6 to the colonists, as to the barons who wrested Magna Carta from king john, english liberty meant feudalism in essence, LOCALISM AS AGAINST CENTRALISM, CONTRACTUAL GOVERNMENT AS AGAINST ABSOLUTISM. almost at once, the colonies gravitated to localism and contractualism. thie charters with the english crown were FEUDAL CONTRACTS and there was no relationship between colonies and crown except in terms of these charters. although the crown was often arbitrary and sought to be absolutistic, the legal basis remained FEUDAL. each colony was thus an independent state, with its own independent civil structure, under a feudal lord, represented in the colony by the royal governor.
7 ..the 13 colonies were free and independent states under their feudal lord, George III they were not under parliament but had their own legislative bodies and their internally independent structures. the colonies had the right and power to issue their own money, a right which parliament sought to destroy...
..the actions of parliament here and in other issues constituted an invasion of the colonies and the actions of George III A VIOLATION OF HIS FEUDAL RESPONSIBILITIES. the declaration of independence accordingly never mentioned the british parliament; they had no legal relationship thereto and had no need to declare themselves independent of an authority they had never been subject to.
8 the Declaration did cite the royal acts which rendered the king's feudal lordship over the colonies null and void. not the colonies but the king had rebelled against the prevailing law and order. legality was thus on the side of the colonists. as the Declaration stated it, 'the history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states'...they were not in rebellion against the idea of a ruler, but against 'a tyrant,...unfit to be the ruler of a free people...
the purpose of the Constitution was thus not to create a strong central government, but, creating a federal union only sufficiently strong to maintain their unity, to thereupon limit it severely in order to prevent any future rise of centralism. the Constitution accordingly makes 80 grants of power to the federal government while levying 115 prohibitions against it. to the federal legislative authority, there are 20 grants of power and 70 restraints. in addition, the express powers doctrine, implicit in the Constitution, is firmly spelled out in Amendments IX and X as a further check on the federal government.
in Amendment XI, the states asserted their further independence of federal jurisdiction.
but it would be a serious error to assert that the alternative to federal sovereignty is State Rights. important as
9 the states are, they are not the basic unit of the American system. the basic unit is clearly and without question THE COUNTY; significantly, one of the first steps towards independence was taken by mecklenberg County, North Carolina, may 31, 1775, in order to prevent a legal vacuum.
we have already noted that the county had certain powers with reference to religion. more important, in other areas the county had full jurisdiction and these areas constitute the essence of civil government.
first, the PROPERTY TAX remained in the hands of the county, which had early established its jurisdiction. the people of an area thus controlled their tax assessor and their county supervisors, so that the taxing power was not beyond their jurisdiction. when the power to tax leaves the county, tyranny will then begin in the united states. socialism or communism will be only a step away. the people of a county will be helpless as their property is taxed to the point of expropriation (def. take possession of, especially for public use)...
one of the central reasons for the Constitution was the failure of the Confederation because of its inability to tax, its Congress being dependent on the grants of the several states. while certain powers were removed from the United States of the Articles of Confederation by the Constitution, the central extension of power was the power to tax. this was circumscribed in two ways: first, debt paper money was barred, Congress and the states being limited to hard money and Congress being limited to coining money, regulating its value and fixing the standard of weights and measures (Article 1, Section 8). this power was moreover restricted to congress, not to a central bank. since debt paper money and inflation are forms of taxation, this was a severe limitation upon the powers of Congress, which had previously issued debt paper money, as had the states. second, 'no Capitation, or other direct tax' on the citizens, 'unless in
10 proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken' and 'no tax or duty...on articles exported from any state' (Article I Section 9), was permitted. taxes were essentially 'Duties, Imposts and Excises' whose purpose was 'to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States' (Article I, Section 8). 'general welfare' was clearly not intended to men aid to individuals and Madison so stated it in the Federalist. (no. 41, p. 268f, edward mead earle edition, new york: modern library, 1936)
second, CRIMINAL LAW was and is county law in essence. this was an important safeguard against tyranny and against the political use of criminal law. law enforcement officers, including judges, were and are officers of the county, in the main or of its constituent units. as T. Robert Ingram has pointed out, not too many years ago executions were also held at the county seat. police power and criminal law are thus matters of local jurisdiction in the american system. this makes possible, on the moral decline of the community, a slack enforcement of law and order, but, more than that, it is the basic ingredient of liberty in the American legal system, of self government in both church and state. it is local authority; it is self-government. it means truly that which the jury system requires, trials by one's peers.
