Remember the States
‘To the United Nation belong our external and mutual relations; to each State severally, the care of our persons, our property, our reputation and religious freedom.’ — THOMAS JEFFERSON
I
FROM 1861 to 1865 a great civil war raged in this country — one side determined to set up its own government, the other to preserve intact the Union of States. The Federal Government won the war, and there followed what is known as the Reconstruction era, during which federal power usurped throughout the South the functions of local government. The result is well known — democratic government perished and a desperate era set in, bringing disorder and corruption, want and poverty, to a great section of our country. Today once more there are forces, led by the administration, desiring centralized federal control over local affairs. If these forces triumph, the Union of States will be only a name and there will be one consolidated government before whose power all citizens must bow, and their obeisance will not be to the laws of the Congress but to bureaucratic rulings and the power of the spending purse. Under such centralized power, government by the people will perish, and with it democratic government. Furthermore, through waste and restrictions, unemployment may well become chronic, and the standard of living of the people be immeasurably lowered. It is even possible that the unfortunate day may come when the people will pray for a good dictator to relieve them of their troubles.
How is government by the people being destroyed? Formerly the people of a city elected their government officials, responsible to them, and these representatives had to decide whether a new schoolhouse, hospital, or other building was needed by the city. Once the decision was made, the representatives levied taxes on those they were chosen to govern, who would have use of the facilities offered. They were responsible to the interested people, and the voters would decide whether or not their money had been well spent, while they who had the use of the property paid for it. That was government by the people through their elected representatives.
Today the money comes from Washington, collected from all the citizens of the country, while a federal bureaucracy decides whether or not the city shall have new facilities. The citizens want the money spent in their city; it is not their money, and yet they alone will enjoy the benefits. The main responsibility of their elected officials is to get the money from federal bureaucrats. This is not government by the people through their chosen representatives. It is rule over the city by Mr. Ickes, Mr. Hopkins, or successors, through the power to give or not to give, and yet these gentlemen have no responsibility to the interested citizens.
Our local representatives must beg for money and favors from presidential appointees. No longer are they independent men, no longer is any state self-supporting. Think of our sovereign states depending not on their own citizens but on favors from the Washington political administration to carry out their duties. Consider the consequences as time rolls on. A great bureaucracy backed by the power of four billions of dollars annually holds the threat of life or death over our forty-eight states and countless local governments. Yet every penny of the billions comes or will come from these forty-eight states. With their own money their local rule is being destroyed. Not they but an appointee of the President decides their problems. A distant government should not take our money to spend for local purposes in distant parts. Yet the people of any state are paying out their money for local purposes scattered the length of the country from which they get no possible benefit. Never by any stretch of the imagination is this government by the people of their own affairs.
The administration has four billion dollars annually to spend and the administration is political. What is the position of those who come for money? The power of the purse is a great power, whether used wisely or unwisely, and the people’s representatives are at the mercy of this power. Many boast of their ability to obtain funds from the administration as a reason for election. But these funds come from voters of other districts who do not elect them. The hope of money from other parts of the country contributes to their election. That is not conducive to electing independent representatives best able to handle local problems. It is conducive to destruction of responsible government and to lower standards of political morality.
Another danger arises from the willingness of the Federal Government to take the people’s money and give it to sections of the country or groups of the people. Not only our state and local governments but our citizens are becoming dependent on federal largess. Great minority groups have been formed with specious pleas for this money or other forms of special favors, and one or another of these groups frequently holds the balance of power in elections. A representative is judged by them — not by what he has done for all, but by whether or not he meets their particular demands. Our government is racked today by special groups demanding favors that cannot and should not be granted, and yet woe to the representative who stands against them. Old people, young people, mayors of cities, farmers, unemployed, labor unions, veterans, businesses — all want something, and that something is at the expense of the whole. It must be recognized that federal expenditures merely take funds that would otherwise be available for state and local expenditure, and consequently local government withers. The government cannot support the people, because the people are the only support of the government. This great democracy cannot endure if federal political power is used to grant these vast sums to special groups.
The financial results of this policy are appalling. Already, in seven years of peace, twenty-three billion dollars in excess of receipts have been poured out and the end is not in sight. The cry goes up for more and more. This is the path to national bankruptcy and disaster. Our Federal Government must adopt a sound economy.
Nor is this all. Our citizens are forbidden to work except on conditions laid down in Washington. Our farmers are prevented by bureaucrats in Washington from exercising their best judgment as to what to plant. Regimentation upon the people grows, and restrictions of individual activity multiply. Washington discretion controls in detail working conditions from Puerto Rico to Alaska. Control is exercised by men who have never seen the state upon which they place their restrictions — politicians or bureaucrats tell the farmers what to plant and how much. The great fear of the founders of our Republic — a centralized discretionary government — is rapidly becoming an actuality.
The belief that our state and local officials are not competent to handle our individual affairs is a belief that democracy and free enterprise will fail, and is not worthy of a great and free people who believe in self-government. We must recognize that our country is too large, the interests and conditions too diversified, for the people to govern themselves from Washington in domestic affairs. Either the people must govern locally or they must be ruled from Washington. Home rule has been the credo of the great liberals, yet the federal administration acts as though the people and their sovereign states were incompetent and unable to decide their most minor problems, let alone govern themselves.
Surely this administration has not conducted itself in accord with the spirit of the tenth amendment of the Constitution, ‘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.’ Instead it has forged ‘new instruments of public power’ capable of great destruction, in violation thereof.
Why have we this demand for federal interference in our daily duties and lives? The demand is based on false premises and misleading arguments.
