By Tim Urling
1913 was a bad year for America! We got the Federal Reserve System, the IRS and the Income Tax with the 16th Amendment and direct election of senators by popular vote with the 17th Amendment. Erosion of state’s rights and federalism has taken place over a period of time but perhaps nothing has done so much harm as the 17th Amendment.
Few ask why the Framers in the first place wanted senators “chosen by the Legislature thereof” as part of the original Constitution. In their wisdom, the Founders created one body of Congress to be the voice of the people, the House of Representatives, and the other the voice of the states, the Senate. For more than 100 years the senators were beholden to each state’s legislatures to curb the power of the federal government. Fisher Ames of Massachusetts referred to the U.S. senators as “ambassadors of the states” to preserve state sovereignty. It was understood that each state legislature would instruct their senators to represent them in congress. Senators were largely free from being intimidated, bribed and bought-off from corrupt influences. Now senators get elected by expensive campaigns, holding fundraisers outside their states and collecting donations from all over the country. Senators hardly represent their constituents from their own states.
Alexander Hamilton is quoted as saying that the election of senators by state legislatures would be an "absolute safeguard" against federal tyranny. Thankfully, we may be heading toward the Founder’s original intent. The Idaho State Republican Party has adopted a resolution to repeal the 17th and Senate Joint Resolution 35 has been introduced into the U.S. Senate to require a return to the Constitution.
Our Constitution is meant to govern the federal government, not the states and not the people. For example, the Bill of Rights grants no rights to the people. It simply prevents the feds from violating certain rights which people are endowed from God. But, the Bill of Rights places no prohibitions on state governments as each state is a jealous guardian of their independence and sovereignty with regard to their internal affairs. If the states abuse the rights of their citizens they will lose productive citizens and competition among other states will force correction. However, when the central government becomes a dictatorship, people have nowhere to seek refuge from tyranny. Today with the assault on state’s rights, there is a multifaceted effort to make our state lines mean no more than our county lines mean within each state.
We will not keep our liberty if we don’t stop government growth and if we ever again hope to live in a free society, one of their first orders of business should be the repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment.
Showing posts with label 17th Amendment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 17th Amendment. Show all posts
Monday, August 30, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Lessons of the Past
By Gary Randleas
Many Americans may not realize the history of the 17th Amendment and how it came to be. Although acclaimed as a triumph for the American people, it negates the Founders’ original intent which was to create checks and balances within the Federal Government.
The American Founders had extensive knowledge of governments throughout history. Of their strengths and weaknesses; their successes and failures. They saw patterns that, time and again, led to a society’s destruction. Because of this, the Founders went to great lengths to design a system that would eliminate the potential for similar failures. When they created the three branches of government, they were insistent that there be a complete balance of power. Not only did they devise checks and balances among the three branches, they also created them within each individual branch. The legislative branch was set up as a House of Representatives elected by the people and a Senate elected by the state legislatures. The Founders’ hope was that by allowing state legislatures to elect senators, the state would retain a large degree of sovereignty, thereby ensuring that their rights would be protected in a federal system. The Founders didn’t want senators to involve themselves with the popular issues of the day. It was their responsibility to concentrate on states’ rights. They were to focus on balancing the budget, keeping taxes as low as possible, and serving as the primary check over the ‘sometimes radical’ ideas of the House of Representatives.
There were those who argued that by not letting the people elect all branches of government, corruption would creep in and gradually form a tyrannical aristocracy. The Founders’ response was that in order for corruption to prevail, the Senate itself would have to become corrupt, then the state legislatures, the House of Representatives, and finally the corruption of the people. This was unlikely to happen because a succession of new representatives would take over after an election.
In 1911 corruption came into play and there were those who wanted to change what the founders had established. U.S. senators bought their seats with bribes paid to members of state legislatures. As a result of this corruption, the 17th Amendment of the Constitution was adopted on April 8, 1913. This has not solved the problem but has only made it worse. Now we have tens of thousands of illegal transactions between several thousand unknown funding sources and the state no longer has a voice at the federal level.
Whether or not the repeal of the 17th Amendment is ever realized, it is important to learn from history, as our Founders did, not to repeat the mistakes that have proven to be the undoing of nations.
Recommended reading:
Federalist Papers # 62
Federalist Papers # 63
Federalist Papers # 64
Federalist Papers # 65
Federalist Papers # 66
The Federalist Papers can be a hard read. But, as Sir Walter Scott has said "All men who have turned out worth anything have had the cheif hand in their own education."
Many Americans may not realize the history of the 17th Amendment and how it came to be. Although acclaimed as a triumph for the American people, it negates the Founders’ original intent which was to create checks and balances within the Federal Government.
The American Founders had extensive knowledge of governments throughout history. Of their strengths and weaknesses; their successes and failures. They saw patterns that, time and again, led to a society’s destruction. Because of this, the Founders went to great lengths to design a system that would eliminate the potential for similar failures. When they created the three branches of government, they were insistent that there be a complete balance of power. Not only did they devise checks and balances among the three branches, they also created them within each individual branch. The legislative branch was set up as a House of Representatives elected by the people and a Senate elected by the state legislatures. The Founders’ hope was that by allowing state legislatures to elect senators, the state would retain a large degree of sovereignty, thereby ensuring that their rights would be protected in a federal system. The Founders didn’t want senators to involve themselves with the popular issues of the day. It was their responsibility to concentrate on states’ rights. They were to focus on balancing the budget, keeping taxes as low as possible, and serving as the primary check over the ‘sometimes radical’ ideas of the House of Representatives.
There were those who argued that by not letting the people elect all branches of government, corruption would creep in and gradually form a tyrannical aristocracy. The Founders’ response was that in order for corruption to prevail, the Senate itself would have to become corrupt, then the state legislatures, the House of Representatives, and finally the corruption of the people. This was unlikely to happen because a succession of new representatives would take over after an election.
In 1911 corruption came into play and there were those who wanted to change what the founders had established. U.S. senators bought their seats with bribes paid to members of state legislatures. As a result of this corruption, the 17th Amendment of the Constitution was adopted on April 8, 1913. This has not solved the problem but has only made it worse. Now we have tens of thousands of illegal transactions between several thousand unknown funding sources and the state no longer has a voice at the federal level.
Whether or not the repeal of the 17th Amendment is ever realized, it is important to learn from history, as our Founders did, not to repeat the mistakes that have proven to be the undoing of nations.
Recommended reading:
Federalist Papers # 62
Federalist Papers # 63
Federalist Papers # 64
Federalist Papers # 65
Federalist Papers # 66
The Federalist Papers can be a hard read. But, as Sir Walter Scott has said "All men who have turned out worth anything have had the cheif hand in their own education."
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