Seven Events That Made America America (37 page)

It is
not
“necessary and proper” for the United States government to involve itself in local schools; or to dictate a national energy policy in times of peace; or to mount a space program for any purpose
other
than national security (where, in fact, a good case can be made for one). There is no “necessary and proper” intrusion of Uncle Sam into developing property in your own backyard, (even if rare birds do land there once in a while), and there is certainly nothing that can be construed as “necessary and proper” that would allow the federal government to dictate what cars we drive or how they are made. Only a serious judicial reevaluation of the constitutional meaning of this phrase will redress the imbalance.

But that leads to the last area in which the looseness of the United States Constitution has allowed liberals to expand federal power beyond anything the Founders could have conceived: the federal judiciary. As Mark Levin, Andrew Napolitano, and Stephen Powers and Stanley Rothman have explained in detail, the majority of unconstitutional programs and policies have come into existence not through power-hungry presidents or runaway legislatures, but through activist judges employing judicial positivism (i.e., the view that whatever you
want
to use the law for should be permitted—that the law is an instrument of present morality, not permanent principles).
¹
The purpose of this book is not to restate these authors’ excellent works, but to note that the ambivalence of the Founders toward a federal court system proved a titanic weakness in the Constitution, one created by the experience of the Founders themselves who, throughout their lives, had only dealt with tyrannical parliaments and kings, but never courts. Indeed, to them the courts provided safe havens from the oppression of elected and unelected bodies. Thus we have, over two hundred years later, arrived at the point where in the name of the preamble (when liberals choose to quote the Constitution at all!), by employing the rationale of the “elastic clause” and utilizing judicial activism to circumvent elections, modern liberals have empowered the United States government with the ability not only to open the bedroom door, but literally to peek inside one’s stomach or dictate what music one listens to by forcing a contribution to “approved” arts.

When writing this book, all too often I searched for specific comments by the Founders on funding of the arts, or the government’s role in advising citizens about diet, or responding to natural disasters, yet I found very few such comments. The obvious conclusion is that such interventions into the private affairs of individuals—even if for “their own good”—were considered so foreign and antithetical to their principles as to scream out by their silence. Many of the events in our history that have led to the expansion of government power have indeed been threats to our survival, including secession by half the nation in 1860-61 and direct attacks on our population in 1941 and 2001. The Founders expected such difficulties to arise and provided remarkable emergency powers within the Constitution, but always trusted that when the threat had subsided, not only would virtuous leaders give power back, but a populace jealous of its own rights would demand it.

We have arrived, however, at the bottom of a ravine courtesy of the “slippery slope.” Liberty, lost an inch at a time, is very difficult to reclaim. The argument that “we’ve already done that” can be accurate, yet irrelevant. If you’ve already swallowed poison once, it’s a good idea not to try it a second time.

The fact that as of 2009, the United States government weighs in on something as fundamental—and utterly out of human control—as climate, or that there are large bureaucracies to provide music, art, and television programs that, if left to the free market, would never see the light of day, testifies to just how deep that ravine is. Moreover, when such issues as the constitutionality of these kinds of activities are raised, the standard sneering dismissal by the mainstream media itself has become a clarion that liberty is eroding. One cannot imagine any politician of any stripe impinging on the freedoms of early Americans without most of the citizenry and at least half of the presses shouting out in response.

Lincoln said reverence for the Law should be spoken at every opportunity. Perhaps a second truism needs to be reiterated unceasingly—that government grows. It always grows, like a living creature it seeks to expand, and like a living creature it will not relinquish what it already has without a struggle. The task for modern Americans, who have grown troublingly comfortable with accepting favors, support, and advice from Washington, D.C., as well as their state governments, is to once again strive to view government as the problem, not the solution. And to paraphrase Lincoln: preach it, brother!

A
s will be apparent, some of these chapters have proven much more fun to write than others, most notably the chapter on rock and roll. As a former rock drummer (my bands opened for such “Golden Age” rock acts as Steppenwolf, Savoy Brown, the James Gang, and Mother’s Finest), it was a particular privilege to interview a number of the top musicians of the era for this research, including Mark Stein and Vinny Martell of Vanilla Fudge, Felix Cavaliere of the Rascals, David Paich of Toto, Robby Krieger of the Doors, Jimmy Haslip, Dave Mason, and Alice Cooper. I thank all of them for their time and thoughts, and for their energy: at times I half-believed I could pick up my sticks and pound out the Fudge’s version of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” (but those impulses usually disappeared after a timely nap!).

I would also like to express my gratitude to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, particularly Steve Branch and Mike Duggan with the National Archives and Records Administration. At the University of Dayton, I received research assistance from a former student, Peter Cajka, whose work on the Dayton Flood is heavily cited here, and Matthew Kniess. Cynthia King proofread much of the manuscript, and as always, I received generous support from the university in general and the history department in particular. Everywhere I go, I’m asked, “How does a conservative survive in a university setting?” I always reply that I can’t answer for others at other institutions, but at UD I have received nothing but support.

Christopher Castelitz also provided valuable research assistance. To Gary Taubes, whose book
Good Calories, Bad Calories
, not only changed my mind but my life, I am deeply indebted. In each case, none of the opinions or conclusions—and certainly none of the errors—that appear here are anyone’s but my own.

As always, the crew at Sentinel has been wonderful. Adrian Zackheim helped develop the concept of this book; Brooke Carey, my editor, helped refine it; and my publicist at Sentinel, Amanda Pritzker, has ensured that no stone is unturned in bringing my work to the attention of the media. Writing is a lonely sport, so it’s always refreshing to have so many individuals that I can talk to, rely on, and argue with during the process of fashioning a book.

