Going to the federal government to convince the federal government to limit its own power? That’s not just bad strategy and a lost cause. It’s dangerous to the Constitution and liberty.
James Madison gave us the answer – a blueprint for beating the feds without relying on the feds to magically do what they never do – limit their own power. All backed up by the ultimate safeguard for freedom: a highly armed and highly trained general population ready to protect their own constitution and their own liberty against all enemies, foreign or domestic.
THE FOUNDATION
In Federalist 48, James Madison gave us a timeless warning about the constitution. No matter how clearly those powers are divided and spelled out, words on paper don’t enforce themselves.
They never did and never will.
“A mere demarkation on parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments, is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands.”
So if words on paper don’t enforce themselves, who or what holds that responsibility?
Madison gave us the answer in Federalist 46, and it starts with the foundational principles underlying the entire system. Today, politicians and bureaucrats act like they’re your boss, but he had a very different view of the arrangement.
All governments – federal and state – they aren’t the master. They’re the hired help, the agents of the people.
“The Federal and State Governments are in fact but different agents and trustees of the people, constituted with different powers, and designated for different purposes.”
And what are those purposes? Madison drew a clear line in Federalist 45: a strict division of power that looks absolutely nothing like the system of today.
“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite.”
He didn’t keep us guessing, either. Those “few” federal powers are almost entirely facing outward.
“The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negociation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will for the most part be connected.”
Anything and everything else? None of their business and completely off-limits to the feds.
“The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people; and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”
Madison wasn’t naive. He fully expected the feds to cross that line, but he also knew who holds the power to shut them down.
“Were it admitted, however, that the Federal government may feel an equal disposition with the State governments to extend its power beyond the due limits, the latter would still have the advantage in the means of defeating such encroachments.”
FOUR STEPS
That’s the foundation. But the “Father of the Constitution” didn’t leave us with just theory. He provided us with a four-step blueprint for the people and the states to keep the federal government in check – whether the federal government likes it, or not.
But he took it even further. This strategy isn’t just for unconstitutional power grabs. It also applies to perfectly constitutional acts that the people reject as bad policy.
“Should an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular States, which would seldom fail to be the case, or even a warrantable measure be so, which may sometimes be the case, the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand.”
Step one in Madison’s blueprint isn’t a lawsuit. And it isn’t waiting around to vote the bums out of office. It starts with public outrage. When the feds usurp power or push bad policy, the people are supposed to make their anger impossible to ignore.
He called it, “the disquietude of the people.”
But public outrage only goes so far. Tyrants do not care what you think, and they do not care what you say. Step two demands action.
Madison used the word “repugnance.” Today, we define that as absolute disgust. But he wasn’t talking about your feelings. At the time of the founding, a very common dictionary definition of “repugnant” was “disobedient, reluctant, contrary, opposite.”
Apply that definition to Madison’s blueprint, and there is no room for confusion. If you want to stop the federal government, you have to disobey them and refuse to help them.
“Their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union.”
Step three brings in the state governments, starting at the top. Governors are not supposed to be cheerleaders for federal power. They are supposed to weaponize their office to relentlessly attack federal overreach. Madison called this step “the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State.”
Step four brings in the state legislatures. Madison told them to use “legislative devices.” He left the exact method open, but the objective is unmistakable. Pass resolutions like the colonists did throughout the revolution. Enact laws banning any cooperation with “officers of the Union.”
Do anything and everything within the bounds of the constitution to create a massive logistical nightmare for federal enforcement.
“The embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions.”
IMPACT
Apply those four steps in just one small state, and Washington has a serious problem. Scale it up to one large state – like Texas, California, or Florida – and it becomes a crippling roadblock. And when multiple states take the exact same actions? It is game over for federal enforcement.
“Would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised; would form, in a large State, very serious impediments; and where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter.”
Madison wrote that in the 18th century, when the federal government did almost nothing. Today, Washington D.C. is a bloated behemoth. But there is a catch. It cannot function on its own. As the National Governor’s Association openly admitted, “States are partners with the federal government in implementing most federal programs.”
Here is the truth they want you to ignore: Partnerships don’t work when half the team quits.
But principles and ideas don’t stop governments. Action does. Just as the colonies did during the Revolution, Madison said the states must immediately communicate and coordinate their resistance.
“But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause. A correspondence would be opened. Plans of resistance would be concerted.”
THE SAFEGUARD
Even with a blueprint this clear, someone will always find an excuse to submit. They ask, “But what if they roll in the tanks?” Madison dealt with that exact same fear-mongering in his day. His response was both instructive and prophetic.
“The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition.”
He took that argument head on. Assume the absolute worst-case scenario: the federal government gets away with building a massive, loyal standing army. Even then, the feds lose against a combination of state governments and a highly armed and trained general population.
“Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger.”
Madison did the math and calculated the maximum military force a country could sustain, which was even larger than the professional military of today.
“The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls.”
This 1% would have to fight the militia, the entire able-bodied population. At the time, half a million, but in today’s numbers, over 40 million. Organized and directed by the state governments, it is a massive force that could never be conquered.
“To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence.”
This wasn’t just abstract theory. Recent history already proved him right. They used this exact blueprint during the Revolution to take on the biggest empire on Earth.
“It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it.”
Their freedom was won in a long, bloody war. But it wasn’t just the guns.
Madison knew exactly what it takes to defeat a militarized tyrant: An armed people combined with state governments on their side.
“Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.”
He was so confident in this one-two punch, he boasted that exporting it to Europe would quickly bring down every tyrant on the continent.
“it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it.”
DIGNITY
For Madison, this was a matter of basic self-respect. If this blueprint could empower the beaten-down subjects of Europe to overthrow tyrants, it was an absolute insult to suggest free Americans could not do the exact same thing.
“Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors.”
Madison wrote those words in 1788. But today, they read like a direct indictment. He thought it was absurd – an absolute insult – to even suggest that Americans would ever sit back and tamely tolerate their free republic degenerating into a big government tyranny.
“Let us rather no longer insult them with the supposition that they can ever reduce themselves to the necessity of making the experiment, by a blind and tame submission to the long train of insidious measures which must precede and produce it.”
Yet, here we are.
Madison outlined a theoretical nightmare scenario – a step-by-step process of how a free people could surrender their liberty. It should sound familiar. Because what Madison dismissed as a ridiculous, impossible nightmare is exactly what we have permitted for generations.
“That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism.”
It is easy to blame politicians, judges, and bureaucrats. Or even the constitution, but a “parchment barrier” will never enforce itself, and politicians will never limit their own power.
For James Madison, a free people – the final authority – they’re the ones responsible for keeping their own government in check.
And when you live under the largest government in history – like we do today – we all need to take a good look in the mirror.
“The ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone; and that it will not depend merely on the comparative ambition or address of the different governments, whether either, or which of them, will be able to enlarge its sphere of jurisdiction at the expence of the other.”
You are not supposed to wait two or four years for some new politicians to get in office and give you permission to be free. You are not supposed to wait two days or two months or two decades for some federal court to do that either.
You are supposed to refuse to comply and nullify all unconstitutional federal acts. And that needs to be your first response, not your last.
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