Five Constitutional Truths They Don’t Want You to Know
By: Michael Boldin
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be.”
Thomas Jefferson nailed it. And here’s the deal – mass, widespread ignorance about our Constitution is no accident. It’s by design.
Why? Because educated people are harder to dominate and control. They ask inconvenient questions. They know the difference between a servant and a master.
And when government violates the rules given to it? An educated and free people slap it right back to where it belongs.
Fast.
Let’s examine five constitutional truths that government-run schools almost never teach – because if they did, we wouldn’t be living under the largest government in history.
TRUTH #1: WHY WE EVEN HAVE A WRITTEN CONSTITUTION
Written constitutions were birthed in the American Revolution, where the old revolutionaries toiled under the arbitrary power of the unwritten British constitution.
St. George Tucker, one of America’s first constitutional scholars, explained it perfectly.
“The American revolution seems to have given birth to this new political phenomenon: in every state a written constitution was framed, and adopted by the people, both in their individual and sovereign capacity, and character.”
Edmund Randolph, our first Attorney General, understood – if government doesn’t have clear rules, government will just make things up as it goes.
“Governments, having no written Constitution, may perhaps claim a latitude of power, not always easy to be determined.”
The old revolutionaries learned it firsthand, and Tucker drove the point home – without written limits on power, eventually you end up with no limits at all.
“The advantages of a written constitution, considered as the original contract of society must immediately strike every reflecting mind; power, when undefined, soon becomes unlimited.”
Through a written constitution, Tucker explained, the framers also made sure everyone understood who works for whom.
“By this means, the just distinction between the sovereignty, and the government, was rendered familiar to every intelligent mind; the former was found to reside in the people, and to be unalienable from them; the latter in their servants and agents.”
Think about it this way: If you rent out a room in your house, you write down the rules for tenants, such as no smoking, no parties after 10pm, no pets, and the like. Why? Because if you don’t put it in writing, your tenant will decide for himself what’s acceptable.
Giving that kind of discretion to government isn’t just a bad idea. It’s dangerous.
TRUTH #2: VOID
Tucker also explained what might be the most important reason for having a written constitution:
“A written constitution has moreover the peculiar advantage of serving as a beacon to apprise the people when their rights and liberties are invaded, or in danger.”
When those rules are broken? Their actions are illegal. Or as the founders put it – VOID. Like James Otis Jr. declared at the start of the American Revolution, “An Act against the constitution is void.”
But here’s the real danger.
Thomas Jefferson understood that letting them get away with breaking the rules once means they’ll keep doing it – until there are no rules at all.
“To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.”
Let that sink in. One violation leads to another, until a constitution exists on paper, but not in practice.
TRUTH #3: PARCHMENT BARRIERS DON’T ENFORCE THEMSELVES
Here’s the thing about written rules – all history proves that people with power will ignore them when they can get away with it. And in the rare case that a person gets in power who never tries to cross that line, that person won’t hold that power forever.
As John Dickinson pointed out, even the best constitution suffers from this truth.
“A good constitution promotes, but not always produces a good administration.”
Even James Madison made clear that words on paper don’t enforce themselves. Never did. Never will.
“Mere declarations in the written constitution, are not sufficient to restrain the several departments within their legal limits.”
For you parents, imagine putting a note on your kid’s door that says “Clean your room every Saturday” and then expecting the note to enforce itself.
That’s what we’re doing with the Constitution.
And the results couldn’t be worse.
TRUTH #4: THE PEOPLE ARE THE ULTIMATE AUTHORITY
Documents can’t enforce themselves. But as Thomas Jefferson explained, you sure can’t trust government to limit its own power either.
“The government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers.”
James Wilson explained the real chain of command.
“As our constitutions are superior to our legislatures; so the people are superior to our constitutions.”
John Jay gave us the bottom line – government is just a mere agent of the people. The Constitution? It’s their employee handbook.
“The Constitution only serves to point out that part of the people’s business, which they think proper by it to refer to the management of the persons therein designated.”
Put simply – the Constitution is a set of rules for those agents that the people and the states have hired to conduct the business they decided they wanted to be conducted.
Think of how stupid it would be to hire a babysitter for your kids, give them a list of rules, and when they break every single one ask the babysitter to decide if they did anything wrong.
TRUTH #5: THE REAL ENFORCEMENT MECHANISM
That’s why, as John Dickinson explained (in ALL CAPS) – it’s ultimately up to the people themselves to protect and defend their own Constitution, whether the government likes it, or not.
“IT IS THEIR DUTY TO WATCH, AND THEIR RIGHT TO TAKE CARE, THAT THE CONSTITUTION BE PRESERVED; Or in the Roman phrase on perilous occasions – TO PROVIDE, THAT THE REPUBLIC RECEIVE NO DAMAGE.”
Luther Martin tied it all back to the Revolution.
“By the principles of the American revolution, arbitrary power may and ought to be resisted.”
At the height of that revolution, a young, fiery Alexander Hamilton put it in terms any tyrant could understand.
“All we aim at, is to convince your high and mighty masters, the ministry, that we are not such asses as to let them ride us as they please.”
He understood the price, and the goal.
“We are determined to shew them, that we know the value of freedom; nor shall their rapacity extort, that inestimable jewel from us, without a manly and virtuous struggle.”
Thomas Jefferson came in with the knockout punch. He explained the difference between free people and subjects.
“A free people claim their rights, as derived from the law of nature, and not as a gift of their chief magistrate.”
THE BOTTOM LINE
So here’s our choice: A real “land of the free” or a population on its knees begging for permission from the largest government in history.
These five truths reveal why constitutional education has been intentionally and systematically neglected.
An informed people who understand these principles would never tolerate the massive expansion of government power we’ve witnessed. They’d know that unconstitutional acts are void, that they – not government – are the ultimate authority, and that it’s their duty to enforce constitutional limits.
The founders gave us a written Constitution precisely so we’d know when government overstepped its bounds. They understood that power without limits is tyranny. Most importantly, they knew that only an educated, vigilant people could preserve freedom.
The question is: Will we be that people?
Michael Boldin
Michael Boldin [send him email] is the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center. He was raised in Milwaukee, WI, and currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. Follow him on twitter – @michaelboldin and Facebook.