Ignoring the limits of the Constitution because you don’t like the results you’ll get? George Washington called that a WEAPON to destroy freedom.
He laid it all out in his farewell address.
First, if the people want the rules for government to be different, there’s a process in the Constitution to handle that.
“If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates.”
But that’s not how it works in practice
Instead, the people allow – and even encourage – the president, Congress, and the federal courts to simply claim power and act, whether the Constitution authorizes it or not.
In other words, the people let the government amend the Constitution by usurpation.
This is exactly what Washington said not to do. He pleaded, “Let there be no change by usurpation.”
People generally tolerate and encourage usurpation because they like the results. But Washington hinted at how short-sighted this is.
“Though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.”
Here at the Tenth Amendment Center, we battle this WEAPON, this short-sighted tendency every day. And we teach people that they need to stop tolerating new precedents by usurpation – even if they like the results..
This is a massive uphill battle, but duty is ours … We need your help to reach and teach as many people as possible with these essential principles from the founders.
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As Washington warned, even if you like the results of the usurpation, it is setting the stage for more.
That’s because whatever good comes out of these acts sets the precedent for the power to be used in other ways in the long run.
“The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.”
That is, as John Dickinson described it, the “detestable precedent.” And it will ultimately be used by other people in new ways (that you probably won’t like) and – then expanded even further in the future.
This is why Thomas Jefferson insisted there had to be a line in the sand. And he warned what would happen if the people let the government cross that line.
“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.”
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