1
Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, Thomas Jefferson Library of Congress Exhibition, U.S. Library of Congress,
www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/159.html
.

2
Donald B. Cole,
Martin Van Buren and the American Political System
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 59.

3
Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi,
Vital Statistics in American Politics, 1997- 1998
(Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1998), 193-95; Donald L. Robinson,
Slavery in the Structure of American Politics
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), 23, 39, 180, 404.

4
George Washington’s Farewell Address,
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp
.

5
“Federalist #10,” in Clinton Rossiter, ed.,
The Federalist Papers: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay
(New York: New American Library, 1961), 78.

6
John C. Fitzpatrick, ed.,
The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren,
in
Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1918
, II (Washington, DC: American Historical Association, 1920), 125; Cole,
Martin Van Buren and the American Political System
, 96; Mike Wallace, “Changing Concepts of Party in the United States: New York 1815-1828,”
American Historical Review
74 (1968): 453-91.

7
Albany Argus
, January 29, 1822, and October 8, 1824.

8
Robert V. Remini,
Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), 41.

9
“United States Federal State and Local Government Spending,” 1800,
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year1800_0.html
.

10
Robert Pierce Forbes,
The Missouri Compromise and Its Aftermath
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 33.

11
Tiarr Martin, “The Growth of Government During the ‘Age of Jefferson and Jackson, ’” 1989, unpublished paper in author’s possession.

12
John Quincy Adams, “Inaugural Address,” 1825, in James D. Richardson,
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897
(New York: Bureau of National Literature, 1897), 294-99.

13
Larry Schweikart,
The Entrepreneurial Adventure: A History of Business in the United States
(Ft. Worth, TX: Harcourt, 2000), ch. 4, passim; Larry Schweikart and Lynne Pierson Doti,
American Entrepreneur
(New York: Amacom Press, 2009), ch. 4, passim.

14
John Steele Gordon,
Hamilton’s Blessing: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Our National Debt
(New York: Penguin, 1998).

15
A short, but insightful, analysis of Hamilton appears in Charles Calomiris, “Alexander Hamilton,” in Larry Schweikart, ed.,
The Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography: Banking and Finance to 1913
(New York: Facts on File, 1990), 239-48. The best recent work on Hamilton is Ron Chernow,
Alexander Hamilton
(New York: Penguin, 2006).

16
Ron Chernow,
Alexander Hamilton
(New York: Penguin, 2004), 300.

17
See Richard P. McCormick, “New Perspectives on Jacksonian Politics,”
American Historical Review
65 (1960): 288-301, and his “Political Development and the Second Party System,” in William Nesbit Chambers and Walter Dean Burnham, eds.,
The American Party Systems: Stages of Political Development
(London: Oxford University Press, 1967), 90-116 (quotation “curious exceptions” on 107 fn. 14).

18
McCormick, “Political Development,” 107.

19
Richard McCormick, “Suffrage Classes and Party Alignments: A Study in Voter Behavior,”
Mississippi Valley Historical Review
46 (1959): 397-410 (quotations on 402 and 409).

20
Paul Goodman, “The First American Party System,” in Chambers and Burnham,
American Party Systems
, 56-89.

21
In our 2004 book,
A Patriot’s History of the United States
, Michael Allen and I refer to this as the most important election in American history, for it set the stage for nonviolent transitions of power between groups representing often radically different interpretations of America’s character (Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen,
A Patriot’s History of the United States from Columbus’s Great Discovery to the War on Terror
[New York: Sentinel, 2004]).

22
Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC
, 528 U.S. 377, 424 (2000).

23
Chernow,
Alexander Hamilton
, 252.

24
Garry Wills,
Explaining America
(New York: Penguin Books, 1982), 195.

25
California Democratic Party v. Jones
, 530 U.S. 567, 592 (2000), Stevens’s dissent, 19.

26
McCormick, “New Perspectives on Jacksonian Politics,” passim.

27
McCormick, “Political Development,” 100.

28
Charles and Mary Beard,
The Rise of American Civilization
(New York: Macmillan, 1994), 550.

29
James Stanton Chase, “Jacksonian Democracy and the Rise of the Nominating Convention,”
Mid-America
45 (1963): 229-49.

30
Lynn Marshall, “The Strange Stillbirth of the Whig Party,”
American Historical Review
72 (January 1967): 445-69.

31
McCormick, “Political Development,” 107.

32
Richard H. Brown, “The Missouri Crisis, Slavery, and the Politics of Jacksonianism,” in Stanley N. Kurtz and Stanley I. Kutler, eds.,
New Perspectives on the American Past, vol. 1, 1607-1877
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1969), 241-255 (quotation on 242).

33
Ibid., 242.

34
Ibid., 243.

35
Adams quoted in ibid., 243.

36
Jefferson to Holmes.

37
Ibid.

38
George Dangerfield,
The Era of Good Feelings
(New York: Harcourt, 1952).

39
Brown, “Missouri Crisis,” 244.

40
Ibid., 245.

41
Ibid., 245.

42
Van Buren’s reputation as opposing slavery is near-universal. As president, however, his actions in the
Amistad
case raise questions about his commitment to ending slavery: he lent every support of the executive branch that he could to the Cubans to reenslave the rebels and return them to Cuba; he had the State Department and federal attorneys working on the side of the Cubans, and had the U.S. Navy standing by to return the captives if and when the court found against them. U.S. Attorney Felix Grundy, without being requested to do so, submitted an opinion supporting the Cuban position and stating that American courts had no right to try the case. See William M. Wiecek, “Slavery and Abolition Before the United States Supreme Court, 1820-1860,”
Journal of American History
65 (June 1978): 34-59, and Samuel Flagg Bemis,
John Quincy Adams and the Union
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956).