The argument is that the Federal Government has more money than the forty-eight states, whereas every penny must come from the citizens of the fortyeight states.
The argument is that the old and young can be supported in idleness while all others work less, and all be more prosperous — whereas, other things being equal, work is proportional to production and production to prosperity.
The argument is that production should be restricted to give plenty — whereas restriction of production means less for all and causes idleness and want.
The argument is that wages can be raised by federal law and more work made available — whereas a forced raising of wages will in all probability create unemployment and want.
The argument is that the government can increase employment by spending the proceeds of taxation — whereas employment, particularly useful employment, is reduced by the process.
The argument is that monetary juggling and extravagant spending will create prosperity — whereas sound money and government economy are fundamentals of prosperity.
There almost seems to be a belief that the Federal Government has magic powers of witchcraft by which material wealth can be produced from nothing.
Such theories applied nationally will immeasurably lower the standard of living. If applied by and within a state, mistakes will be rapidly exposed by the better living conditions in neighboring states.
II
Now for one hundred and fifty years we have been a united nation composed of self-governing units with a free economy little hampered by government restrictions. Under this system we became the envy of the world — by far the most prosperous nation ever known, with the highest general standard of living. Our land was the land of opportunity for all. Of course there were abuses and inequalities to be remedied, but these are capable of being handled within the fundamental principles of our society. A drastic change in these principles will create abuses and conditions far worse than those that exist.
The principles of our form of government were simple. The states were sovereign with respect to the activities of their own citizens — the Federal Government responsible for foreign affairs and the flow of commerce between the states and with foreign countries. Then the Federal Government was given additional power in fields where uniformity was of prime importance — power to establish a uniform monetary standard and uniform bankruptcy and patent laws. In other words, the states were to be sovereign in all those affairs in which they had power to exercise their sovereignty, with the exceptions named, while to the Federal Government were delegated those national powers that simply could not be exercised by the states. While the states were sovereign in respect to their citizens, yet local governments elected by the people and responsible to the citizens of the locality were formed for local affairs. Under a government of law applying to all alike, the people were free to use their talents and judgment to produce abundance for themselves and others. Thus was established government by the people, and unless we retrace our steps to these principles government by our people will be merely an interesting experiment of the past.
Admittedly science and invention have greatly changed our society and have imposed greater and greater responsibility on the Federal Government. What should be today these responsibilities and duties based on our system of dual government?
Of necessity the federal duties will include, as always, peace and war and foreign relations, with the maintenance of the army and navy, and, as in the past, these will be the cause of most of the federal expense. The postal service is of course a federal function. Under the monetary power will come regulations of our great system of deposit banking, while the savings institutions will remain state affairs. Under the commerce clause will come the regulation of our railroad system, our ships and aeroplanes. The flood control and navigation of interstate rivers would be properly a matter of federal concern, but any power by-product should be sold without favor or discrimination at the dam site. Radio broadcasting would obviously be under federal regulation. Then there are functions that cover the nation, and from which harmful results might arise that the states cannot prevent. These might include aid in protection from certain diseases and pests, some regulation of sale of securities, and some regulation of certain nation-wide trade practices. Possibly there might be federal concern in certain activities of long-distance telegraph, telephone, or transmission of power. Again, if the necessity arises, the Federal Government must see that no private power is concentrated over the nation with which the states cannot properly cope, whether this concentration of power be by organized labor, monopolistic capital, or other group.
The welfare of the average man will remain, as in the past, a state or local duty under the guidance of officials chosen by and responsible to the local voters.
The education of the young, the care of the young and old, the sick and unemployed, the question of hours and wages of work, the conservation of soil of the farms, the housing of the citizens, the regulation of local utilities, and all the individual problems of the citizen must be handled by the individual states or the people thereof under the rule of elected officials responsible to them. No doubt public money will be spent in varying ways as the local needs vary. That is for the representatives of the people of the states and local governments to decide. Our citizens know best the needs of their neighborhood and will spend their own funds more wisely. Financially this can be no hardship. If certain taxes can be better obtained by central administration, then let the Treasury collect these taxes and distribute pro rata, according to population, to the states, but let not presidential appointees, nor even the Congress, determine for what purposes this money shall be spent. Take from Washington the spending powers, with their unfortunate results in politics, government, and economy.
III
Under these principles of our constitutional history the opportunities for selfgovernment and prosperity are unlimited. The people of an individual state are protected from dangers of war by the Federal Government. Federal taxes are light, leaving ample sources for local and state governments. The people have the blessings of the most modern machinery and ample capital; they are highly skilled, with intelligent leaders; and they have the greatest consuming market the world has ever seen in which to sell their products at their full value. Likewise they can buy without tariffs or restrictions from the greatest producing country the world has ever seen. They can engage in foreign trade, with the Federal Government exerting its best efforts to promote exchange of goods in foreign commerce. To complete the picture, they are assured of a stable currency, and efficient and economical transportation regulated by their own Federal Government. What more can a great people, who believe in self-government and desire prosperity, ask for?
Is not this a happier picture than a country ruled by the whim of bureaucrats, taxed to the limit of federal taxing power, where individuals are restricted in countless ways, and work and production lessened by government decrees, while the right of self-government is merely a theory?
Powers of government should be distributed over the land, and never should the greater government supplant the lesser in those duties capable of performance by the lesser unit. Responsible state and local government is the foundation stone of our democracy. We see today consolidated federal power destroying this foundation, while, under the spell of unsound reasoning, the people are surrendering their rights and liberties. Only by a return to the principle of state sovereignty over its citizens can our democracy endure.