The American Revolution was waged against a highly centralized, nationalistic governmental tyranny run by a king, namely, the British Empire. The king enriched himself and his regime through the economic institution of mercantilism, defined by Murray Rothbard as “a system of statism which employed economic fallacy to build up a structure of imperial state power, as well as special subsidy and monopolistic privilege to individuals or groups favored by the state.” This system impoverished the average Englishman but was a perpetual source of power and riches for the king and his political allies. That is why the system lasted so long (at least two centuries) despite the fact that it was so harmful to the average citizen.

After the Seven Years War with France the king of England needed to pay off his war debts, so he stepped up the application of the corrupt mercantilist system to the American colonists. He did so with numerous taxes and interferences with international trade that benefited British businesses and the British state while treating the colonists like tax serfs. The “train of abuses” delineated in the Declaration of Independence were mostly abuses of the colonists for the purpose of plundering them with the British mercantilist system.

There was always a group of men in American politics who were not opposed to the evil mercantilist system in principle. They recognized it as a wonderful system for accumulating power and wealth as long as they could be in charge of it. Being victimized by it was another matter. These men, led by Alexander Hamilton and his fellow Federalists, strived to implement an American version of British mercantilism as soon as the Revolution was over. In doing so they were traitors to the American Revolution and the worst kind of corrupt, power-seeking political scoundrels.

America’s would-be economic dictators strived mightily to “justify” their corrupt scheme by rewriting the history of the American founding. They made the bizarre argument that, having just fought a revolution against a highly centralized tyranny, the founders at the constitutional convention supposedly embraced the same kind of tyranny in the form of a highly centralized or national government.

The Virginia statesman John Taylor of Caroline smoked out these political scoundrels in an 1823 book entitled New Views of the Constitution of the United States (reprinted in 2005 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd, of Union, New Jersey). Making extensive use of the recently published Secret Proceedings and Debates of the Constitutional Convention by Robert Yates, who attended the constitutional convention, Taylor shredded the false notions of “nationalists” like Hamilton (and later, Clay and Lincoln).

Focusing on Hamilton as the chief culprit, Taylor explained how the “nationalists” did try at the constitutional convention to create a completely centralized government, but failed. For example, he quotes Hamilton himself at the convention as proposing a form of government such that “All laws of the particular states, contrary to the constitution or laws of the United States [government], to be utterly void. And the better to prevent such laws being passed, the governor . . . of each state shall be appointed by the general government, and shall have a negative upon the laws about to be passed in the state of which he is governor.”

Hamilton’s scheme was rejected, of course, and Taylor correctly commented that “this project comprised a national government, nearly conforming to that of England . . .” (p. 27). “By Colonel Hamilton’s project, the states were fairly and openly to be restored to the rank of provinces, and to be made as dependent upon a supreme national government, as they had been upon a supreme British government” (p. 28). Moreover, under Hamilton’s scheme “A power in the supreme federal court to declare all state laws and judgments void” would be “a supremacy exactly the same with that exercised by the British king and his council over the same provincial departments” (p. 28). Thankfully, Hamilton’s plan was rejected.

Quoting Yates’s journal, Taylor also noted that on June 25, 1787 “it was proposed and seconded to erase the word national, and substitute the words United States [in the plural] in the fourth resolution, which passed in the affirmative” (p. 29). “Thus,” Taylor wrote, “we see an opinion expressed at the convention, that the phrase “United States” did not mean ‘a consolidated American people or nation,’ and all the inferences in favour of a national government . . . are overthrown” (p. 29).

Taylor understood that the reason why Hamilton and other Federalists wanted a centralized or consolidated government was that states’ rights would forever stand in the way of their accumulation of power and wealth through the mercantilist system that they hoped to impose on America. Therefore, states’ rights must be crushed, in the eyes of Hamilton and his followers (despite occasional lip service paid to the notion of states’ rights).

Relying again on Yates’s notes, Taylor wrote of how the Hamiltonians proposed to empower the Congress to engage in a variety of economic interventions, including “the promotion of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures” (p. 29). A “monopoly in currency” by the central government was another of Hamilton’s schemes that alarmed the senator from Virginia. This was their plan for bringing British mercantilism to America: First, consolidate political power in the central government and destroy any semblance of divided sovereignty; then, use that power to replicate the mercantilist British monarchy hidden behind the rhetorical fog of American “democracy.” As Taylor described it, it was “Monarchy, its hand-maiden consolidation, and its other hand-maid, ambition, all dressed in popular disguises . . .” (p. 45). And, “National splendor, national strength, and a national government, were the arguments they [the Hamiltonians] used; but personal considerations, suggested by the prominence of their stations, or the hopes suggested by their talents, really forged their opinions” (p. 46). The “pretended national prosperity, was only a pretext of ambition and monopoly . . . intended to feed avarice, gratify ambition, and make one portion of the nation tributary to another” (p. 46).