third, CIVIL LAW is also county law to a great degree, enforced by local courts and by locally elected officials. the american citizen is thus for the most part under county government rather than state and federal government. his basic instruments of civil government are local, residing in the county and the county is his historic line of defense against the encroachments of state and federal governments. in early America, town and county elections were properly regarded as more important than state and federal elections, and property qualifications more strict on the local level. the county was the heart of the protestant feudal restoration,
11 and the growth of state and especially federal power was as much distrusted as the growth of royal power and then royal absolutism had been hated and distrusted in an earlier era.
the county is currently under assault from United Nations, federal, state and metropolitan planners. (see E.G.Grace" what is metropolitan government?, lost angeles, 1958; Jo Hindman: terrible 1313 revisited, caldwell, idaho: caxton press, 1963.
..the first major assault on LOCALISM came very early and it came from the states. the Constitution, in establishing the Electoral College, made it the exact numerical counterpart of congress, with one elector for each congressional district and two at large for the two senators. the constitutional convention did not presume to order the states to follow the congressional districts strictly, with an elector named from each district, but it certainly suggested this by the exact coincidence of structure.
it was assumed in the proceedings of the convention that prominent and able men from each congressional district and from the state at large, would be elected or appointed as electors, and, to retain their independence and integrity, the electors could not be a 'Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States' (Article II, Section 1).
for some years, a variety of methods were used and electors often had a measure of independence as well as ties to the local district. in 1836, however, the general ticket was used in every state except south carolina (where election by the legislature continued until 1860) and rarely since then has there been a departure from the general ticket
state politicians had come to recognize the power inherent in the general ticket. instead of binding each elector to the vote of the congressional district, with only the two at large bound to the state vote, the general ticket took the
12 power from the congressional district, the local unit and gave it to the state. as a result, while every congressional district in a state except those of the large urban center may vote for one candidate, their votes are nullified by the slim majority given by the urban vote and ALL electoral votes can go to the other candidate.
the state politicians were not alone in recognizing the power inherent in the general ticket. minority groups quickly recognized that it gave them the balance of power between the two parties. the first group to make use of this power was the Abolitionist movement. slavery had previously been a source of tension but had been very far from dominating federal politics. now the picture changed rapidly. a few thousand abolitionists , for example, in new your state could, by throwing their vote to one party or another, decide the outcome of an election.
14 ..some other aspects of american history which clearly distinguished the American system then from what it is today. important among these was the attitude towards PROPERTY and SUFFRAGE.
the question of a federal requirement of property for suffrage was earnestly raised at the Convention by several men. Gouverneur morris objected to the rule of numbers alone as against property, stating, 'not liberty, property is the main object of society'. Rutledge agreed: 'property is the primary object of society and in fixing a ratio, ought not to be excluded from the estimate. butler held that 'Property is the only just measure of representation. James Wilson clearly disagreed: 'property is not the sole nor the primary end of government ans society; the improvement of the human mind is the most noble...
Madison held that such a federal measure would establish class hostility in the United States while evading the fact that 'landed possessions were no certain evidence of real wealth', many landowners being deeply in debt. benjamin franklin pointed out several objections to the property qualification, warning, 'remember, the scripture requires in rulers that they should be men hating covetousness'. dickinson opposed the qualification, since a constitutional statement would not be complete and yet would limit congress 'from supplying the omissions. moreover, 'the best defense lay in the freeholders who were to elect the legislature. whilst this source should remain pure, the public interest would be safe. if it ever should be corrupt, no little expedients would repel the danger. a federal requirement of property was thus defeated and the matter left in the hands of the states and counties.
madison was not certain exactly what the answer to the problem of qualified suffrage was, but he felt 'the freeholders of the country would be the safest depositories of republican liberty'. he foresaw the time when, unlike the situation in his day, many voters would be property-less workingmen who would become 'the tools of opulence and ambition'. the result would be a european style aristocracy. Gouveneur Morris feared the same thing: 'unless you establish a qualification of property, we shall have an aristocracy. the demand for a property qualification was thus as a preventative to aristocracy or oligarchy, the plunder of the people by the rich few in the name of the masses. much later, a master politician stated what was necessary for the triumph of an oligarchy. Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared;
'now, to bring about government by oligarchy masquerading as democracy, it is fundamentally essential that practically all authority and control be centralized in our National Government.
property qualifications, of varying degrees, existed on the state level. they tended to be even more strict on the local and county level. they tended to be even more strict on the local and county level, where the property tax was involved. to give voting rights over property to non-propertied men was seen as destructive of law and order. since, cooper stated, 'the governments of towns and villages, for instance, are almost entirely directed to the regulation of property and to the control of local interests, suffrage should be restricted to the propertied, who have a stake in the issues involved. in some areas today, separate ballots exist for property owners, who alone can vote on bond issues and like measures. the mainspring of many conservative movements of the 1950s and 1960s is the revolt of property owners against equalitarian and confiscatory measures.
the issue with respect to property was perhaps most sharply stated in 1843 by karl marx. it should be noted that his references to 'the state' mean thereby, except in reference to american states, the modern secular state.
