The term usurp is a strong verb that means (1) “to seize and hold (a position, office, power, etc.) by force or without legal right;” (2) “to use without authority or right; employ wrongfully;” or (3) “to commit forcible or illegal seizure of an office, power, etc.; encroach.” Many feel that the federal government’s passage of H.R. 3590, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, amounted to the usurpation of liberty on a grand scale.

Jon N. Hall uses the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution to argue against the “individual mandate” found in The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Among other things, this federal law — derisively referred to as ObamaCare — mandates that most Americans purchase health insurance. In his article entitled “ObamaCare Flushes the Constitution,” Hall writes:

Some might wish that ObamaCare were still being defended with the Commerce Clause, as America needs clarity on the limits of that pesky clause. But a defense based on the taxing prerogative of the feds sets up what might be an even more vital precedent. The argument the states should now use to combat ObamaCare is the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

The “individual mandate” is unconstitutional because it will be applied unequally. It seems some individuals are more equal than others — they are exempted from paying this new tax.

Exempted people under The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act include those who are part of a “recognized religious sect” (i.e. the Amish), the poor, and those unable to pay. Hall argues, though, that since the White House’s own legal team defending this law from State challenges will argue that the “individual mandate” is a tax, then such individual exclusions are discriminatory,  arbitrary, and unequal. As such, they must be opposed on Fourteenth Amendment equal protection grounds.

In his article Hall explains several specific flaws contained within the “individual mandate” that should render it unconstitutional by equal protection standards.  In short, since the “individual mandate” is not applied equally to all people it is inherently unfair and thus violates the Constitution. He concludes with a warning of continued federal encroachment and the need to address it head-on:

Sadly, it has fallen to the states to defend the republic — the republic the states themselves created — from an out-of-control federal government. If the states’ suits over ObamaCare fail to get the judiciary to define limits to the federal government’s powers to tax and regulate, then We The People must seek other means of redress.

We’ve come to a point in America where the federal government is going to do whatever it wants to do; the Constitution seems to be is irrelevant. The Land of the Free is fast becoming The Nation of Slaves — tax slaves.

As Hall correctly noted, the federal government was the creation of the States. It has, however, become a greedy master that is rapidly devouring our freedoms and produce.  Legislative behemoths like The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act usurp the Constitution on a variety of fronts, the Fourteenth Amendment being one of them. To save ourselves, we the People — along with the States — must together rise up and put this federal beast back on a short Constitutional leash.

Additional Information Related to the “Individual Mandate” and the Constitution

No Health Care in the Constitution

Napolitano: High Court Key to Obamacare Survival

The Individual Mandate: We’re All Amish Now

Hillary Taxes Breathing

To Hell with the Constitution? – also by Jon N. Hall

Image Credit: renjith krishnan

Weighing in at just twenty-eight words, the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is  a vital part of our Supreme Law of the Land. It reads:

“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.”

These twenty-eight words are simple, forceful, and to the point. They are clear and leave no room for confusion or alternate interpretations. Yet, these words are continually ignored by many within our federal government. After more than a century of violating the Tenth Amendment, the bulk of government power no longer resides with the States and the People but is instead squarely in the corner of the federal government. This should not be.

Several writers have provided valuable insights regarding this significant loss of liberty. One such is Dr. Archie Jones of The American Vision. In his article entitled “The Liberty Amendment,” he builds a powerful case for a literal interpretation of the Tenth Amendment and demonstrates the safeguards within it that work to preserve the liberties of the States and the People:

No fundamental provision of the Constitution or the Bill of Rights is more neglected—or thoroughly violated—today than the Tenth Amendment. It is violated in spirit and in practice. Its violation is advocated implicitly and explicitly: in the teaching of American history and government, in legal theory, in what passes for “Constitutional Law,” and in the functioning of everyday American politics and government.

Our Constitution—as the very words of the Tenth Amendment make clear—was intended to be a delegated powers document. The states which formed and ratified the Constitution were free and independent states—nations—which delegated certain authority and powers to the new central or national government created by the Constitution. They delegated—and manifestly intended to delegate—only those powers stated in the Constitution: and no more. They forbade themselves certain other powers which they also stated in Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution.

By clear intention and unmistakable logic the several states entrusted no more authority or powers to the central government which their representatives had created. All other authority and powers which the states had had before they ratified the Constitution they retained to themselves—and intended to retain to themselves.

The Constitution therefore is also a reserved powers document. The powers which the states have neither forbidden to themselves in the Constitution nor delegated to the central government in the Constitution are reserved to the states. These powers are “reserved to the States respectively”: they are reserved to each respective state.

