The title should reveal to you how I feel about our Founding Fathers, who conceived the most wonderful of societies based on the most enlightened of ideas. History testifies to how right they were.
But, alas, alack, they were not infallible nor omniscient nor free of error. They were human, and in the writing of our glorious Constitution, they made errors.
Herein is my list of those errors…ideas incorporated in the Constitution that are flat out wrong, some that are arguably wrong, and those that are wrong because they are lacking in clarity:
Article I, Sec. 2
“Representatives…shall be apportioned among the several states…according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons…three-fifths of all other persons.”
“All other persons”, I guess, was a euphemism for “slaves”. The FF could not say “all other men” because then it would clash head-on with the principle tenet of the Constitution they spelled out in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are…Liberty.”
The FF should have rejected slavery as an abhorrent denigration of the luminous concept of liberty, which they extolled. Instead, they confirmed it. ERROR
Article I, Sec. 8
“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises”
All taxes of any kind, shape or manner, are violations of a taxpayer’s freedom. They are the forceful taking of my property
without my consent…property to which I have an unalienable right, as a product of my life, to retain and/or dispose of as I, and I alone, see fit. No matter the uses, benevolent or otherwise, to which taxes may be put, each and every tax is contradictory to, and a repudiation of, the concept of freedom. If the government needs funds, in a freedom-based country like America, it must do so without denying that base on which it rests. ERROR
“The Congress shall have the power to regulate commerce …among the several states”
This so-called interstate commerce clause is one of the most egregious errors made by the FF. Virtually every good and service has been deemed to be in interstate commerce. If a single nail used in the construction of a building located in State A was made in State B, the building and all activities therein are considered to be in and affecting interstate commerce and subject to government regulation. Under this interpretation, the federal government has the power to regulate just about whatever it wishes…and it has been upheld by the Supreme Court in doing so.
The government’s intrusion into, and its issuance of regulations, in one of the most significant of human activities…commerce, the making of money…is antithetical to the fundamental concept of the sovereignty of the individual, not the state, America’s unique foundation. ERROR
“The Congress shall have power to establish…an uniform rule on the subject of bankruptcies”
See prior analysis on the government’s intrusion into commerce. ERROR
“The Congress shall have power to establish post offices”
The sole proper responsibility of government is to maintain an environment in which we are free to live our lives as we choose, provided we do not initiate force against others and thereby deny them their comparable freedom. Ayn Rand has pointed out the three ways in which the government fulfills that responsibility, to wit, maintaining police forces, military forces, and law courts to peacefully resolve disputes. It is certainly not a proper government function to be in the mail delivery business. The fact that a national postal service was “needed” in the time of the FF is not a valid reason for the government to unilaterally extend its Constitutionally enumerated powers. The fact that, today, the government is in the postal business in competition with private firms, and is financed in part by taxes collected from those private firms, is doubly onerous. ERROR
“The Congress shall have power to raise and support armies”
Certainly, a function of the government is to maintain a military force (see above). The question is: Did the FF envision the manning of that force solely by voluntary enlistments, or by a military draft, or both? If a military draft was meant to be permitted, then the FF failed to see the contradiction of forcing someone to fight for his freedom. If a military draft was not intended, then the FF failed to make that clear.
Article 2, Sec. 2
“The president…shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States”
The granting of reprieves and pardons for criminal offenses is properly done by an independent judiciary. Giving the power to grant them to the Chief Executive made them political in nature, and we have historically seen the not unexpected abuse of that power. ERROR
Article 4, Sec. 2
“No person held to service or labour in one states…escaping into another, shall…be discharged from such service or labour, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labour may be due”
Reinforces the legitimacy of slavery and the immoral premise on which it rests: the treatment of humans as chattel. ERROR
Amendment I
“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble”
The listing of specific rights suggests they are the only rights, or the only ones protected from government interference. In fact, freedom is an individual’s right to do an endless array of peaceful choices , all unalienable at all times. ERROR
Amendment II
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to bear and keep arms, shall not be infringed”
The awkward wording of that Amendment does not make clear whether the FF intended to recognize the right to private gun ownership. ERROR
Amendment V
“Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation”
This, the eminent domain clause, gives the government the right to seize privately owned property, if paid for. It is a clear violation of the unalienable right to one’s property and implicitly sanctions the use of force against innocent property owners. If the government needs a particular piece of property for government, it must seek to acquire it within the framework of individual property rights and freedom. ERROR
In addition to the above overt errors, the FF made a significant error of omission. They failed to acknowledge that women had co-equal rights with men, including the right to vote, and that when they had referred to “all men are created equal” in the Declaration, they meant both men and women. By such failure, they supported and continued an irrational and discriminatory practice toward half the population.
The Founding Fathers were indeed men of outstanding virtue and vision. Their invention of a society rooted in the sovereignty of each individual ranks as the greatest of human achievements, despite the errors I have noted. I applaud and revere them for the grandeur of the country they fashioned for us all.
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