The Constitutional Question

Republicans are eagerly anticipating victory in November.  It may come to pass, but at no small cost to the country.  The Republican party would like to turn back the clock -- maybe not very far, maybe all the way to 1787, when a small group of relatively wealthy landowners and slaveholders made some important decisions for the direction of the country by meeting in secret in Philadelphia.  Some people claim that they have a vision of Constitutional government in the U.S. that doesn't include things like the Department of Education, or presumably, any other function of government not explicitly stated in that hallowed document.  The problem is that if you read the document itself, it actually does allow some flexibility in the enumeration of powers of the Congress and the President.  Here are some quotes from the Constitution that might make some Republicans pause in their quest for "Constitutional" government or "strict construction."

"[Article I, Section 8] The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes... to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;...To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States,...And to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."

Some may claim that the 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," is more important than the phrases "general welfare" or the interstate commerce clause.  But that is a question for the courts to decide, not politicians.  When politicians get involved in these types of questions, we end up with things like the Civil War.  (Not that it will get to that extreme in these modern times -- surely we are more reasonable now than then, right?)  A reasonable argument can be made that the Constitutional questions raised by the Tea Party are based on a misunderstanding of the original document -- that it was designed to be flexible and to allow for growth and change over centuries, rather than a sacrosanct tablet of stone onto which we can project our modern frustrations with the direction of the country in general.

After reading the Constitution in its entirety today, I think it does intend for a less "imperial" Presidency than the current state of affairs.  However, the current President is not to blame for the nature of foreign and domestic pressures that make the President the focus of our attention, nor the extraordinary security measures now taken to protect the President, which tend to make the US leader feel like an emperor.  More on that later, perhaps.