16 the state is the intermediary between man and his freedom. as Christ is the intermediary whom the christian burdens with his divinity and all his religious ties, so the state is the intermediary whom man burdens with his entire non-divinity and his complete absence of ties.
the political triumph of man over religion shares all the advantages and disadvantages of political triumph generally. thus, for example, the state annuls private property: man proclaims politically that private property: man proclaims politically that private property is abolished as soon as he abolishes the property qualification for the vote, as has been done in several american states...is not private property as an idea abolished when the non-owner becomes legislator for the owner? the property qualification for the vote is the ultimate political form of the recognition of private property.
some points of very great importance are here asserted or implied. first, as the state grows in its power, it 'emancipates itself from religion' and professes 'no religion except its own statehood. this secular state accordingly becomes man's 'intermediary' or mediator and man's savior. the state becomes the road to paradise regained and the source of man's salvation. the secular state is thus inevitably a messianic order. second, 'the state annuls private property'. 'the state can be a free state without the man in it being a free man'. it is certainly significant that in the united states today there is increasing reference to our status as 'a free nation' and less to our heritage as a free people, free individuals. for the state to be free, requires us to ask, free from whom? (note: and 'free to do what?') the state wants to be free, not only from foreign powers, but, most commonly of all, from bondage to its own people. to free itself, the state must enslave its citizens. to do this, it must, first, secularize itself and the people and, second, annul private property, since both christianity and property give the citizenry an independence of the state and keep the state strictly limited.
third, marx pointed out, 'private property as an idea' is 'abolished when the non-owner becomes legislator for the owner'. how long would christianity last as an institution if unbelievers could vote in churches. will non-owners respect
17 property to any greater degree? the answer is the steady confiscation of wealth, property and income through taxation. as of june, 1963, federal, state and local civilian taxation. as of june 1963, federal, state and local civilian workers exceeded 12 million, with another 28 million receiving welfare in one form or another. federal executive civilian employees numbered 2,353,054; legislative, 22,853; judicial, 4,900; for a total of 2,380,807. the total revenue of federal, state and local civil governments exceeded $150 billions a year. since one in seven persons is a welfare beneficiary, the burden of this taxation falls heavily on the responsible citizenry. the rise of statism coincides with the decline of faith, of private property and of responsibility. and to speed its rise to power, the state must further erode these things and is hence by nature hostile to them.
in no other area has so radical a change taken place form the early years of the United States as in EDUCATION. the 'public school' movement, or statist education, did not exist until the 1830s. statist education began as a subversive movement and its bitter, savage struggle has not yet been written. the essentials of the drive which produced statist education are clearly seen in horace mann (1796-18590, 'the Father of the Common Schools.' first and foremost, mann was a unitarian. new england unitarianism was in the forefront of the battle for statist education. for mann, unitarianism was true christianity and, with humorless zeal, he fought for his holy faith. the direction of U thought had been very early charted by william ellery channing. according to phillips, for channing, 'the secular organization of society usually takes the place of Divine Society on earth, historically the christian church and itself becomes the agent of God's salvation'. channing moved towards 'the divinization of the national state', stating in 1812 'that government is a divine institution'. the biblical position is that civil government is divinely ordained or instituted but definitely not itself divine; indeed, biblical faith is at war with such a position. but channing, by 1830, held to 'a completely univocal community, with all human and divine sanctions.
18 for channing, according to phillips, 'man's salvation, then, is to be worked out not on the basis of membership in the mystical body of Christ, but citizenship in the glorious race of mankind. for theodore parker, another unitarian leader, the true church was the great invisible Church of Mankind, to be revealed through america. O.B Frothingham subsequently (1872) affirmed 'the religion of humanity' and his hopes in 'the new paradise' to be brought in by the sate. in view of this very extensive Unitarian movement, it is not surprising that its members and friends saw the old christian school as backward and incapable of dealing with the basic issues of the times. true education had to be concerned with LIBERTY and the order of man's liberty was the STATE. this horace mann affirmed fervently. the responsiblity of the church was libertarian rather than salvationist, and freedom was institutional, ie. statist in nature. as a result education was properly the province of the state...