These reserved powers are “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This does not mean that they are reserved to the people of the nation as a whole, for that would mean that they are delegated to the central government—and would make the Tenth Amendment meaningless and ridiculous. The reserved powers are reserved to the people of the respective states. The powers which the government of each state or the people of that state have not delegated to the central government are reserved to the people or government of each state.

The neglected, abused, violated Tenth Amendment is much more than an amendment to our Constitution, much more than the final amendment to the Bill of Rights. The Tenth Amendment is the anchor and guarantee of federalism, a fundamental and essential principle of the Constitution—a principle insisted upon by the states whose representatives framed and ratified the Constitution.

It protects the self-government of the people of each state by protecting the powers which the state has neither assigned to the central government nor forbidden to itself in the Constitution. It thus protects each state’s authority and freedom to govern itself as its people and their representatives see fit (so long as they do not set up a non-republican form of civil government or violate the Constitution’s prohibitions of certain powers to them).

Dr. Jones goes on to point out that the Constitutional system of checks and balances created within the federal government is actually extended across governments to provide extra safeguards for liberty. In short, the federal government is to be checked and balanced by the governments of the States:

The famous system of separation of powers, with accompanying checks and balances between and among the three branches of our central/national government, was intended to protect liberty and justice by preventing the concentration of power, and consequent abuses of power and usurpations of power, in any one branch of the national government. Federalism, Madison tells us, is a system of separation of powers and checks and balances between the central or national government and the state governments. So important is federalism’s separation of powers with accompanying checks and balances between the central government and the state governments that federalism provides us “a double security to liberty.”

Dr. Jones points out that the Tenth Amendment was ratified to permanently create a balanced and limited federal government. He correctly argues that the Tenth Amendment must be followed if the federal government is to be restrained to its Constitutional role:

The Tenth Amendment was intended to make it clear that federalism is to remain basic to our Constitution and constitutional law. No fundamental provision of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights needs more urgently to be restored to its rightful place in our civil government and law.

Restoration of the Tenth Amendment to its rightful place in American political thought, constitutional law, and civil government is a necessary condition of the restoration of justice and freedom in America.

As voters and citizens we must demand that our federal government be restrained and subject to the limitations of the Tenth Amendment. Likewise we must demand that the States and the People retake their rightful place within our federal system. It is wrong to ignore and disobey the Constitution. The amendment process provides a sufficient tool-set for addressing perceived shortcomings; however, before proceeding down that path, one should consider that many of the issues currently handled by the federal government could be addressed more effectively at the state and/or local levels where Constitutional prohibitions against government involvement do not exist.

Additional Information on the Tenth Amendment

Amendment X: The False Truism

Roger Clemens: Pleading the Tenth

On the Tenth Amendment — Federalism

Tenth Amendment Center – provides a wealth of articles and resources

On August 28, 1963 from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King gave his famous “I have a Dream” speech. This brief speech became a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement and was part of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Some notable passages from Martin Luther King’s speech are included below:

In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

The above Philosophy of Liberty video is an animation based the epilogue of Ken Schoolland’s book, The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey. In 1992, the idea for this Philosophy of Liberty concept was initiated due to the publication of the Russian translation of this book. Publisher Dmitry Costygin pointed out to Schoolland that most Russians did not know what property or taxes were. To bring them up to speed, Schoolland penned a special introduction in his book. Since that time this introduction became very popular and appears as the epilogue in every language edition of The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible. Kerry Pearson, operating under the screen name of Lux Lucre, created the above animation to visually introduce Schoolland’s philosophy of liberty.

You can learn more about The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible and author Ken Schoolland on their official website.

Americans, we are not without power in the fight to safeguard liberty against federal government growth and encroachment. Our Founders distrusted strong centralized government. To allow for needed change and as an additional safeguard against federal abuse, they authorized both the Congress and the States to initiate the process of amending the Constitution. This powerful tool enables the People to lobby their elected representatives and/or their state legislature for a change to the United States Constitution. Collectively, the People and the States are supreme over the federal government.

The procedure for amending the Constitution is specified under Article V of the Constitution. A quick read will identify the only two amendment procedures allowed: The proposed amendment must originate either by (1) a two thirds vote of both chambers of Congress or through (2) the establishment of a “Convention to Propose Amendments” mandated by the Legislatures in two thirds of the States:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress . . . (Article V of the Constitution)

The amendment process does not end here. Proposed amendments must be ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of all States before they become part of the Constitution. After ratification an Amendment becomes part of the Constitution and is the supreme law of the land.

