Today, at the American Thinker Alexander G. Markovsky has an essential article entitled How The American Republic Was Lost. Marking the exact date when the Constitutional Republic was lost is not easy. Mark Levin in his book Men In Black has placed the loss of the Republic in the Courts circa 1900 and on, with the doctrine of the "living constitution." Markovsky places it later, with the ratification of the 17th Amendment. Markovsky is right, that too many are too poorly educated on our history. Democrats would surely not want to repeal the 17th Amendment, and thus at least half the population would vote against doing so.
So, what is the 17th Amendment, you ask? That was the Amendment, ratified and signed into law by the Woodrow Wilson administration to provide for the popular election of Senators. I urge gentle readers to read the entire article and to do some more research on the topic. Markovsky is absolutely correct in his assessment.
Periodically, the world produces a demonic leader who challenges the legitimacy of established order with force or an ideologue who does the same with utopian ideas. Nevertheless, America’s Founders refused to prevent those people from pursuing political office within the bounds of legality. Instead, with their foresight, they crafted the Constitution not to prevent those individuals’ rise to power but to safeguard against their destructive impulses via constitutional restraints. Unbeknownst to many, though, Wilsonian progressives broke one of those restraints in 1913, mortally wounding the American experiment.
When the Founders set out to keep tyranny from infecting the federal government, two of the most important and interrelated safeguards were the separation of powers and federalism.
...snip...
The states, in turn, joined the Union on the condition that their sovereignty would be protected. The House of Representatives was intended to be a “People’s House,” with representatives directly elected by the people in their respective districts. Senators were to be selected by state legislatures to represent the states to ensure their sovereignty.
No doubt it seemed at the time to be a good idea to the average person, though I have wondered who in the state legislatures would have thought it was a neat idea to give up their authority. For it was the state legislatures that had to vote to ratify the Amendment. In any case, we can see what has become of the Senate.
Those restraints on the executive were irreparably damaged following the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, on Woodrow Wilson’s watch. That amendment established the direct election of U.S. senators by popular vote. This effectively took power from the states, de facto nullifying the Tenth Amendment.
The senators elected by the people for six-year terms no longer represent the interests of the states. While “we the people” are represented by the House, the senators de facto represent nobody but themselves. They become committed to their respective parties’ agendas and personal gain.
Markovsky blames the Obama administration for much of the transformation that has taken place, and Obama deserves all the blame we may heap at his feet. But the fact is that the socialist progressives have been at work since Theodore Roosevelt was in office. They have slowing taken over the Democrat party, which always had a bit of Satanism, and they have also taken over parts of the Republican party. To the extent that they have imported Islam into a nation of Christians, they have not only sowed discord, but have imported Satanic forces that are already tearing Europe apart.
Not bound by constitutional constraints, the socialists began the process of gradually dismantling the established law and order. Institutions of marriage and religion, capitalism, the judicial system, individual liberty, and the English language—all have come under assault after having been branded as antiquated, biased, and intolerant. Moreover, Democrats even altered the voting laws to ensure the Democratic Party’s electoral supremacy.
Some may say that it is an exercise in futility to consider what could happen if… Nevertheless, if not for the Seventeenth Amendment, the Senate would not be controlled by political parties, and the states would have a say in any proposed legislation. Obamacare, the skyrocketing deficit, generous welfare programs, the government-run education system, the departments of Energy and Agriculture, open borders, climate change, and a host of programs and executive orders, plus volumes of intrusive government regulations, would never have seen the light of day.
The Seventeenth Amendment trashed the key provision of the Constitution and made the powers of the federal government infinite and undefined. The immense transfer of power away from the democratically elected representatives of Congress to the executive branch has produced an extraordinary imbalance between power and legitimacy.
Honestly, we are facing so many problems today, they seem to attack from every direction. We need at some point to return to our Constitutional roots. Perhaps, if we did, we might solve some of the other issues as well.
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