..the conversion of america's education into an instument
19 of statism was the most important step into socialism which a society can ever take, for to socialize the child is a far more radical step than to socialize income, monetary wealth or property. it was therefor precisely what the beards termed it, 'the educational revolution, that mann effected.
20 the concept of 'emocratic' or statist education has waged war, not only against the christian faith, but against the family as well. very early, by the 1860s california made criticism of a teacher by a 'parent, guardian or other person..in the presence or hearing of a pupil thereof,...a misdemeanor'.
...it should be remembered that the family was once the primary educational institution. as late as 1883, a parental guide book, faced with the spread of state schools, urged, 'parents will do wisely, wherever it is possible, to carry on the work of elementary instruction at home'. in the 1950s, when highly qualified parents did this and did it ably, they were haled into courts. statist education is intolerant increasingly of any rivalry.
21 but, in recent years, a steady revolt against statist education has been developing..this has been the one area where the advance of statism has been turned into a retreat. the threat, however, of a major offensive is very real. state, federal and united Nation agencies seek control over EVERY kind of school, statist and non-statist, in the name of 'humanity'. the necessary implication is too seldom faced by americans: THE NEED TO ATTACK BY ADVOCATING THE OUTRIGHT ABOLITION OF ALL STATIST SCHOOLS AS INIMICAL TO LIBERTY. unfortunately, the only county so to move, prince edward county, virginia, did so in 1958 for a reason other than the issue of statism, ie. the US fourth circuit of appeals order for desegregation of the county's high schools. there is reason to believe, however, that the heyday of the 'public' school is ended and that free schools will eventually supplanting it, although not without struggle. but it needs to be remembered that statist and secular education was not a part of the american system for the first two centuries of its history, including its first 40 years under the Constitution and, even then, was viewed for some time as a radical and dangerous innovation.
22 ..the transition from the older to the current situation can best be analyzed by briefly examining kansas city in 1909. in autumn, when thousands were unemployed, the Helping Hand Institute set up rock quarrying and breaking operations, with the rock sold to the city for road work. the help thus provided was insufficient to meet the emergency. wealthy citizens, led by william volker, worked to create the first municipal Department of Public Welfare, april 4, 1910. this public agency, however, was still supported by private funds, vulker fudsn so that it was still, as in the past, a case of organized private charity meeting all needs and problems. this department set up a loan agency for the needy, confronted the problems of prostgitution and immorality and sought to coordinate the work of private agencies, such as the Helping Hand Institute and the Provident Association and to meet needs no covered by existing private agencies. after volker left the department in april, 1911, it became in fact a MUNICIPAL agency and politicians like thomas j. pendergast recognized its potentiality as AN INSTRUMENT OF POLITICAL POWER. volker himself 'learned that government and politics are inseparable, by definition; that political charity is not charity at all'. he observed in 1919, when the last member of the independent board, leroy halbert, was ousted by 'the machine-dominated City Council', 'i've learned something about government...government must be restricted to those activities which can be entrusted to the worst citizens, not the best'.
other cities very rapidly followed kansas city in establishing departments of public welfare; states and then the federal government, quickly followed suit. the tremendous potentialities for political power were widely recognized. NOT CHARITY BUT POWER is the primary function of statist welfare. the attempts of various agencies in recent years to move faster than the public demand, and then to create by propaganda that public demand, is motivated by a lust for power, not by a regard for human welfare. charity is a by product: there must be enough, like bread and circuses, to keep the masses happy, but the foremost goal is power, power to be gods and to manipulate men and society, to indulge the whims of megalomania in the name of benevolence.
23 and with this goes a re-writing of history. it is not surprising that some college students are beginning to report unfortunately with credulity, that they are taught that, after the 1929 economic depression, hungry mobs went rampaging in the streets and people dropped to the sidewalks of America in the last stages of hunger.
it is clear cut that a second American Revolution has taken place. in the words of garet garrett's title, The Revolution Was, ans it is now trying to extirpate the citizen's memory of the first revolution. this second revolution is a kind of return to europe, to 'the house of bondage', a rebellion against liberty and its responsibilities. it is not surprising that it has gone hand in hand with either a debuking of or ignorance concerning the American Revolution and its background, for the restoration of that first revolution and its extension, there must first be a return to a christian faith, a faith that not the state but Christ is the Savior and Mediator, and, second, a return to the protestant restoration of feudalism, to the centrality and importance of the local unit, the county and its elements.
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