(Psst: Hey, you! This isn’t a post about money. Please stop reading this if you don’t want to read about the Constitution. Next month I’ll write something lighthearted for you. I promise!)
“We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
I’ve been fascinated by this preamble to the Constitution ever since I was a kid (thank you, Schoolhouse Rock!). I’ve taken pride in this “mission statement” written by our Founders, who felt we needed a set of instructions on how to - quite audaciously - build a democratic republic from scratch. The meaning is plain: “We all agree to these rules.”
These Founders created something that, while far from perfect, gave us the ability to govern ourselves. In the 238 years since the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were created, it has only been altered 17 times. Some of those changes, like the 13th Amendment ending slavery, have been monumental. Others, like the 27th, have been inconsequential changes regarding the procedures of Congress . This barely-changed Constitution enabled us to create and foster the growth of the most successful nation in human history.
When citizens take the oath of office to serve in the United States Government, they don’t pledge their allegiance to a person, a party or a religion; they take a solemn oath to the Constitution itself. These men and women, regardless of origin or faith or philosophy testify to the rest of us that the Constitution itself is the most important part of their service.
Even the President, the person with the most power in our system, states it thus in the oath of office:
“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
All other Federal officeholders swear a similar oath. So do members of our military. All of them readily and of their own free will pledge their allegiance to the Constitution before anything else.
Conversely, private citizens are not required to take this oath. Private citizens do not have to swear to defend the Constitution or protect any part of it. Private citizens are not allowed to break laws that our government has created, but they don’t need to care about the Constitution or bother to take any actions to preserve it.
Please take a moment to think about this. Private citizens take no oath to the Constitution.
There’s a reason that those in government swear an oath to the Constitution and private citizens do not.
Power.
Our Founders were very concerned about the abuse of power by governments. The Declaration of Independence was essentially a list of grievances sent to the ruler of the British Empire regarding the power he claimed to have over them. It stated that governments, with their legitimacy derived from the people they ruled, should only have power that the people agree to give them. Citizens give their consent to be ruled by men and women only if those men and women follow a set of rules, and violating those rules means violating the oath they take to “preserve, protect, and defend” that set of rules.
The Constitution isn’t a religious text taken on faith. It’s not a complicated set of hidden rules or an obscure algorithm that is created by AI. I’m holding a copy of the Constitution in my hands right now. A teenager can understand it without any legal training.
Who makes laws? A simple majority of Congress with the agreement of the President, or two-thirds of Congress without the President. The President doesn’t make laws. Article 1.
Who enforces the laws? The President enforces the laws through the various parts of the Executive branch. The President can’t cancel, nullify or ignore laws. He can’t pick and choose which are good ones and which are not, and he can’t create new ones. Article 2.
Who decides what laws are good and which are not? The Federal Courts decide which laws comport with the Constitution. Article 3.
How do individuals gain power? They are elected by the People or they are appointed by those who are elected. This includes every aspect of government, including leadership of the military. Period. Unelected citizens cannot hold power unless elected officials appoint them lawfully. (Entire document)
We just had elections in November of 2024. Those people who were elected in that election get to decide what happens in the government. However, and this is the most important point, they only get to wield this power according to the laws that have been passed..
I did not support or vote for many who won election. That’s too bad for me. The People chose others to lead us. Fine. I accept this. We all accept this because we believe in the Constitution.
Winning an election, however, does not give the winner the power to do whatever he or she wants to do. The Constitution, to which all officeholders pledge an oath to preserve, protect and defend (Article 6) binds our elected officials to follow the law. Those laws can only be created by Congress. Washington knew this. Lincoln knew this. Eisenhower knew this. Reagan knew this.
I will repeat: Government power can only be exercised by elected officials or those who have been appointed in a lawful way. Elected officials can only have the power if they take the oath, and that oath is to the Constitution.
If we allow our leaders to ignore the Constitution, even if we believe what they are doing is right, we promote anarchy. None of us, no matter how we voted, voted for that.