But the nationalists failed in their endeavor; the Constitution created a confederacy of states that delegated only a few enumerated powers to the central government, which was to act as their agent, and for their benefit. All other powers were reserved to the people or the states. It was a federal, not a “national” government. Subsequently, “Colonel Hamilton . . . seems to have quitted the convention in despair, soon after the failure of his project” (p. 32).

Yates’s notes on the convention prove definitively that “the whole people” never had anything whatsoever to do with the ratification of the Constitution, which was done by state conventions. There was never any national election that created a national government. As his journal states, quoted by Taylor (p. 32): “that the constitution was transmitted to Congress, and by it to the state legislatures; that these legislatures, by separate laws, appointed state conventions for the consideration of the constitution; and that it was ratified by the delegates of the people of each state.”

Thus, “every step in its progress,” writes Taylor, “from beginning to end, defines [the Constitution] to be a federal and not a national act. . . . It was ratified by each state, because each state was sovereign and independent” (p. 32, emphasis added). Furthermore, “no negative upon state laws was delegated to the federal government, or any department thereof, and the absence of such a power had been enforced by its rejection.”

What motivated Taylor to write New Views of the Constitution of the United States was the alarming fact that, by the 1820s, the men in American politics who still dreamed of reigning over a mercantilist empire began mis-educating the public about the true history of the founding. They did so by repeating Hamilton’s arguments, which were so thoroughly rejected by the convention. As Taylor described it, the public was being told that “the devil, thus repeatedly exorcized, still remains in the church” (p. 36). The “devil,” of course, was the notion that the states were not sovereign over the central government that they had created as their agent. The truth, as Taylor explained, was that “by the constitution, the states may take away all the powers of the federal government, whilst that government is prohibited from taking away a single power reserved to the states” (p. 36).

It was assumed that state sovereignty included a right of secession from the constitutional compact. “In the creation of the federal government, the states exercised the highest act of sovereignty, and they may, if they please, repeat the proof of their sovereignty, by its annihilation” (p. 37). The states “could never have conceived that they had, by their union, relinquished their sovereignties; created a supreme negative power over their laws; or established a national government . . .” (p. 37). In fact, according to Yates’s journal, the states were described at the convention as essentially being independent nations. So much so that the journal stated: “It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that the state governments will, in all possible contingencies, afford complete security against invasions of the publick liberty by the national authority” (Taylor, p. 70, emphasis added).

Yates’s journal further states: “Each state, in ratifying the constitution, is considered to be a sovereign body independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new constitution will be a federal and not a national constitution” (Taylor, p. 83). This means that any one state would have the right to secede from the constitutional compact. It would have been considered an absurdity to argue that the right of secession only existed by the permission of other states (which was Lincoln’s argument).

But why all the secrecy? Why did the framers of the constitution take an oath not to reveal to the public what they were up to until after they were all dead? (Madison’s notes were not published until after his death). In a recent LRC article entitled “The Most Successful Fraud in American History” Gary North suggested that “the perpetrators [of any fraud] must be bound by an oath of non-disclosure, which all of them keep until they die, yet which leaves no trail of paper for historians to discuss.” John Taylor would agree. It was all kept secret so that “the vindicators of a federal construction of the constitution are deprived of a great mass of light, and the consolidating school have gotten rid of a great mass of detection” (p. 41). Thus, “it was necessary to keep the people in the dark” so that “the people should be worked as puppets” (p. 41).

Taylor also dissects and ridicules the “paradoxical arguments” of the Hamiltonians of his day (who would soon form the Whig Party of Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln). The advocates of “consolidated sovereignties,” Taylor noted, contend that

The greater the [government] revenue the richer are the people; that frugality in the government is an evil; in the people a good; that local partialities are blessings; that monopolies and exclusive privileges are general welfare; that a division of sovereignty will raise up a class of wicked, intriguing, self-interested politicians in the states; and that human nature will be cleansed of these propensities by a sovereignty consolidated in one government.

Taylor was being excessively polite when he labeled these absurdities as merely “paradoxical.”

