The New Deal, Dean Acheson wrote approvingly in a book called _A
Democrat Looks At His Party_, “conceived of the federal government as
the whole people organized to do what had to be done.” A year later Mr.
Larson wrote _A Republican Looks At His Party_, and made much the same
claim in his book for Modern Republicans. The “underlying philosophy”
of the New Republicanism, said Mr. Larson, is that “if a job has to be
done to meet the needs of the people, and no one else can do it, then
it is the proper function of the federal government.”
Here we have, by prominent spokesmen of both political parties, an
unqualified repudiation of the principle of limited government. There
is no reference by either of them to the Constitution, or any attempt
to define the legitimate functions of government. The government can
do whatever _needs_ to be done; note, too, the implicit but necessary
assumption that it is the government itself that determines _what_
needs to be done. We must not, I think underrate the importance of
these statements. They reflect the view of a majority of the leaders
of one of our parties, and of a strong minority among the leaders of
the other, and they propound the first principle of totalitarianism:
that the State is competent to do all things and is limited in what it
actually does only by the will of those who control the State.
It is clear that this view is in direct conflict with the Constitution
which is an instrument, above all, for _limiting_ the functions of
government, and which is as binding today as when it was written. But
we are advised to go a step further and ask why the Constitution’s
framers restricted the scope of government. Conservatives are often
charged, and in a sense rightly so, with having an overly mechanistic
view of the Constitution: “It is America’s enabling document; we are
American citizens; therefore,” the Conservatives’ theme runs, “we are
morally and legally obliged to comply with the document.” All true.
But the Constitution has a broader claim on our loyalty than that. The
founding fathers had a _reason_ for endorsing the principle of limited
government; and this reason recommends defense of the constitutional
scheme even to those who take their citizenship obligations lightly.
The reason is simple, and it lies at the heart of the Conservative
philosophy.
Throughout history, government has proved to be the chief instrument
for thwarting man’s liberty. Government represents power in the
hands of some men to control and regulate the lives of other men. And
power, as Lord Acton said, _corrupts_ men. “Absolute power,” he added,
“corrupts absolutely.”
State power, considered in the abstract, need not restrict freedom:
but absolute state power always does. The _legitimate_ functions of
government are actually conducive to freedom. Maintaining internal
order, keeping foreign foes at bay, administering justice, removing
obstacles to the free interchange of goods--the exercise of these
powers makes it possible for men to follow their chosen pursuits with
maximum freedom. But note that the very instrument by which these
desirable ends are achieved _can_ be the instrument for achieving
undesirable ends--that government can, instead of extending freedom,
restrict freedom. And note, secondly, that the “can” quickly becomes
“will” the moment the holders of government power are left to their
own devices. This is because of the corrupting influence of power,
the natural tendency of men who possess _some_ power to take unto
themselves _more_ power. The tendency leads eventually to the
acquisition of _all_ power--whether in the hands of one or many makes
little difference to the freedom of those left on the outside.
Such, then, is history’s lesson, which Messrs. Acheson and Larson
evidently did not read: release the holders of state power from any
restraints other than those they wish to impose upon themselves, and
you are swinging down the well-travelled road to absolutism.
The framers of the Constitution had learned the lesson. They were not
only students of history, but victims of it: they knew from vivid,
personal experience that freedom depends on effective restraints
against the accumulation of power in a single authority. And that is
what the Constitution is: _a system of restraints against the natural
tendency of government to expand in the direction of absolutism_. We
all know the main components of the system. The first is the limitation
of the federal government’s authority to specific, delegated powers.
The second, a corollary of the first, is the reservation to the States
and the people of all power not delegated to the federal government.
The third is a careful division of the federal government’s power among
three separate branches. The fourth is a prohibition against impetuous
alteration of the system--namely, Article V’s tortuous, but wise,
amendment procedures.
Was it then a _Democracy_ the framers created? Hardly. The system of
restraints, on the face of it, was directed not only against individual
tyrants, but also against a tyranny of the masses. The framers were
well aware of the danger posed by self-seeking demagogues--that they
might persuade a majority of the people to confer on government vast
powers in return for deceptive promises of economic gain. And so they
forbade such a transfer of power--first by declaring, in effect, that
certain activities are outside the natural and legitimate scope of the
public authority, and secondly by dispersing public authority among
several levels and branches of government in the hope that each seat
of authority, jealous of its own prerogatives, would have a natural
incentive to resist aggression by the others.
