“Sweet Land of Liberty”

Many people have a safe somewhere in their home. Whether it is a gun safe, a wall safe, or a fireproof safe meant to secure important papers, we are familiar with the concept of using a lock to protect items of value. We are willing to spend money to purchase a high quality safe, not because we care about the safe itself, but because we care about the things that we will place inside, the things that we want to protect.

Years ago, I had an experience that I have never forgotten. I was sitting at lunch with some friends. The topic of the Constitution of the United States came up and one of the women present looked me straight in the eye and said, “I will never in my lifetime read the Constitution.” Her statement was delivered with an air of finality. Her level of interest in the Constitution was absolutely nonexistent.

As I pondered this experience, I realized that to her, the Constitution was simply a difficult to understand document that said something about government. It felt unapproachable and uninteresting. However, if I had asked her if she cared about her family, her religion, her right to choose her own career, her right to read whatever she chooses, or her right to have her own opinion, I suspect her interest level would have been significantly higher.

Our interest in preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution of the United States lies not in preserving the document itself or even the system of government established by it, it lies in our interest in preserving, protecting, and defending our lives, liberty, and property. Agency, or the right to choose, is a fundamentally important gift from our Creator. It is this gift that the Constitution of the United States was designed to protect.

Let’s take a look at a couple of methods that are employed in the Constitution to protect our ability to make our own choices. Imagine that you are recovering from surgery and unable to do your own grocery shopping. A friend offers to complete your shopping for you. You gratefully accept the offer and hand over your credit card to pay for the purchases. Although your kind friend is going to make the trip to the store and select the items to purchase, you are the one who will have to pay the credit card bill at the end of the month. So, what do you do to protect yourself against excessive spending? It is likely that you will make a list of the items that you are authorizing your friend to purchase on your behalf. You will only hand over your credit card if you have confidence that your friend is trustworthy and will limit the purchases made to only those items that are on the list, the items that you have indicated you need and for which you are willing to pay the price.

The Constitution is designed in a similar fashion. It is like the shopping list. It contains a specific, written list of the things that we, the people, have determined that we want done on our behalf, things for which we are willing to pay a price. The price for authorizing our agents to complete tasks on our behalf is not only a monetary price, it is also the temporary suspension of a small portion of our liberty in order to gain the benefits of living in a society and having needs fulfilled by our agents, the government. Of course, we want to be very careful about what we put on that list in order to protect our property from excessive taxes and also to protect our ability to make our own choices. The Constitution addresses this concept of limited, enumerated powers in two different ways. 

First, for each branch of government, there is a specific list of exactly what that branch of government is authorized to do. Then, just in case somebody wonders if they really have to stick to that list, the tenth amendment was added. It is a bold declaration saying that any power not specifically given to the national government in one of those lists is held back and belongs to the state governments or to the people. In turn, state constitutions are designed to designate exactly which powers the people of that state agree to give to their state governments. The Constitution protects our ability to make our own choices by specifically limiting the things that the government is authorized to do.

An additional way in which the Constitution protects our liberty is through separation of powers. History shows us very clearly that most individuals who are endowed with power will seek more power. The Constitution is designed to protect the people against this tendency in their leaders by taking power and dividing it up among many different people. The amount of power given to the government has already been limited. Now, human nature is used to protect against human nature. If one individual in the government desires additional power and there is only so much to go around, then they will have to take the additional power from another individual in the government. Their human nature will naturally lead them to fight against their limited amount of power being taken away from them.

If you grew up in a large family, you may have been introduced to this concept on family ice cream night. There is one carton of ice cream and everyone wants to make sure they get their fair share. What did mom and dad say? The person who scoops up the ice cream is the last person to choose their bowl. The scooper knows that they are likely to get the smallest serving, so they are naturally led to divide up the ice cream as evenly as possible. When we divide power among many people and force them to work together to agree on how to use that power, we reduce the risk of corruption.

So, how is this concept applied in the Constitution? We will look at just one example: the military. The military consists of active duty forces, reserve forces, and the militia. The militia consists of all able-bodied men who are at least 17 and under the age of 45, and all women who currently serve in the National Guard. It is easy to see that anyone who has command of a large group of men, armed with weapons, could use that force to take away rights from the people. So, how does the Constitution provide protection against that happening?

Several checks and balances are put into place in the Constitution to guard against a military dictatorship. The president is named as the commander of the armed forces. However, it takes money to maintain an active military unit. This money is authorized by Congress and the bill to authorize the expenditure must begin in the House of Representatives, the most direct representatives of the people in the national government, and cannot exceed a period of 2 years. Since a member of the House of Representatives only serves for two years before having to be reelected, the people have ample opportunity to have their voices heard on the topic of military spending. Also, Congress has the sole power to declare war, providing a limitation on the way that armed forces can be used by the President.

The armed forces consist not only of active and reserve units, but also of the militia. Since the militia consists of all able-bodied men within a certain age range, the militia is by far the largest available body. While Congress is authorized to call forth the militia of a state under certain conditions, the militia is organized under state authority and the instances in which Congress can summon the militia of a state to active duty are limited to 3 purposes: to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions. When the militia is called up, Congress can determine the way in which they should be trained, but the selection of leaders and the carrying out of the training remains within the power of the states. Additionally, the governors of each state also have the power to call forth the militias of their states. This discussion is not meant to be an exhaustive list of the safeguards placed over military power, just an example of some of the ways in which a power that could be used to subvert the rights of the people is divided up and spread amongst many different people as a means of protection.

So, the Constitution of the United States is a safe that is used to protect things of great value: our freedom, our rights, and our liberty. But imagine purchasing a safe and never bothering to lock it. It would lose its efficacy. The same is true of the Constitution. Its ability to protect our cherished rights is only as strong as our knowledge and our watchfulness. We must understand what rights the Constitution protects and how it protects those rights. Only then can we keep a vigilant eye on the process to intervene if someone tries to remove the lock from the safe that is our Constitution.