The Limitation of Government
Schedule Wayne Holstad for Your Group
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The final phrase in
America’s great paragraph of political philosophy attempts, in the most
ambitious and aggressive covenant with organized government ever made, to
limit the extent and sovereignty of the government.
"We hold these truths to be self evident, that
all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
In England, as a direct result of Parliament’s
long civil war with the Stuart kings, culminating in the Glorious Revolution
of 1688, Parliament became the political sovereign. The transfer of
political sovereignty from the monarchy to a legislative assembly was a
dramatic change from the medieval status quo.
In America, for the first time, according to the
Declaration of Independence, the people were identified as the sovereign.
The placement of political sovereignty with the people was radical and
unprecedented in history.
Equally unprecedented, from the standpoint of
political history, was the establishment of the institutions of government
by written agreement. In England, constitutional government evolved and, to
this day, contains as its constitution both written documents and oral
tradition. England’s constitution is a product of a thousand years
compilation of charters, petitions and precedents that slowly recognized the
natural rights of individuals and limitations on the power of political
institutions. Other nations evolved from tribal relationships and the
seizure of power by individuals and groups who simply claimed sovereignty by
force. In America, the people claimed sovereignty. The governing principles
were established deliberately. And the rules were all put in writing.
The first great practical task, after peace with
England was established in 1783, was to organize the new institutions of
government. The states had adopted new constitutions because their governing
documents, based on colonial status, were no longer in effect. In addition,
the theories of law and politics that had invigorated the Continental
Congress involved major changes from English constitutional law. State
governments were reorganized. The Articles of Confederation, which had
temporarily united the colonies during the war with England, was incapable
of governing a nation.
A Constitutional Convention was convened in
Philadelphia in 1787 for the purpose of organizing the new nation and to
establish a new government based on the unique American principles that had
been used to justify independence from England in the first place. The
result was a Constitution that laid out a republican form of government,
federal in its organization. The republican principle was based upon
representation, pursuant to the equality mandate in the Declaration of
Independence.
The federal format was based upon a fear of
centralized government, which appeared, from the observation of the European
experience, to be antithetical to the theory of government by consent. The
Bill of Rights, incorporated into the Constitution as part of the
ratification process, secured the inalienable rights of individuals. The
establishment of a federal, republican government, limited in its power by
the Bill of Rights, was entirely consistent with the nation’s charter, the
Declaration of Independence.