While we today barely talk about this fundamental concept, the States were keenly aware of the relationship created by the Constitution and obligations associated with it. Look at the phraseology officially given by the state of Virginia when it finally adopted (reluctantly) the Constitution on June 25, 1788:
The Virginia Ratification of the Constitution of the United States --
Virginia, to wit:
We the delegates of the people of Virginia, duly elected in pursuance of a recommendation from the general assembly, and now met in convention, having fully and freely investigated and discussed the proceedings of the Federal Convention, and being prepared as well as the most mature deliberation hath enabled us, to decide thereon, Do, in the name and on behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known, that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power nor granted thereby, remains with them and at their will; and therefore no right, of any denomination, can be cancelled, abridges, restrained or modified by the congress, by the senate or house of representatives acting in any capacity, by the president or any department, or officer of the United States, except in those instances in which power is given by the constitution for those purposes; and that among other essential rights, the liberty of conscience and of the press cannot be cancelled, abridged, restrained or modified by any authority of the United States.
We all know that Virginia, and other states as well, refused to ratify the Constitution until special assurances were given that the federal government would remain constrained and would not burden individual rights. One of those assurances was the addition of a Bill of Rights and others were given in The Federalist Papers, written by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, two of the delegates and drafters of the Constitution.
In his book, Republic, Plato introduced social contract theory. In a scenario involving Socrates, Socrates refused to escape from jail to avoid being put to death. He argued that since he had willingly remained in Athens all of his life despite opportunities to go elsewhere, he had accepted the social contract (thus he agreed to abide by the local laws, including submitting to the justice process). The idea of the social contract is one of the foundations of the American political system. This is the belief that the state only exists to serve the will of the people, and they are the source of all political power enjoyed by the state. They can choose to give or withhold this power. The origin of the term social contract can be found in the writings of Plato. However, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes expanded on the idea when he wrote Leviathan in response to the English Civil War. In this book he wrote that in the earliest days there was no government. Instead, those who were the strongest could take control and use their power at any time over others. Hobbes' theory was that the people mutually agreed to create a state, only giving it enough power to provide protection of their well-being. However, in Hobbes' theory, once the power was given to the state, the people then relinquished any right to that power. In effect, that would be the price of the protection they sought. John Locke, on the other hand, saw the relationship as still favoring the individual and the rights inherently bestowed on him. He believed that revolution was not just a right but an obligation if the state abused its given power against the individual.
Thomas Paine, in his Rights of Man, wrote: "The fact therefore must be that the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a contract with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist."
This all makes sense. Local governments and social contracts/compacts make sense. A local government can provide services easier than individuals who must go to work and do other things. What is your fundamental liberty worth when you can't travel because you have to stay around to guard and protect your property? So, some government is necessary for maximum liberty. But the individual is careful to make sure that only certain services are delegated. As Madison explained in the Federalist No. 45, power was always meant to remain closest to the people. He wrote: " 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. 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 property of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the state."
But a federal or central government was something different. It is a government that isn't close to the people. And our Founders understood that. And perhaps for that reason, the Constitution was written for the benefit of the American people. (And of course for the States, who valued their sovereign power as well, which they too derived from their people). The Constitution was intended to outline exactly what powers and responsibilities were delegated away to a centralized (federal) government - "in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."
While the Constitution inspired many, it also caused great concern and generated much criticism and apprehension. Three delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 refused to sign the document because they felt it was not adequate. Those delegates were George Mason and Edmund Randolph, of Virginia, and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts. Several entire states refused to ratify it because they didn't trust it to create a government that could remain constrained with respect to the power delegated to the States and the People. Those states were New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island). And many important men, some who were, in fact, fellow Founding Fathers, publicly criticized it or wrote voluminous essays addressing its flaws. These men included Richard Henry Lee, a Founder who made the official resolution for a formal declaration of independence from Great Britain, NY Governor George Clinton, NY lawyer Robert Yates, and others who wanted to remain anonymous. The essays they wrote were collectively known as the Anti-Federalist Papers. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay addressed these criticisms in a series of retaliatory essays called the Federalist Papers. To this day, the Federalist Papers remain as the official explanation as to the scope and intent of the Constitution, including its phraseology and its delegation of powers. In applying a contract theory approach to the Constitution, it would be important to note that the Constitution was ratified by the States in reliance on the assurances given in the Federalist Papers. [According to established contract law, a contract is construed according to the original intent of the parties].