But the framers were not visionaries. They knew that rules of
government, however brilliantly calculated to cope with the imperfect
nature of man, however carefully designed to avoid the pitfalls of
power, would be no match for men who were determined to disregard them.
In the last analysis their system of government would prosper only if
the governed were sufficiently determined that it should. “What have
you given us?” a woman asked Ben Franklin toward the close of the
Constitutional Convention. “A Republic,” he said, “_if you can keep
it_!”
We have not kept it. The Achesons and Larsons have had their way. The
system of restraints has fallen into disrepair. The federal government
has moved into every field in which it believes its services are
needed. The state governments are either excluded from their rightful
functions by federal preemption, or they are allowed to act at the
sufferance of the federal government. Inside the federal government
both the executive and judicial branches have roamed far outside their
constitutional boundary lines. And all of these things have come to
pass without regard to the amendment procedures prescribed by Article
V. The result is a Leviathan, a vast national authority out of touch
with the people, and out of their control. This monolith of power is
bounded only by the will of those who sit in high places.
There are a number of ways in which the power of government can be
measured.
One is the size of its financial operations. Federal spending is now
approaching a hundred billion dollars a year (compared with three and
one-half billion less than three decades ago.)
Another is the scope of its activities. A study recently conducted
by the _Chicago Tribune_ showed that the federal government is now
the “biggest land owner, property manager, renter, mover and hauler,
medical clinician, lender, insurer, mortgage broker, employer, debtor,
taxer and spender in all history.”
Still another is the portion of the peoples’ earnings government
appropriates for its own use: nearly a third of earnings are taken
every year in the form of taxes.
A fourth is the extent of government interference in the daily lives
of individuals. The farmer is told how much wheat he can grow. The
wage earner is at the mercy of national union leaders whose great
power is a direct consequence of federal labor legislation. The
businessman is hampered by a maze of government regulations, and often
by direct government competition. The government takes six per cent of
most payrolls in Social Security Taxes and thus compels millions of
individuals to postpone until later years the enjoyment of wealth they
might otherwise enjoy today. Increasingly, the federal government sets
standards of education, health and safety.
How did it happen? How did our national government grow from a servant
with sharply limited powers into a master with virtually unlimited
power?
In part, we were swindled. There are occasions when we have elevated
men and political parties to power that promised to restore limited
government and then proceeded, after their election, to expand the
activities of government. But let us be honest with ourselves. Broken
promises are not the major causes of our trouble. _Kept_ promises are.
All too often we have put men in office who have suggested spending a
little more on this, a little more on that, who have proposed a new
welfare program, who have thought of another variety of “security.” We
have taken the bait, preferring to put off to another day the recapture
of freedom and the restoration of our constitutional system. We have
gone the way of many a democratic society that has lost its freedom by
persuading itself that if “the people” rule, all is well.
The Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, probably the most clairvoyant
political observer of modern times, saw the danger when he visited this
country in the 1830’s. Even then he foresaw decay for a society that
tended to put more emphasis on its democracy than on its republicanism.
He predicted that America would produce, not tyrants but “guardians.”
And that the American people would “console themselves for being in
tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own guardians.
Every man allows himself to be put in lead-strings, because he sees
that it is not a person nor a class of persons, but the people at large
that hold the end of his chain.”
Our tendency to concentrate power in the hands of a few men deeply
concerns me. We can be conquered by bombs or by subversion; but we
can also be conquered by neglect--by ignoring the Constitution and
disregarding the principles of limited government. Our defenses against
the accumulation of unlimited power in Washington are in poorer shape,
I fear, than our defenses against the aggressive designs of Moscow.
Like so many other nations before us, we may succumb through internal
weakness rather than fall before a foreign foe.
I am convinced that most Americans now want to reverse the trend. I
think that concern for our vanishing freedoms is genuine. I think that
the people’s uneasiness in the stifling omnipresence of government has
turned into something approaching alarm. But bemoaning the evil will
not drive it back, and accusing fingers will not shrink government.
_The turn will come when we entrust the conduct of our affairs to men
who understand that their first duty as public officials is to divest
themselves of the power they have been given._ It will come when
Americans, in hundreds of communities throughout the nation, decide
to put the man in office who is pledged to enforce the Constitution
and restore the Republic. Who will proclaim in a campaign speech:
“I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it
more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to
promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass
laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but
to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have
failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted
financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is
‘needed’ before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally
permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my
constituents’ ‘interests,’ I shall reply that I was informed their main
interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I
can.”