The standard that is our constitution

By Scott A. Robinson, Editor

Filed Under Domestic Policy on Oct 19 

Speaking to the constitutional convention, George Washington said:

If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God (emphasis added).

General Washington called for a standard to be created that could consistently be returned to over time as a base. A standard is significant because it is a foundation that is unchanging. Washington did not call for a “framework”, an “understanding”, or some “starting point” to be created. He called for a standard.

In basketball, the standard is the apparatus that the backboard and rim are connected to. For all regular adult play, the basketball standard is the same height, regardless of if one plays at the neighborhood park, the local recreation center, in high school, in the Olympics, or in the NBA.

A basketball standard stands the same, regardless of where it is located. Basketball players of all skill levels know exactly what to expect when they step on a basketball court, regardless of its location. They know that they can depend on the standard always being 10 feet.

Our constitution is such a standard of law. This is what our Republic is built upon. However, its principles are constantly under attack by those who would prefer another standard or no standard at all.

Having the standard that is the constitution means there is a sure foundation that our country is build upon. If this standard is subject to consistent change by the seasonal whims of the changes of “our day” or “these times” or if there were no standard at all, then our country’s foundation is that of the foolish man who built his house upon the sand. “And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.”

General Washington most certainly was correct. The constitution of the United States of America is a standard of correct law. It is a standard to the people of this country and a standard to the world of freedom. The fruits of this freedom are prosperity never before seen upon this Earth, which is why the citizens of all nations flow to our country.

I pray that we may defend our glorious standard and its original meaning and intent. There intentionally is no “redistribution of wealth” or “social justice” in the constitution, nor is anyone to be given a fish. The constitution protects our freedom from a tyrannical government which is why our founding fathers intentionally placed significant constraints on the government! The constitution does not tell us what the “government must do on our behalf” because as Thomas Paine said, “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one“. The constitution does provide the freedom for us to act on our own behalf and the framework providing for the opportunity to be more successful than any nation in the history of this world. Let us stand up to defend this standard and fight against those who would place us in the bondage of government! There is no greater gift than our freedom. We take it for granted every single day. Will you continue to willingly give it away to the government piece by piece?

Comments

  • David Kaiser, Editor

    At the risk of pulling a Mel Gibson in Braveheart, I’m going to pick a fight.

    Scott, this is a spirited and well written piece. But I have to (of course) disagree in some respects.

    First of all, starting a paragraph with “I pray” and then quoting a guy (Paine) who once said “All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.” makes me pause.

    That aside, in Washington, you’ve picked but one man’s (granted a great one man) opinion on the Constitution. And Washington played an all-but-symbolic role at the Constitutional Convention as its president, not participating in almost any of the debate. Oh and then again, Washington did have some strong opinions on the state versus national government argument:

    ““Although I frankly confess,” he wrote Henry Knox, “that the existence of the State governments is an insuperable evil in a national point of view, yet I do not well see how in this stage of the business they could be annihilated.””

    James Madison was in favor of a more “federal” and powerful centralized government, including a federal veto over the states. He wasn’t alone in this stand, as many of the Framers of the Constitution fought for a strong central government.

    What was got was a federal government that was of mid-level power at the time, not very strong nor very weak. Madison lamented this, without calling the Constitution a failure.

    Madison was the idea man and the driving force in the creation of the Constitution, even though it did not come out quite like he had wanted.

    George Will has a great quote in regards to Washington and Madison:

    “If we really believed the pen was mightier, or even more dignified, than the sword, the nation’s capital would be named not for the soldier who wielded the revolutionary sword, but for the thinker who was ablest with a pen. It would be Madison, D.C. Yet until recently there was not even a government building named after him. And what has now been named for him? A library, for Pete’s sake. What a put-down in a city with the world’s highest ratio of action to reflection.”

    • Brian H

      This is the same Thomas Paine who wrote in The American Crisis:

      “Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but “to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER,” and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.”

      Paine was not against evoking the diety when it served him, Scott should not be as well.

      I agree with David’s assessment regarding Madison and Washington.

