"In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other. I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best." (Benjamin Franklin, September 17, 1787 to the Constitutional Convention; emphasis added)

Question: If you follow the following formula of government, what is the likely result?

1. Grant to the government the right to "lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States" and

2. Further, grant to this government the exclusive power "to borrow money on the credit of the United States" and to "coin money, regulate the value thereof," and

3. Allow for the government, thus empowered, "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof" and, finally

4. Allow the citizens under the rule of this government to elect those who are to carry out these powers at 2 (House of Representatives), 4 (President) and 6 (Senate) year intervals.

My answer would be a quasi-democracy that, over time and with continued enlargement of those so ruled, would devolve into a pseudo-representative despotism. What would your answer be? Would it be the best form of government that the minds of men can conceive, as those supporters of the Constitution described it in 1787? Or would it be something that strikes icy fear in the hearts of every citizen who values liberty and individual freedom?

I am persuaded that the answer to these queries would depend a great deal of where one’s personal situation stands (in relation to one’s peers) when the inquiry is submitted. The answer from one who is financially secure and immune to worry as to the source of one’s daily bread might be radically different from a citizen who struggles to provide the basic necessities life for themselves and their family. The former might see such a government as quite adequate; the latter may hold an opposing assessment.

However, if you could examine the query from a detached view - if you were immune, if only briefly, to the circumstances of your personal situation - is it not possible to understand the flaws in such a system of government? Allow me to suggest another hypothetical situation: Suppose you could visit - only for a day - a parallel universe with a newly independent country which is devising a system of rule for their citizenry. The committee charged with devising the new system asks your advise on their plan - which is identical to the one enumerated above. Would you not have some caveats or warnings for these alternate Founding Fathers? At the risk of presumptuousness, I would venture that you would.

There are several problems which all clear thinking Americans might agree upon. First, there is the broad interpretation of the phrase "provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." Without argument, the two main (some would suggest "only") duties of government are to protect its citizens from foreign invasion and from internal anarchy. These are the two basic and indisputable duties of any social system of delegated rule. They are the raison d’etre for the existence of human civilization. They are so because, principally, they protect the individual rights of the subjects to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Thus, one cannot argue - from any position of logic - with the purpose of "providing for the common defense."

The mischief lay in the ambiguous "provide for the...general welfare." To minimalist reasoning, the "general welfare" of the people is served, simply enough, by protecting the basic, unimpeachable liberties (property ownership, religious tolerance, et cetera) from encroachment, foreign (through a military shield) or domestic (through a police shield) threats. To extend the sphere of "general welfare" further, some might include maintaining a safe and efficient system (waterways, rail and highway systems) for the transportation of goods and services between producers and consumers. That is to say, to promote a heathy economy via competitive capitalism. (One might also argue that, in a healthy capitalism, these auxiliary services would be more efficiently provided by private enterprise. We will abstain from debating this particular point at this juncture.) Further, one might agree that the general welfare might plausibly be extended to the guarantee of equal treatment of all citizens under law - in the arena of jurisprudence as well as in commerce. Government, if rightfully attending to the general welfare, should provide for a "level playing field" in the healthy competition of securing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

To expand the phrase of general welfare any further would be to tread upon treacherous, hazy and hazardous precedents. No where does the framework of our system of rule suggest that it is the duty of the national government to "rescue" any person or any group of persons from the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." Tragedy - personal and financial - can befall any citizen at any time. That is a fact of life in any human society as far back as anyone would care to examine. For any rulers to assume the responsibility to repair even the most egregious trespasses of cruel fate is to confront a Gordian Knot that can be neither untied nor cut through. It is, more likely, to ensnare and entangle those so presumptuous in an unending and perpetual maze of bureaucracy and expansionism. For, if this is part of the general welfare, who is to decide which individual case of cruel misfortune deserves intervention? Conversely, if we are to attempt to establish general rules and guidelines for those groups that meet particular criteria of destitution, how does the limited reason of man devise a system that will be fair to all and absent of manipulation by nefarious citizens? My answer to the question would be: It cannot be done.

But, regardless of the improbability of an equitable solution to any of the myriad social inequities that bedevil human society, the Constitution (at least as currently interpreted) binds no legislative hands and spares no expense. The Sisyphean efforts by our government to cure all of the world’s ills while sinking the treasury and the nation into irremediable bankruptcy are, apparently, ignored and accepted by those so ruled. Like the Native Americans before them, an oblivious modern American public accepts wampum and trivial gratuities dispensed by "The Great Chiefs" in Washington as sufficient reward for their complacency and acquiescence. Instead of unscrupulously buying the land of the natives, the rulers now purchase the liberty and freedom of the people. And, just as they did when they bought Manhattan Island for $22, the government is offering little to the natives and gaining much. There is no more startling a display of the largesse offered up to the natives by the federal system than to visit the gaudy "shrine to emoluments" located at their official trading post. For mere beads and trinkets, we have offered up our lives and liberties to a ravenous and all-consuming beast that is progressive tyranny that was predicted by Benjamin Franklin in 1787.

The 10^th Amendment to the Constitution would have us believe that there are limits to federal powers. It states: "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 overbearing federal intrusion into the affairs of the states and their citizens that exists today was, even among the staunchest Federalist, never envisioned. Nor was such encroachment ever acquiesced to by those who ratified the Constitution in each of the original states. But, as we have learned far too late, parchment barriers are no defense to public apathy and ignorance. As long as the citizens are appeased by Potemkin Villages that provide the illusion of freedom and liberty, the overbearing and overreaching despotism that is ours remains safe.

If one examines the Federalist Papers, one is struck by the naivete of the "Father of the Constitution," the young and idealistic James Madison. In the 45^th Paper, Madison attempts to assuage the concerns of the Anti-Federalists and their justifiable concerns for the establishment of a powerful national system and the inevitable loss of state sovereignty. He writes:

"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 will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. 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." [Emphasis added]

Today, it is apparent to those of us burdened with the ever-tightening yoke of this system that Madison (and all those who advocated his new representative system of rule) implemented a system which offered much promise but, ultimately, was defective, flawed, uncontrollable and prone to fatal abuses. The much-exalted Madison was not as visionary and omniscient as historians would have us believe. In point of fact (and at the risk of sounding heretical), one might reasonably conclude that the Federalists (including Madison, Hamilton, John Jay and, yes, George Washington, himself) were either incredibly naive or nascent despots all along. For the federal system they set in motion has proceeded to quash and deform all semblance of the liberty and freedom it was to protect above all things.

Franklin was, as usual, historically correct when he predicted the new Constitution would lead, given time, ultimately to just what the American Revolution fought against: despotism. It may be cloaked in the guise of democracy but it is not that thing. It is of no small interest that the word "democracy" appears nowhere in the 4400 word document that is our Constitution.

I suspect that might have been a hint - even in 1787.