10th in a Series by Texas Author Carol Sewell
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas Understanding the thoughts & reasoning behind the creation of our founding documents is important if we want to preserve what has worked well for us for over 200 years. In fact most of the principles laid out in the Constitution had already been implemented in many of the individual colonies long before the Declaration & War for Independence.
How these men thought and what they thought made a huge difference in the way they structured our civil system of government. The early colonists believed in the concept of self-government which resulted in a civil system where the people governed themselves through elected representatives. At that time in the world this was unheard of as most nations were governed by a monarch with little or no input from the citizens.
I believe we have to agree that these men were uncommon in their intelligence insight wisdom courage and level of education. They converged in the same place at the right time in order to bring about a new nation. A nation like no other that would challenge every belief about civil government at the time. A nation that provided a divided government to safeguard the system of limited government that granted opportunity and liberty for all.
The whole idea of creating a system of checks and balances came from a firm belief that evil existed and man was basically sinful if left to his own devices. Consequently man could not be trusted with absolute power because power is a corrupting influence which would ultimately lead to tyranny.
Therefore they came up with a system of separating the powers of the government by having three distinct branches of government so that no one entity or person had all the power.
In Federalist (Paper) No. 9 1787 Alexander Hamilton wrote this regarding the concept of separation of powers.
The regular distribution of power into distinct departments; the introduction of legislative balances and checks; the institution of courts composed of judges holding their offices during good behavior; the representation of the people in the legislature by deputies of their own election...
They are means and powerful means by which the excellences of republican government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided.
By using the term republican government" he was speaking of the fact that the country was not a democracy but a representative republic where the people are represented by men duly elected by the citizens of their districts to represent their values in Congress.
Along with the separation of powers came a belief that the election of President should not be by popular vote because they knew the electorate could be deluded by a candidate who would then take the country down a road contrary to our Constitution. They believed that only persons who truly respected our Constitution would make a good President. Plus they had a concern that the largest cities and most populous states would always dominate the presidential elections. In order to create a system that is fair to the less populous and smaller states they created the Elector College a system where it is the states that actually elect the President and Vice President.
Currently it seems there is a coordinated move to diminish our Constitutional system through weakening the Electoral College. A few of the states have passed legislation that requires their representatives to the Electoral College to cast their votes with the candidate that won the popular vote. What this does is undermine our whole republican system. The reasons listed above are valid and still important today. Those who want to change it refer to the Electoral College as archaic or out of date. The truth of the matter is that the original reasons are still valid today and the Constitution is still valid.
There are those who are calling for a Constitutional Convention in order to force a Balanced Budget Amendment a totally unnecessary method of attaining a balanced budget. Our Constitution is timeless and the founders provided a process to amend the Constitution in Article V. So far in our history this threat of calling for a Constitutional Convention has never happened and hopefully it will never happen. Article V provides guidelines for the amendment process and for calling for a Constitutional Convention but no specifics which raises a host of questions.
Questions such as where the convention should take place who will be delegates and how they would be chosen and most importantly who would chair a convention. The original Constitutional Convention was quite contentious because each state had their individual fears and issues. Today it would be even worse because currently everything is politicized and there are so many special interest groups that would want to institutionalize their issues.
There is desperate need for a fiscal restraint by the federal government so it is understandable why the states are so on board with a need for a federal balanced budget amendment. However why perform major surgery when there is a less invasive option. Why not pass resolutions calling for the Congress to come up with a federal balanced budget amendment that provides for spending caps and protects the taxpayers from increased taxes every time the Congress is short and needs to balance the budget.
We the people deserve nothing less than protection from a federal government that has no self-restraint to live within its means.
We the people want to secure our Constitution for our children and grandchildren.
It is the best and only Constitution in the world that has provided for over 200 years of phenomenal growth & stability. Why mess with it?