What most people don't know is that Patrick Henry, our beloved patriot who proclaimed "Give Me Liberty or Give me Death!" was a staunch anti-Federalist. He had serious reservations about the ability of the US Constitution to protect liberty for any considerable length of time. In opposing the Constitution and its ratification, Patrick Henry believed he was defending the ideals of the Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence. He argued that America had just fought for their independence from an abusive political regime (the British monarchy and Parliament) and now Madison and Hamilton were intending to put the newly-free nation back under a strong central government, with a strong executive. He argued that we were trading one tyrant for another. To Henry, this was a repudiation of all the liberties that he and the other patriots had fought for. As he explained: "A monstrous national government was not the solution.... Many had to die to be free from such a regime."
In one of his very last public speeches, given at the Virginia Ratifying Convention in 1781, he delivered this heartfelt message: "Liberty is the greatest of all earthly blessings. Give us that precious jewel and you may take everything else. There was a time when every pulse of my heart beat for American liberty and which, I believe, had a counterpart in the breast of every true American. But suspicions have gone forth publicly - suspicions of my integrity - that my professions are not real. 23 years ago, I was supposed a traitor to my country. I was then said to be a bane of sedition because I supported the rights of my countrymen. I may be thought suspicious when I say that our privileges and rights are in danger. But, Sir, a number of people of this country are weak enough to think these things are true.... My great objection to this (new) government is that it does not leave us the means of defending our rights."
Constitutional Convention, 1787
Today we are in a Constitutional crisis. A constitutional crisis is a severe breakdown in the orderly operation of government because the branches have abandoned their roles and responsibilities under the Constitution. A constitutional crisis occurs when power is exerted that doesn't exist or is not authorized under the Constitution. There is not much we can do to preserve the liberty and power originally intended to vest in the States and We the People if we are not willing to become educated and informed and appreciate the reality that every decision made in Washington DC has potential consequences for freedom and liberty in this country.... even when those decisions are cloaked in such benevolent terms as "general welfare," "entitlement," "green," and "sustainable development." Moreso, we must be disciplined to elect good, constitutionally-minded men and women to Washington to strip away all government power not authorized by our founding document and committed to elect officials to state government who believe strongly in States' rights. Only with the return of strong independence states can we begin to put necessary checks on our enlarging, intrusive federal government.
Additionally, we must not repeat the failures of previous generations and trade liberty for security or trade true equality for social justice. As Alexander Hamilton said on the floor of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on June 26, 1787: "Inequality will exist as long as liberty exists. It unavoidably results from that very liberty itself." We must not allow individualism to give way to collectivism. Pro-Constitution legal scholar and author, R. Carter Pittman (1898-1972), wrote: "Equality reaches into the pockets of the frugal to put fat on lazy bones. Fat fools don't fight, except at the trough. From the trough of equality there may be no road back. The next gate may lead to slaughter pens or to the mines of Siberia. We may have lost the will to be free."
We must not allow any further encroachment of socialist policies or wealth redistribution because that is forced equality in contradiction to the laws of nature and economics and they are the same policies of the failed regimes of Europe. Pittman wrote: "It is inequality that gives enlargement to intellect, energy, virtue, love and wealth. Equality of intellect stabilizes mediocrity. Equality of wealth (and social condition) makes every man poor. Equality of energy renders all men sluggards. Equality of virtue suspends all men without the gates of heaven. Equality of love would stultify every manly passion, destroy every family altar and mongrelize the races of men. Equality of altitude would make the whole world a dead sea. Mountains rise out of plains. Plains rise out of the sea......... Equality of freedom cannot exist without inequality in the rewards and earned fruits of that freedom."
Finally, we must do what our parents and grandparents failed to do, and that is to teach our children, by words and by example if possible, what it means to be an American and what it means to live under the US Constitution. We must teach them "authentic" US history, from first-hand documents, and not leave this important education to our failed public school systems. Our 'greatest generation' sadly gave birth to our worst generation. If Thomas Jefferson had his way, every house would have two essential documents - the Bible and the Constitution. Americans would have values and would intimately know where they stand with respect to government. They would be raised to be citizen-servants, meaning they would serve for a short term and then return to their homes, to their jobs, and to their communities. They would understand the notion of service and proper representation. They would understand the importance of our history and realize that the values and principles and traditions that once made our nation great and strong and unified are the same ones we need again more than ever. Every one of those values and principles and traditions allowed this country to enlarge freedom and liberty for all its citizens. In a rational world, our public schools would be teaching all this to our youth. Robert Hutchins (1899-1977), one-time dean of Yale Law School, wrote: "The object of the educational system, taken as a whole, is not to produce hands for industry or to teach the young how to make a living. It is to produce responsible citizens."