    • Red State Eddio

      Ach, laddie, then a fight may be coming to ya’…;-)

      First, the quote (a minor issue): I disagree with you, DK, and think it’s nothing to get lathered up over. While an ironic sentiment in light of the quote, it doesn’t violate any rhetorical rules from what I see. He’s parlaying the sentiments of his own ideas with that of TP after he’s already made the point in his own words. Ironic, yes, but not contradictory.

      Your assessment could be inferred that I would not be able to quote someone I usually disagreed with when a moment of agreement may occur later in other contexts.

      —–

      OK, I’ve been accused of a lot of things in life, but a constitutional scholar is not one of them. So I’m going off of Mr Chrismer’s junior year history class for my recollections on this one – and that was almost at the time of Messrs. Madison & Monroe.

      Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Madison fervently against Hamilton (and ergo Washington) in their imposition of a “european style democracy” (read=monarchy)? I realize Madison thought the Articles of Confederation was too weak, and that he came to value the “benefits” of a national government when it came to banking and fighting a war (like 1812). But I also thought he was greatly alarmed at all the suggestions that Hamilton wanted to draft and put into the federal gov’t's power, and fought against him tooth and nail.

      Is that what you were trying to say? It sounded like you were pushing Madison into the same camp as Georgie, and that I thought was an over-reach.

      • David Kaiser, Editor

        RSE – I wouldn’t call myself a Constitutional scholar either, but I did have a history minor in college and have read quite a bit about the fellas in question here.

        I would say you are half right, in that Madison was against Hamilton when it came to the darned near a monarchy that he wanted. He was also against an equal Congress, he wanted both the senate and the house to be based on population, which is more of a republic-style idea.

        But he was squarely in favor of a federal government that was strong, as shown by his desire for a national veto power for said federal government over the states.

        Madison worked *with* Hamilton along with several others to formulate the “Virginia Plan”.

        Anyway, I think that people today are set in their opinion of what the Constitution means and how it should be utilized. I am not a strict constitutionalist, but I recognize that some people are, and getting them off of that idea is like trying to convince basically anyone who posts here to vote for Obama.

        I do like this quite though, from the guy who might have been the smartest in the room in that era:

        Benjamin Franklin On the Federal Constitution

        Speaking before the Convention in Philadelphia, 1787

        I CONFESS that I do not entirely approve of this Constitution at present; but, sir, I am not sure I shall never approve of it, for, having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that, the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment of others. Most men, indeed, as well as most sects in religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them, it is so far error. Steele, a Protestant, in a dedication, tells the pope that the only difference between our two churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrine is, the Romish Church is infallible, and the Church of England is never in the wrong. But, tho many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as of that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain French lady, who, in a little dispute with her sister said: “But I meet with nobody but myself that is always in the right.”

        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 I believe, further, 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 counsels 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. The opinions I have had of its errors I sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these walls they were born, and here they shall die. If every one of us, in returning to our constituents, were to report the objections he has had to it, and endeavor to gain partizans in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received, and thereby lose all the salutary effects and great advantages resulting naturally in our favor among foreign nations, as well as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity. Much of the strength and efficiency of any government, in procuring and securing happiness to the people, depends on opinion, on the general opinion of the goodness of that government, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its governors. I hope, therefore, for our own sakes, as a part of the people, and for the sake of our posterity, that we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution wherever our influence may extend, and turn our future thoughts and endeavors to the means of having it well administered.

        On the whole, sir, I can not help expressing a wish that every member of the convention who may still have objections to it, would, with me, on this occasion, doubt a little of his own infallibility, and, to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument.

    • http://scottslant.blogspot.com/ Scott A. Robinson

      I don’t have time to address all of your concerns, but quickly on Paine.

      Regardless of my phrasing that began 6 lines before the quote, your assertion is that if part of someone’s beliefs do not agree my viewpoints, I can’t agree with some of what that person believes and therefore quote them.

      Really? Then I’d have to, as an example, reject everything written by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations because he was first and foremost was well-known in his time for his viewpoints expressed in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, a book, from my understanding of its contents, I would in no way agree with as it is contrary to most of my beliefs on the basis of morals.

      Okay…back to work.