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07-07-2001, 12:47 AM
The Constitution Versus The Modern Welfare State (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/printle20010706.shtml)
Larry Elder
The modern welfare state: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, and other so-called assistance programs for the needy, the downtrodden, and the sick -- funded through taxation.
But did the Founding Fathers intend for a government-provided social safety net? The evidence clearly says no. The often-misunderstood general welfare clause simply outlines specific responsibilities and powers of the federal government, leaving all others to the states and to the people. James Madison, the principle author of the Constitution, said, "With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the details of powers (enumerated in the Constitution) connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proof was not contemplated by its creators."
For the first 150 years of our nation's history, the Supreme Court saw the Constitution the way Madison wrote, explained, and intended it.
What happened? Franklin Delano Roosevelt. While certainly America's greatest twentieth-century president, FDR nevertheless deserves the title of principle architect of the modern welfare state.
Angered by Supreme Court decisions striking down major parts of his New Deal legislation, FDR fought back, proposing a law to add more justices to the Supreme Court. He threatened to pack the court with justices who deemed the Constitution a "living, breathing document," versus the "strict constructionist" outlook by the anti-New Deal justices, who determined an activist, benevolent government as unconstitutional.
Even FDR's legal advisor, Felix Frankfurter, whom FDR later appointed to the Supreme Court, advised FDR against his court-packing scheme. In the well-received biography "Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Rendezvous with Destiny," author Frank Freidel discusses the profound shift in constitutional interpretation that occurred during the dramatic years of the Roosevelt administration. "Frankfurter," wrote Freidel, "had hastened to Washington and had advised (FDR) to bide his time before clashing with the Supreme Court: Let more adverse decisions accumulate and then propose a constitutional amendment. Roosevelt ignored the advice and set forth upon his own course of action."
In short, despite a depression and 25 percent unemployment, the Constitution, under the vision of limited government established by the Framers, did not permit this kind of income redistribution, no matter how popular or desirable. If you want to pull this off, advised Frankfurter, change the Constitution. "From Roosevelt's standpoint," wrote Freidel, "the emotion was not pique but outrage. His target was not the Constitution but rather the outmoded Supreme Court interpretation of it."
Following his second inauguration, Roosevelt remarked to one of his speechwriters, "When the Chief Justice read me the oath and came to the words 'support the Constitution of the United States,' I felt like saying: 'Yes, but it's the Constitution as I understand it, flexible enough to meet any new problem of democracy -- not the kind of Constitution your court has raised up as a barrier to progress and democracy.'"
...
As James Madison put it, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."
If the it-takes-a-village crowd wants the welfare state, they should do so the way the Founding Fathers intended -- through integrity and principle.
Amend the Constitution.
Click here to read more (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/printle20010706.shtml)
Larry Elder
The modern welfare state: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, and other so-called assistance programs for the needy, the downtrodden, and the sick -- funded through taxation.
But did the Founding Fathers intend for a government-provided social safety net? The evidence clearly says no. The often-misunderstood general welfare clause simply outlines specific responsibilities and powers of the federal government, leaving all others to the states and to the people. James Madison, the principle author of the Constitution, said, "With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the details of powers (enumerated in the Constitution) connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proof was not contemplated by its creators."
For the first 150 years of our nation's history, the Supreme Court saw the Constitution the way Madison wrote, explained, and intended it.
What happened? Franklin Delano Roosevelt. While certainly America's greatest twentieth-century president, FDR nevertheless deserves the title of principle architect of the modern welfare state.
Angered by Supreme Court decisions striking down major parts of his New Deal legislation, FDR fought back, proposing a law to add more justices to the Supreme Court. He threatened to pack the court with justices who deemed the Constitution a "living, breathing document," versus the "strict constructionist" outlook by the anti-New Deal justices, who determined an activist, benevolent government as unconstitutional.
Even FDR's legal advisor, Felix Frankfurter, whom FDR later appointed to the Supreme Court, advised FDR against his court-packing scheme. In the well-received biography "Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Rendezvous with Destiny," author Frank Freidel discusses the profound shift in constitutional interpretation that occurred during the dramatic years of the Roosevelt administration. "Frankfurter," wrote Freidel, "had hastened to Washington and had advised (FDR) to bide his time before clashing with the Supreme Court: Let more adverse decisions accumulate and then propose a constitutional amendment. Roosevelt ignored the advice and set forth upon his own course of action."
In short, despite a depression and 25 percent unemployment, the Constitution, under the vision of limited government established by the Framers, did not permit this kind of income redistribution, no matter how popular or desirable. If you want to pull this off, advised Frankfurter, change the Constitution. "From Roosevelt's standpoint," wrote Freidel, "the emotion was not pique but outrage. His target was not the Constitution but rather the outmoded Supreme Court interpretation of it."
Following his second inauguration, Roosevelt remarked to one of his speechwriters, "When the Chief Justice read me the oath and came to the words 'support the Constitution of the United States,' I felt like saying: 'Yes, but it's the Constitution as I understand it, flexible enough to meet any new problem of democracy -- not the kind of Constitution your court has raised up as a barrier to progress and democracy.'"
...
As James Madison put it, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."
If the it-takes-a-village crowd wants the welfare state, they should do so the way the Founding Fathers intended -- through integrity and principle.
Amend the Constitution.
Click here to read more (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/printle20010706.shtml)