Taylor also provides a clear explanation of the so-called “supremacy clause” of the Constitution, which many contemporary commentators (especially Lincoln worshipping neocons) insist gives the federal government the power to do whatever it wants to the citizens of the states. The truth is that the language in the Constitution about it being “the supreme law of the land” only applies to the seventeen specific powers enumerated to the central government in Article I, Section 8. Nothing more. The states remain the ultimate sovereigns by the Constitution. “The constitutional laws of the states are equally supreme with those of the federal government” (p. 78).

John Taylor issued his warning that “the devil is in the church” in 1823. In the coming years the new generation of “consolidationists,” led by the likes of Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, were hard at work repeating Hamilton’s “paradoxical” arguments in the apparent belief that a gullible public would come to believe such arguments if they are repeated enough. They never achieved much success, however, thanks to the strength of the Jeffersonian, states’ rights tradition in America, which was the nation’s true political tradition.

The Constitution was essentially a failed attempt to overthrow the decentralized, federalist system that was created by America’s first Constitution, the Articles of Confederation. The delegates to the constitutional convention were only instructed to revise the Articles, not replace them. The first thing they did was to ignore the instructions they were given and write an entirely new constitution. But as Yates’s journal and Taylor’s book reveal, they failed. They only managed to get the citizens of the states to delegate a few enumerated powers to the central government, not to create a national government. They succeeded in replacing the Articles, but not with their ideal, monopolistic system.

It would require a brutal, uncompromising dictator to overthrow the federal system and adopt a British-style consolidated, mercantilist empire. As Taylor wrote (p. 237): “It seems to be nature’s law, that every species of concentrated sovereignty over extensive territories, whether monarchical, aristocratical, democratical, or mixed, must be despotick. In no case has a concentrated power over great territories been sustained, except by mercenary armies; and whenever power is thus sustained, despotism is the consequence.” Furthermore, “the ignorance and partiality of a concentrated form of government, can only be enforced by armies; and the peculiar ability of the states to resist, promises that resistance would be violent; so that a national government must be either precarious or despotick” (p. 238).

Yates’s notes quote James Madison as warning at the constitutional convention that “the great danger to our federal government, is the great northern and southern interests of the continent being opposed to each other” (Taylor, p. 248). Taylor quotes Madison to predict the War for Southern Independence, which would occur almost four decades later. If northern, southern, or western interests are in sharp conflict, he wrote, and “if either can acquire local advantages from a national supremacy, it will aggravate the geographical danger apprehended by a Mr. Madison, a perpetual warfare of intrigues will ensue, and a dissolution of the union will result” (p. 249).

This is where the role of the brutal, uncompromising dictator enters into American political history. The crusade for a consolidated, monopolistic government began as soon as the Revolution ended. Some seventy-five years later Taylor’s worst fear was realized: a consolidated, mercantilist empire was finally cemented into place, and it did require “a mercenary army” to succeed. Lincoln’s army included literally hundreds of thousands of conscripts and European mercenaries who finally snuffed out the Jeffersonian, federalist system of states’ rights with the bloodiest war in human history up to that point.

The New England Yankees and their Midwestern brethren continued to rewrite history in the ensuing decades so that books like Robert Yates’s journal of the constitutional convention and John Taylor’s book on the Constitution are virtually unheard of in America. The whitewash of American history has been very thorough indeed.

Thomas J. DiLorenzo [send him mail] is professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland and the author of The Real Lincoln; Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed To Know about Dishonest Abe andHow Capitalism Saved America. His latest book is Hamilton’s Curse: How Jefferson’s Archenemy Betrayed the American Revolution – And What It Means for America Today.

Copyright © 2006 LewRockwell.com

Here’s an excerpt:

If there were ever a time where the founding principle of America, as a nation, is justified again, it is the issue of state sovereignty. The notion of multiple governing entities, contractually united for a few common and limited purposes, where all else are functions of each state, is apparent in the campaign of 2008.

The big question, of course, is – “why?”

Well, it’s really quite simple.

Experience and the entire history of the human struggle for freedom strongly suggest that a decentralized government is that which is most compatible with long-term liberty. There are a number of reasons in opposition to centralization and in favor of decentralized government:

In the first place, a localized system of government forces each region or jurisdiction to actually compete with each other for residents, and thus, for increased capital. Such a system naturally gives those governing a strong incentive to ensure a free society, or they will risk losing both residents and capital to an area with greater freedom. If tyrants still find a way to rule their areas, many people will find a way to leave. But, on the other hand, if that same tyrant was given the power to rule a broad area, or an entire nation, very few would be able to escape.

