21

"Strong Local Self-government is the Keystone to Preserving Human Freedom"

Political power automatically tries to gravitate towards centralization, the purpose of the US Constitution is to prevent that from happening.  Centralization of political power ALWAYS destroys liberty by removing the decision-making function from the people on the local level to the officers of the central government.

When this occurs, the people start to lose the spirit of voluntarism and the will to solve their own problems.  They also cease to be involved in community affairs.

This contrasts with the New England town spirit where every person had a voice and a vote.  How different from the Anglo-Saxon tribal meetings, where the people were considered sovereign and every man took pride in participating.  And even more, how different from ancient Israel where the families of the people were governed in multitudes of tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands, where problems were solved on the levels where those problem originated.    This is what the Founders considered the golden key to preserving liberty.

Thomas Jefferson said "These wards, called townships in  New England, are the vital principle of their governments, and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government, and for its perservation.

Jefferson was anxious to have America revive the customs of their Anglo-Saxon ancestors, including strong local self-government.  Historian Richard Frothingham has pointed out that in ancient England there were political and territorial divisions that were similar to that of Ancient Israel.  "Tythings, hundreds. burghs, counties and shires", in which the body of inhabitants had a voice in managing their own affairs.  That was until that ruling classes were installed in its place, undermining the ancient freedom of the municipalities.

Even as this situation arose, in the backs of the minds of the people, they remembered the the right of freemen of the past, and thought that it was something that might be brought about again.

And this is exactly what happened as Englishmen pulled away from the mother country and migrated to America.  The assemblies reappeared, and old rights were once again enjoyed.  As they wrote their laws, they were determined to protect the freedom of the individual and provide for a healthy local government.  Only those things that which related to the interest of the entire commonwealth were delegated to central government.

James Madison emphasized the necessity to reserve all possible authority in the states and the people.  The Constitution delegates to the federal government on that which involves the whole people as a nation.  He wrote, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.  Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.  The former (federal powers) will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce....The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State."

Thomas Jefferson emphasized that if the oncoming generations continued the Constitutional pattern, the federal government would be small and cohesive and would serve and an inexpensive operation because of the limited problems which would be assigned to it.  He wrote, "The true theory of our Constitution is sure the wisest and best, that the states are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign nations.  Let the general government be reduced to foreign concerns only, ans let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce, which the merchants will manage the better, the more they are left free to manage for themselves, and our general government may be reduced to a very simple organization, and a very inexpensive one; a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants."

A WARNING from John Fiske:

"If the day should ever arrive when the people of the different parts of our country shall allow their local affairs to be administered by prefects sent from Washington, and then the self-government of the states shall have been so far lost  as that of the departments of France, or even so closely  limited as that of the counties of England, on that day the political career of the American people will have been robbed of its most interesting and valuable features, and the usefulness of this nation will be lamentably impaired."

The 28 Principles of Liberty | Principle 20

"Efficiency and Dispatch Require Governments to Operate to the Will of the Majority, but Constitutional Provisions Must be Made to Protect the Rights of the Minority"

One of the serious mistakes Of the Articles of Confederation was the requirement that all states must approve in order for any changes to be made.  During the Revolutionary War, there were several vital changes that were suggested, but each time a single state was able to prevent that needed change.

Delaying action like this in an emergency can be disastrous.  Unanimity is ideal, but majority rule is a necessity.  John Locke explained it this way,"When any number of men have consented to make one community or government, they are thereby presently incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the majority have a right to act and conclude (bind) the rest.  It being one body it is necessary the body should move that way whiter the greater force carries it, which is the consent of the majority, or else it is impossible it should act ot continue one body...And thus, every man, by consenting with others to make one body politic under one government, puts himself under obligation to every one of that society to submit to the determination of the majority, and to be concluded (bound) by it."

Nevertheless, the American Founders had suffered enough from the tyrannical conduct of Parliment to feel highly sensitive to the rights of minorities.  Thomas Jefferson referred to this in his inaugural address on March 4, 1801 when he said: "All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression."

Once upon a time, we were all minorities in this nation.  We are literally a nation of minorities.  It is the new-comers that feel that they are not yet first-class citizens.  The United States has built a reputation of being more generous and helpful to newcomers than any other nation.  It is a reputation worth preserving.

The 28 Principles of Liberty| Principle 19

"Only Limited and Carefully Defined Powers Should be Delegated to Government, All Others Being Retained in the People."

There was no principle no more adamantly emphasized during the Constitutional Convention then the absolute necessity to limit the federal government.  Not only was this done by carefully defining the powers delegated to the government, but the Founders were determined to bind down its administrators with legal chains contained within the Constitution.

One of the reasons that many of the states would not adopt the original draft is because they feared the encroachments of the federal government on the rights of the states and the people.  Therefore, the first ten amendments were added to include the ancient, unalienable rights of the Anglo-Saxon so that there could be absolutely no question as the the strictly limited authority the people were conferring on their central government. We can see this by looking closely at the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

The Ninth: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

The Tenth: "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."

The people felt that it was absolutely necessary to hedge up the federal authority because of their experience with a corrupt and abusive government in the past. 

Alexander Hamilton commented on this by saying, "There is, in the nature of sovereign power, an impatience of control that disposes those who are invested with the exercise of it to look with an evil eye upon all external attempts to restrain or direct its operations...This tendency is not difficult to be accounted for.  It has its origins in the love of power.  Power controlled or abridged is almost always the rival and enemy of that power by which it is controlled or abridged.  This simple proposition will teach us how little reason there is to expect that the persons entrusted with the administration of the affairs of the particular members of an confederacy (the federal government) will at all times be ready with perfect good humor and an unbiased regard to the public weal to execute the resolutions or decrees of the general authority.  The reverse of this (expectation) results from the constitution of man."







The principle of limited government is enforced by the separation of powers between the states and the federal government by design.  The federal government was supreme in matters relating only to its responsibilities and was specifically restricted from invading the independence and sovereign authority that is reserved to the States.  This principle had to be carefully perpetuated for a healthy independence otherwise, the independence of each would deteriorate and eventually one would become dominant.  If it was the federal government that gained dominance, then it would mean the end of local self-government and the security of the individual.  If the States became dominate, then the nation you begin to fracture into smaller units.

The Founders felt that having this balance would make it possible for the people to have recourse if one or the other became dominant or abusive of their powers.  Hamilton said that the people could throw themselves into either scale, that they can make use of the other as the instrument of redress.

The Founder's would have frowned on the 17th Amendment.  The reason for this is because it took away the ability for the states to more effectively protect themselves by their Senators being appointed by the state legislature thereby making it possible for the Senate to veto anything that the House which they considered a threat to the rights of the individual states.  Unfortunately this was wiped out by the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913.  This amendment made the election of Senators by popular vote, stripping the state legislatures of their ability to defend their liberty.  It caused the states to lose the representation at the federal level and the Senators could now be pressured by whatever popular pressures of the day existed during their campaign season, just like the House of Representatives.  Since then there has been no veto power that the states could exercise against the Congress in those cases where a federal statue was in violation of states' rights.  In other words, this amendment is in direct violation of the 9th and 10th Amendments of the Constitution, and it would be wise for the American people to restore their Constitutional powers to the State level as was designed by the Founding Fathers.