Because amending the Constitution is a very serious move, the amendment process was made difficult by design. In the more than 230 years of governance under our Constitution, hundreds of amendments have been proposed but only 27 have been ratified. Surprisingly, none of these Amendments were the result of a Convention to Propose Amendments.

The amendment power is real and allows the People and the States to take action and force significant change on the federal government. Thankfully, in their wisdom, the Founders created this powerful tool for we the People.

We can reduce the scope of our federal government. Let us take this authority seriously and use it!

Additional Information

For an informative overview of the Amendment process in general and a more in-depth discussion of the Convention to Propose Amendments power, see Rob Natelson’s article entitled “A Safeguard Against Federal Abuse.”

It is a well-established fact that the federal government’s role over every area of our lives has grown enormously since our nation’s founding. While the authority of the federal government was established by the Constitution which was adopted in 1787 and ratified in 1789, this growth has occurred in spite of stringent Constitutional limits.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the dramatic increase in federal power has come at the expense of individual rights and the rights of the States. However, by carefully looking back in our history we can see when and where our nation left the original intent of the Constitution and got on the road to big government. By understanding the cause and nature of this shift we become better prepared to diagnose current big government problems. Armed with that knowledge we can spread the word and push our government back to the Constitution.

When did the massive growth of federal power begin under our Constitutional form of government?

Randall G. Holcombe provides a well-documented history of federal expansion in his article entitled “Federal Government Growth Before the New Deal.” Published in The Freeman (September, 1997), Holcombe writes:

The origins of federal growth are in the Constitutional Convention. But the modern period of growth began with the Progressive Era before World War I. Contrary to popular belief, that growth continued through the 1920s. The percentage by which the federal government grew was greater during Herbert Hoover’s four years as president than during the first seven years of the New Deal. Roosevelt merely continued a long-standing trend.

What triggered this growth? Holcombe points out that over time the federal government shifted mandates from protecting personal liberty to that of extending economic vitality. The 16th Amendment grant of the power to tax incomes further propelled this transformation. Holcombe explains:

The story of the growth of the federal government can be divided into two parts: before and after 1913, when the 16th amendment to the Constitution, which permitted a federal income tax, was ratified. In 1913 federal spending was a mere 2.5 percent of GNP (today spending is almost ten times that level); so if the federal government is measured only by spending, little growth took place before the income tax. Before 1913, however, the federal government grew in other ways, by enlarging its power and changing its mandate. When the colonies came together to form the United States, the founders viewed the new government as the defender of its citizens’ liberty. That meant protecting their rights-and in those days the most significant threat to the rights of individuals was, in nearly everyone’s eyes, the government itself. By 1913 the federal government had been transformed into an organization not to protect rights, but, ostensibly, to further the nation’s economic well-being. [Note that Holcombe's 1997 federal spending figures of nearly 25% of GNP would be considered small when compared to the staggering debt-fueled expenditures of the past decade.]

The above quote explains when but how did federal expansion begin? Holcombe pointed out that the “first major event in the growth of the federal government was the ratification of the Constitution in 1789.” The Constitution was much stronger than the previous Articles of Confederation. However, compared to the Articles, Holcombe argues that the Constitution created a federal government that “gained more power, was less accountable, and had greater latitude to determine its own scope of action.”

While the debate over ratification of the Constitution was fierce in the late 1780s, few today would argue against the wisdom of its clearly limited increase in federal power over the Articles of Confederation. While lovers of liberty rightly oppose concentrated and unaccountable government power, a weak government — like that created under the Articles of Confederation — also has problems because it cannot safeguard anyone’s rights. Clearly a strong yet constrained federal government is vital to our nation. However, must federal power and reach grow larger and larger year after year? In our American history, can we point to a tipping point that produced the trend for rapidly growing federal intervention? Holcombe provides an answer:

Undoubtedly the biggest event in the growth of the federal government was the Civil War, which established its supremacy over the states. The Civil War brought much new power to the federal government, and laid the groundwork for the growth of interest groups. The first interest group to systematically raid the Treasury for its own benefit was the war veterans.

The growth of federal spending and intervention following the Civil War continued at an accelerated pace. Holcombe continues:

While veterans were a model for future interest groups, the Treasury at that time had decidedly limited means. At any rate, other groups were more interested in regulatory benefits. The Interstate Commerce Commission was created in 1887, and the Sherman Antitrust Act passed in 1890. The transformation of the U.S. government continued as the turn of the century ushered in the Progressive Era. The Food and Drug Administration was created in 1906, the Federal Reserve in 1913, and the Federal Trade Commission in 1914. A government initially committed to protecting the liberty of its citizens now seemed to be just as firmly committed to looking out for their economic welfare.