Going further with this, another reason is that despotism on a local level reduces the resultant damages just as despotism on a wide scale amplifies them.

Think about that.

For example, if Stalin had ruled only Moscow, Napoleon only Paris, and Mao had only ruled Beijing, the effects of their devastating rule would have had a much greater chance of being contained.

This is a simple concept; that evil people find it much harder to violate the rights of people outside their sphere of jurisdiction.

Barham adds some good perspective as well:

The young man, Obama, wants everyone to simply hand over his or her liberty to him. He says he will watch over it and hand back that which he decides is needed from time to time, but use the rest in order to better manage the nation and its economy, all of which he wants us to accept that he is capable of doing.

If we were still holding onto the principles of the founder’s of America, maintaining the position of sovereignty of each state, then the damage done by people like Obama and McCain would be limited to a state, as was the ruin of Louisiana by Huey Long.

The endless process of centralization in America has become a seemingly invincible force that, if not stopped in the near future, will eventually turn our great country into an absolute tyranny. Once central government starts growing, no matter what the reason may be, it will, just like all parasites, do anything possible to continue its growth.

Our best strategy is to be a constant reminder that one cannot be for liberty without also being intensely opposed to centralization. That is the just the role of the 10th Amendment.

“The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.”
- George Washington

I have been pleasantly surprised by the Walt Disney Corporation’s recent foray into making decent movies, namely with the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ and ‘National Treasure’ franchises.  I would like to draw attention to a particular line of significance in the most recent release in these lines, ‘National Treasure:  Book of Secrets.’

Nicholas Cage’s character, Dr. Gates, goes about clearing his ancestor, Thomas Gates’, name in the conspiracy to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln while simultaneously discovering Cibola, the lost Aztec city of gold.  While the movie is mostly fiction, it weaves in and out of history magnificently, beginning with the assassination of President Lincoln in Washington, D.C.’s Ford Theatre.

Cage (Dr. Gates) is later pictured speaking with his partners in a scene which sparked my interest, and of which I now write.  Gates says, “Before the Civil War the States were all individual.  Before the Civil War, you said, ‘The United States are.’  After, it became, ‘The United States is.’  Lincoln made us one nation.”

I was stunned, but I maintained my composure.  I did not jab my friends in their sides, saying, “See, see – I told you so!”  They have had to listen to my constant babblings about early American history and the Constitution so much that when I asked them about this scene after the movie, they both said, “Yes, I heard that!  I almost jabbed you in the side!”

See?  Slowly I am winning my argument.  One by one by one I am turning the minds of the uninformed.  It is only a matter of time!

Now, Gates purpose in stating this line was followed up by his stated purpose of clearing his Great-Grandfather’s name in the assassination plot.  He later tells the current President, portrayed in the movie by Bruce Greenwood, that Lincoln is his favorite President, no offense intended.  Greenwood’s President (humor is employed at his birthday party when a country singer with a heavy accent sings, a la George W. Bush!) replies, “He is mine, too.”

My purpose in bringing up this point is not to discuss the “What is” of today, but the “What should be” of the Framers of the Constitution and the States who sent those Delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia all those years ago in 1787.

I had heard the duality statements, ‘The United States are’ and ‘The United States is’ in junior high history class, as well as the historical context that this phrase changed after the Civil War, though I prefer to call it by its more etymologically correct term, the War Between the States, much for the same reason.

You see, the Constitution as it was written in 1787 was framed by men loyal to their States.  They did not intend on signing over great power to the new government.  In fact, they enumerated (familiar term?) the exact Powers that were being delegated to the three branches of the national, or Federal, government exactly.  The Power to determine its own Powers, or say what it can or cannot do, is, in fact, not a Power of the Federal Government.

And herein is my point.  Hollywood can make use of this very important statement, and the Fortune 500 (Disney in both cases) can make millions of dollars on its use.  And we will all go through the movies and view this movie and this line will go right through our collective ears and pass back into obscurity.

But I don’t want that!  I want for each of us to ponder these two phrases very carefully, for their meanings are a stark contrast which we must consider and choose which our nation is to follow going forward.  Are we truly ‘one,’ as the national government would have us believe?  One nation ruled by one government, supreme in its dictates, statutes and opinions?  Or as our national slogan states, are we many, united together?  E Pluribus Unum – from many, one.  If you don’t believe me, pull out your dollar bill, or if you are of slightly more modest means, any bit of change will do – it is printed or engraved on it all.

