I recently took note of a young conservative who spoke at an event hosted by Sen. McCaskill’s staff. I wrote that, while I didn’t entirely agree with this young man’s arguments, his clarity of thought and stage presence were impressive for someone his age, perhaps signaling a future for him in Republican politics.
In addition to his public-speaking acumen, I also give this young man props for compelling me to revisit the enumerated powers of Congress in Article I, Section 8, of our Constitution and the associated, age-old debate about whether or not those powers should be strictly interpreted — i.e., should Congress pass laws that are not expressly allowed by its constitutionally defined powers?
In revisiting that subject, I considered not only Article I, Section 8, but also …
- The Federalist Papers, notably Nos. 41-44, authorship of which is generally assigned to James Madison
Selected commentary on the same
Additional commentary by Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, both of whom (along with Madison) were referenced by the young man who spoke at the aforementioned event.
Thanks to the TMV readers who helped me identify several of these sources. After perusing them, I was reminded just how circumspect (conservative) our founding fathers were when discussing the powers granted to the national (central) government. In all fairness, they had to be circumspect about those powers in order to persuade the states to ratify the Constitution. The states were as fiercely independent as the men and women who settled them and then fought a war to secure their respective and collective freedom. Having just liberated themselves from the heavy-hand of one central government, the people of the states were understandably reluctant to submit themselves to another, unless that “other” was strictly limited in its authority.
This innate American wariness of central government has persisted. And frankly, I share that wariness. But I also recognize that we can’t ignore 222 years of history between the Constitution’s ratification and today. We can’t ignore what two centuries’ worth of Congresses and Presidents and Supreme Courts — progressive and conservative, Republican (Whig) and Democrat — have done to modify our national view on the rightful roles of central government. We can’t ignore the precedents that they established and that have been left in place, largely unchallenged.
To help illustrate this point in my latest commentary for St. Louis’ NPR affiliate, I went all the way back to the early 1860’s, the years of the Republican Party’s first governing majority. Obviously, there are other, more recent examples of Republican (and Democratic) use (and attempted use) of Congress’ implied rather than express powers, but I was limited in how much I could discuss by the radio station’s rules on the length of guest commentaries. In addition, it seemed that an illustration tied to the genesis of the GOP carried a certain dramatic effect that more recent examples might not.