The government today is pitting one citizen against another. It is putting the rights and concerns of some citizens over others. In fact, it is putting the rights of the minority over the equally-important rights of the majority. Often the rights of the majority are the rights that have traditionally defined what it means to be an "American." The government and courts like to claim that individuals' freedoms can conflict, yet they both have been too liberal in defining what "fundamental" rights are... such as the right to kill an unborn baby, the right to marry a same-sex partner, the right to take from one person to support another who has no relation, the right of an atheist not to be "offended" in any way by a cross, a prayer, a word, a song, a lawn decoration, etc, and the right of a group to absolute civil liberties, including freedom from racial profiling, when that very group is responsible for 80-100% of violent crime. The government has even gone as far as to statutorily protect some groups' rights over another - ie, blacks and Hispanics (the 14th Amendment and Civil Rights laws; Affirmative action, which is still going strong; the government's refusal to defend DOMA). In this era of violent Islamic terrorism, our country has chosen to label homeland terrorism, such as the Ft. Hood shooting by militant Islamist ("Soldier of Allah"), as "workplace violence" rather than truthfully labeling it for what it was - militant and radical jihadist terrorism. Instead of a Homeland Security Department which identifies this growing security threat and threat to our military, it has taken active and public steps to play down radical Muslim activity and instead to declare that conservative groups pose the current greatest threat to our national security. (Read the Homeland Security Report of April 2009 entitled "Rightwing Extremism"). Video adds for the "See Something, Say Something" law cleverly hint that white American males are the ones we need to keep our eyes on and to suspect as plotting violence. So much for traditional 1st Amendment rights of free speech. In an era of great security threats, our country has chosen to target good, law-abiding conservative citizens who love their country, are disgruntled about a tyrant ruler trying to impose a government mandate on healthcare, who "cling to their guns and religion," and who cherish their Constitutional rights. Over the past century, we've watched what our government has done when it claimed that the freedom of two individuals or two groups conflicted. Instead of protecting the rights clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights, our government has put artificial rights above them and chipped away at our traditional rights and institutions. As between atheists who make up less than 1% of the population and Christians who make up over 80%, it is the atheist who gets his way. As between a helpless living unborn baby who needs compassionate lawmakers to speak where it cannot or a mother who has the power to make reasoned choices, the government chooses the irresponsible mother. As between an individual's right to pursue a profession or degree based on merit and free from racial bias (14th amendment), the government has outright denied that individual's right in favor of a racially-motivated alternative minority candidate. We all understand the reasonable implications when two legitimate fundamental rights class. We understand that at times, one man's freedom must be limited to preserve another's. As Supreme Court Justice William Douglas once said: "My freedom to move my fist must be limited by the proximity of your chin."
Today's government is picking winners (many of whom are petty criminals or worse) and forcing losers out of good and decent Americans - most of whom ARE playing by the rules. It neither fears nor respects the individual citizen. We are a social security number, a statistic, a polling number, a "threat (as in Rightwing Extremism"), a bottomless pocket for the government to take whatever money it believes it needs...... We are not a constituency to be feared or to served honestly and fairly. Notions of fundamental fairness have long gone out of the window. There is nothing fair about the tax scheme. There is nothing fair about income redistribution (especially when the Declaration of Independence proclaims property, of all kinds, to be an inalienable right). There is nothing fair about the government's forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another, including taking the earnings of one to give to another (which essentially amounts to slavery). There is nothing fair about the social decay and destabilization because of the many entitlement programs (just to pander to a voting block). There is nothing fair about the government forcing a socialized healthcare program on a people who overwhelmingly are opposed to it. Social justice and new social order are the new goals of our government. All we need to know can be summed up by Thomas Jefferson's quote: "When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny." Where is the US Constitution in all of this?
Our Founders' vision of our American republic was one of a country grounded in virtue and religious faith, thankful for liberty, proud of its Constitution, and eternally vigil for an enlarging government that would become oppressive and non-oppressive to the people. Our Founders envisioned a country of men rising to the opportunities and challenges that freedom brings, of a limited national government devoted to protecting that freedom, and of responsive local governments to ensure that States and communities keep their individual character.
Today, we barely recognize our country because it has changed so dramatically. In my relatively short lifetime, I can already sense so keenly all the freedoms and opportunities that have been lost. America "feels" different to me. The opportunities I had as a young adult won't be available to my children. They'll have concerns and issues to deal with that I never had. They won't share the optimism that I enjoyed.
We have passively allowed a powerful centralized government over a decentralized federal government, we have neglected to vote for strong States' rights leaders in our states, rendering the States mere government pawns, we have allowed corruption over ethics, we have chosen personal individualistic freedom over virtue, and we have failed to teach our children authentic US history and what it means to be an "American." But most of all, we have neglected the most important historical document the world has ever been known -- a document that oppressed and tortured people around the world would gladly die to protect. It was ours to protect and preserve. Let's hope it's not too late.