Allow me to give some examples of the problem with ‘The United States is.’  The United States of America, in fact, is grammatically and etymologically correct when referring to the whole!  However, the Powers granted to the national, Federal government have been vastly exceeded.

The Constitution is very clear as to the Powers of Congress in Article I.  My passion is not in the area of reforming the Federal Reserve Bank, but Ron Paul is absolutely accurate when he discusses the matter and mentions that it is not a Power of Congress to have set up this entity.  Banking is a State matter, as well, which is why we still have both National Banks as well as State Banks.  And while State and National Banks alike are required to adhere to Federal law including the Federal Reserve Acts, putting them under direct regulation of the Federal Reserve Bank, this is not a matter delegated to Congress to have Power over.

Neither is it a Power of Congress to enact the Social Security Act.

Neither is it a Power of Congress to delegate the authority to wage war as it did in the War Powers Act.

In another Branch in Washington, it is not a Power of the “supreme Court” (capitalization according to the Constitution) to hear matters that fall under the realm of 10th Amendment States’ Rights.  Article 3 of the Constitution delegates limited jurisdiction to the Federal Judiciary.  These areas of jurisdiction are spelled out explicitly, with no implied Powers delegated.  So when it is not delegated to the Judiciary to hear a matter between two residents of the same State (as in Jane Roe and Henry Wade), or between a citizen and the State of their residence, for the Judiciary to even allow a case such as Roe v. Wade to be filed in Federal Court is an abomination of the American Jurisprudence system.

You see, when you look at the term ‘The United States,’ you must recognize that the key noun in the term is States – plural, as in several.  And when one reads the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America, it mentions, “in order to form a more perfect Union.”

But nowhere in the Constitution which establishes that Union does it grant the Power to the Union, the Federal Government, or the United States to force the collective will upon an individual State in matters which are reserved, according to the 10th Amendment, to those States.

The United States is.  But the United States also are.  And it is high time that we remember the difference between Powers delegated and Powers reserved.

David Smith is a Denton, TX resident, a self-taught expert in the Constitution, Law and the Courts, and a future Candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. His hot-button issue is States’ Rights. See more of his writings at his blog, http://silvertrombone.townhall.com

A little-noticed change in federal law packs an important change in who is in charge the next time a state is devastated by a disaster such as Hurricane Katrina.

To the dismay of the nation’s governors, the White House now will be empowered to go over a governor’s head and call up National Guard troops to aid a state in time of natural disasters or other public emergencies. Up to now, governors were the sole commanders in chief of citizen soldiers in local Guard units during emergencies within the state.

It didn’t matter that ALL 50 governors objected to this concentration of power in the hands of the executive – the Congress simply moved forward by changing the balance of powers through legislation (once again).

More from the article:

Under the U.S. Constitution, each state’s National Guard unit is controlled by the governor in time of peace but can be called up for federal duty by the president.

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 forbids U.S. troops from being deployed on American soil for law enforcement. The one exception is provided by the Insurrection Act of 1807, which lets the president use the military only for the purpose of putting down rebellions or enforcing constitutional rights if state authorities fail to do so.

So what did Congress do to avoid this requirement? With the stroke of a pen, they just changed the requirement of the insurrection act to include “natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident”

How does a “natural disaster” now qualify as an insurrection?? Who, then, determines what qualifies as a natural disaster? Will a snowstorm qualify for the president to control the guard, and send troops into our cities? Will a heavy rain? And, when will Congress use another “stroke of the pen” to add even more reasons to have federal military control policing our cities?

It’s not the abuse of power we’re most concerned with, it’s the power to abuse. This unconstitutional move by the federal government gives them, in writing, the power to do two things:

1. federal control of the guard, which is clearly under the jurisdiction of the states – except in “times of insurrection…”

2. Congress has once-again given itself the power to change the Constitution by pure legislation – not constitutional amendment. (this is even more dangerous)

To us, this is clearly an example of the federal government showing us that they can and will change the structure of power as created by the founders. Period.

We find it disgraceful that Congress would violate the original intent of Article I, Section 8, Clause 15, and enact legislation that has forced State citizen militias to ‘metamorphosize’ into a national organization that is now primarily deployed outside of the United States.

We call on the governors to hold to their duty – to dispute and refuse to obey unconstitutional laws, and thus to prevent our Guard members from federal control in these and many other situations already in place.