Patriot 1

“The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it,” wrote Founding Father James Wilson.  Without the “first and governing maxim” we are left lawless—without a Constitution of any measurable means. This is so manifestly the case as to need no demonstration.  If the law does not mean what it says it means—we are left to the whims of the ruling elite– a dictatorship.  But this is precisely where America is with Barack Obama. Not that he has been the first president to show little regard for the law, but his massive federal intrusion into the world of Health Care represents the single most gigantic leap into socialism that America has ever seen. If this lawless power grab is not reversed, and soon, America will not only be in decline—its fate will have been written in the “Freedom Lost” pages of history.

Interstate Commerce Clause

Efforts to justify the leviathan government in Health Care are made in the name of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution (Article 1, section 8). The clause was originally suggested by James Madison who believed some kind of “national regulation” was necessary to preserve the Union, for without it, “it will infallibly crumble to pieces.” To remove what he considered the “chief defect in the existing government,” the “commerce clause” was inserted.  This chief defect was illustrated by George Washington.  Writing  to Lafayette that his own state of Virginia had tried to pass “some of the most extravagant and preposterous edicts on the subject of trade” Washington stressed the need for a uniform policy on commercial trade. Another example of “preposterous edicts” passed under the Articles of Confederation was made by Rhode Island. This colony met all its expenses out of the heavy duties which it levied at one port on the commerce entering from other states!

The original intent of the Commerce Clause, therefore,  was to correct the above abuses under the Articles.  James Madison stressed: “It is very certain that [the commerce clause] grew out of the abuse of power by importing states in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the states themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government …” Would that modern-day socialists that run our government today pay attention to the original intent of the law. But what care have they for the law?

Thomas Jefferson explains the commerce clause exactly the same way. The clause “does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a state (that is to say, of the commerce between citizen and citizen) … but to its external commerce only … with another state.” In other words, the states would form a common market. What a travesty that we have a president who is doing his best to cram socialism down the throats of America all the while pretending to be interested in the Constitution.

Just to put the lock on the whole idea of the commerce clause and to ensure that nothing more be made of it, the Founders included the Tenth Amendment.  James Wilson, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, pointed out that the Federal Government has absolutely no business in Local Matters. “It does not belong to this government to make an act for a particular township, county, or state.”  What would  the Founders say about the Federal Government, under the tutelage of Barack  Obama, involving itself in the private lives of each individual with massive mandates  regarding Nationalized Medicine and the gigantic bureaucracy that is now being formed to enforce compliance? Valuing freedom demands the dismantling of this  totalitarian-style law called ObamaCare.

Franklin Roosevelt, 1935

FDR, a prototype of the lawless leader we now witness in Washington, D.C., opined on the “commerce clause” during a press conference in 1935. That clause was written, said he, “during the horse and buggy days” and “since that time we have developed an entirely different philosophy.”  Further, he stated, “And the hope has been that we could, through a period of years, interpret the commerce clause of the Constitution in light of these new things that have come into our country.” He went on to say that “most lawyers have had the thought that that in drafting legislation we could depend on an interpretation that would enlarge the constitutional meaning.” This means exactly what it says: deceptively change the Constitution—reverse its meaning.

It is nothing less than charades for news media outlets,attorneys, judges, politicians to struggle with ObamaCare as if it might be, somehow, someway Constitutional—just depending upon what the Supreme Court decides. Roosevelt said it clearest—just change the Constitution. Lawless government.