Distrust of the Government

The President, it seems, is upset at those who don’t like government, and went so far as to say that in a democracy we the people are the government. We will forgive the President his bit of rhetoric, but it is worth reminding one and all that dislike of the organs of government, or at least strong distrust, is central to the very notion of the United States and comes to us from our Founding Fathers.

There have been a few folks who have in the past voiced concern about distrust of those in power, irrespective of how they got there. That fear, the fear that those in power will over-reach, will take unto themselves too much power, is one that was central to the arguments that led first to our seeking independence from England, and later to the specifics found in the Constitution.

John Adams, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson and others all commented on the need to limit government, and that the best government was that which ‘governed least.’ George Washington noted that ‘Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

The Bill of Rights was drafted and passed to make just that point: that government must be limited. More than any other amendments, the two most forgotten make the very point being made by many people today. They read:

9th Amendment: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Simply put, because a right is not listed in the Constitution doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, and hence the government cannot take away what the people perceive to be a right simply by passing a law and then noting that the right is not protected. It is worth pointing out that within the intellectual construct of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution rights exist apart from the organs of government; government can no more create a right then it can create life. The people can, in fact, through the Constitution limit some rights for the common well-being, but only the people as a whole can do that. That, at least is what the Founding Fathers provided for in the Constitution.

10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

This amendment is pointing directly at the issue of the government, the bureaucracy, attempting to usurp power. It is the ‘sister’ to the 9th Amendment and addresses the limits of power of the government. Note that there is clearly a distinction made between the ‘United States,’ which clearly means the organs of government, and the people, from whom the powers are granted.

This restates what was obvious to the Founding Fathers but is often lost today: the government has no rights, it has powers. Those powers are limited to the powers granted it by the people. The means for granting powers is the Constitution. If there is a desire to either give the government more powers or to change the existing powers, there is a means to do so; it is the amendment process. Short of amending the Constitution the government cannot have any more powers, nor can it further restrict the rights of the people.

Finally, to clarify one point: I don’t think either the Founding Fathers or those who are now voicing distrust of the ‘government’ would be at all confused as to who is in charge in a democracy. But that, of course, is just the point: as the Declaration of Independence says: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The Founders were making a clear distinction between the organisms of government, the various branches and agencies that make up the federal bureaucracy, and the people, who are the real source of all the powers – or at least all the just powers – exercised by those various elements of the federal bureaucracy – what the drafters and signers of the declaration of independence termed ‘the government.’ In short, distrust of the government is not the people voicing distrust of themselves, or of the notion of government of the people, by the people and for the people. To the contrary, it is distrust of the organs and agencies of the government - the bureaucracies - and a sense that the powers being exercised were not those granted by the people but have simply been taken by Congress or, worse yet, by these agencies. And that is a cause for distrust.