The Progressive Era was interrupted by World War I, during which federal power advanced in unprecedented ways. The railroads were nationalized, waterborne shipping was regulated, and the United States Food Administration, created in 1917, controlled all aspects of the food industry, from agriculture to distribution to sales. Similar regulation was applied to fuels, and eventually to the whole economy. When the federal income tax was introduced in 1913, the highest tax bracket was 7 percent for all income above $20,000. Because of the demand for war-related spending, by 1918 the highest rate rose to 77 percent beginning at $4,000.

Holcombe provides a summary of the rapid growth of federal non-war spending during the 1920s, the tremendous growth in law-enforcement budgets during the Prohibition era, the beginnings of agricultural price supports, the influence of Keynes and Marx on economics, the establishment of federal regulations for businesses via antitrust laws, and the creation of many federal corporations. Regarding federal corporations, Holcombe noted that

[t]hese corporations provided a model for government growth that extended through the 1920s to the present day. In 1923, 12 federally owned banks were created by the Federal Agricultural Credits Act. In 1924 the Inland Waterways Corporation was established to operate vessels on the Mississippi River, and in 1929 the Federal Farm Board was established to finance agricultural price supports. Creation of those corporations was integral to the growth of the federal government during the 1920s, but their purpose was also significant. In each case they were established to help further the economic well-being of a particular group of Americans, reinforcing the federal government’s transition from a guardian of liberty to an organization designed to oversee the national economy.

It is quite surprising to think that all the above referenced federal government expansions were in place before Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Holcombe concludes:

The New Deal is often seen as the pivotal event in the growth of America’s twentieth-century Leviathan. But the federal government has grown since its inception. The most important event in the history of federal government growth was undoubtedly the Civil War. Then, supported by the popular demand for more government involvement in the economy, the ideological foundation of the massive growth in federal spending was laid during the Progressive Era at the beginning of the twentieth century. The federal income tax made that growth in spending possible.

That the federal government grew during FDR’s presidency is undeniable. But [Presidents] Wilson and Lincoln had already set precedents for increases in government power in wartime. Thus, the main factors underlying the growth in government were firmly in place well before the New Deal.

Clearly, the federal government’s growth and expansion quickly resulted in an erosion of rights for both individuals and the States. Add to this trend the rapid growth under the New Deal and beyond — including the Great Society, the Post 9/11 years, and the Obama Presidency — and few would even try to argue that we really live under a Constitutional republic today. Given this reality, is anyone surprised that millions of patriots now seek to defang the federal Leviathan that usurped the Constitution and is trampling our rights?

As Americans, let us all work together to preserve our liberty and restore the People’s rightful place within our government!

Image Credit: Susie B

This above video embed contains an audio track of a speech given by then private citizen Ronald Reagan in his campaign against socialized medicine.  As explained by wyattmcintyre who posted it on YouTube, it is from the 1961 Operation Coffee Cup Campaign against Socialized Medicine. This speech was recorded for an LP sent out by the American Medical Association.

On October 27, 1964, Ronald Wilson Reagan delivered his now-famous “A Time for Choosing” speech in support of Republican Presidential nominee Barry Goldwater. The above video contains a 4 minute 28 second segment of this conservative classic. It eloquently warns of the dangers of appeasement and builds a powerful case for full victory over communism and evil.

A transcript for the portion of the “A Time for Choosing” speech contained within this video is included below courtesy of the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs. The entire speech (transcript and video) is available on their website.

. . . This is not a man who could carelessly send other people’s sons to war. And that is the issue of this campaign that makes all the other problems I’ve discussed academic, unless we realize we’re in a war that must be won.

Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us they have a Utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy “accommodation.” And they say if we’ll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he’ll forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer—not an easy answer—but simple: If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right.

We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb, by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, “Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we’re willing to make a deal with your slave masters.” Alexander Hamilton said “A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.” Now let’s set the record straight. There’s no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there’s only one guaranteed way you can have peace—and you can have it in the next second—surrender.

Admittedly, there’s a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face—that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand—the ultimatum. And what then—when Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we’re retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he’s heard voices pleading for “peace at any price” or “better Red than dead,” or as one commentator put it, he’d rather “live on his knees than die on his feet.” And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don’t speak for the rest of us.

You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin—just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ’round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn’t die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it’s a simple answer after all.

You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, “There is a price we will not pay. There is a point beyond which they must not advance.” [Applause] And this—this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater’s “peace through strength.” Winston Churchill said, “The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we’re spirits—not animals.” And he said, “There’s something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.

We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.

We will keep in mind and remember that Barry Goldwater has faith in us. He has faith that you and I have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny.

Thank you very much.