In Part I of The Constitution Series we saw that the people were "not a party" to the United States Constitution. We also saw that Free Americans already living on their own land and untaxed were very much opposed to the constitution and had it been put to a vote of the people it would have failed to pass. How could a document so unpopular with the people become the law of the land ruling over the people in every aspect of their lives?
Centralized Authority or Free Dominion
It is clear that the people did not wish the constitution to be ratified or signed. It is clear that many able men opposed it. Some of us have studied the federalist papers which were written by those in favor of that constitution. Fewer have read the anti-federalist papers written by the men in opposition to this new written Constitution offered to the States. If the people did not want the Constitution, what did they want and what did they fear and oppose that came with such a document?
More than anything it was the centralization of government and its power to exercise authority that the people feared. They had begun to understand another form of government. A government of individual responsibility and resulting rights had been discovered in their common hardships and sacrifices, their loose confederation and voluntary union and in the recollection of their own history and the ways of the ancients.
The centralization of power in government forms has been a propensity of fallen man from the beginning of his history. But the assumption that centralized government power has been the predominant or most successful form of free government is inaccurate.
In The Enterprise of Law, Dr. Bruce Benson shows that, in fact, "our modern reliance on government to make law and establish order is not the historical norm". The historical norm was customary law which, spontaneously created and voluntarily obeyed, provided law and order in all early societies. Customary law had precisely the same status and served the same purpose as the state-created law which we take for granted today. The commonly-held belief that law and government develop together is mistaken.
"Good men hate to sin through love of virtue; bad men through fear of punishment."1
This earlier volunteer government was composed of free people. These individuals understood the need for law and community. Yet, despite the success of such systems they often fall into decay and under tyranny. Centralized governments do the same but with more universal corruption and universal oppression, though for the same cause. Why? Because of amour-propre and jealousy, apathy and avarice?
"The Superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort." 2
Early Israel, the original Roman republic and the early Saxon Christian republics of the first millennium were originally patriarchal governments of the people, by the people and for the people steeped in individual freedom, rights and responsibility. All eventually became subjects of kings and emperors.
We estimate men as great not by their wealth but by their virtue.3
This predominant system of freedom was based on voluntarism, brotherhood and responsibility to your neighbor. It was not based on forcing your neighbor to support the will of leaders nor the majority. It was based on love of neighbor. People were not forced to join it nor support it through forced taxation. "However, everyone was involved, and the system was respected and sustained, because customary law successfully provided both protection and arbitration at minimum cost. It evolved spontaneously, without state involvement, for the simple reason that there was no state."4
The fact was the state and the law rested in the hands of the individual free man and his family unit. The people were the fountainhead of justice. If there was not justice in the land by them then there was not justice in the land for them. Love for each other in the community in mutual charity and hope was the only social insurance available. People were bound together as a brotherhood and community and by the common wisdom of gathering together.
"Before the Norman conquest of England in 1066 the people were the fountainhead of justice. The Anglo-Saxon courts of those days were composed of large numbers of freemen and the law which they administered, was that which had been handed down by oral tradition from generation to generation. In competition with these non professional courts the Norman king, who insisted that he was the fountainhead of justice, set up his own tribunals. The judges who presided over these royal courts were agents or representatives of the king, not of the people; but they were professional lawyers who devoted most of their time and energy to the administration of justice, and the courts over which they presided were so efficient that they gradually all but displaced the popular, nonprofessional courts."5
When people relinquish or acquiesce their God given responsibility to minister justice to their neighbor to more mercenary professionals, they also lose one aspect of the mystery of their own success as a free society. Why would the people do this?
Did those early brave souls who crossed an ocean and tested the wilderness with their own sweat and blood know something we have forgotten again or have not been taught? Did their hardship and suffering give them an understanding that our affluence and pride has blinded us to? If this is true have we traveled down an old road to new tyranny? If so what is the road back and how do we find it? Men often equate affluence with freedom, comfort with liberty and pride with nobility and virtue.
For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
For having overcome the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, 'The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.' (II Peter 2, 18-22).
Centuries ago Americans were reminded that Caesar, "Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient Freedom." 6
Today we are taught that the history of man is the history of centralization of governmental power. It is common to believe that without that central power men fall into violent selfish anarchy. This is true for those who are not men and women of virtue and honor. Such people if they come together should be able to form a government based on the perfect law of liberty. They would have to set aside, pride and greed, self-righteousness and selfishness. The would have to be as or more concerned about their neighbors rights than their own. They would have to love their neighbor as themselves.
"Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks, no form of government can render us secure."7
Blind patriotism where men herald "My country right or wrong", is not wisdom but just blindness. It would be convenient to imagine that the Constitution was the result of superior minds and noble hearts and even the inspiration of God, but few moments in history can honestly claim such presumptuous accolades.
"If we will not be ruled by God, then we will be ruled by tyrants." 8
What does it mean to be ruled by God? How do governments and tyrants gain power? Is it because they say they have it or because we give it to them by agreement? Is it by consent and contract alone that we are made subject to the will of leaders and rulers, constitutions and covenants?
Footnotes:
|
Share this
page 
