- Ferdinand Lundberg (1905 - 1995) was a 20th century economist,
journalist, historian and author of such books as The Rich and the Super-Rich:
A Study in the Power of Money Today; The Myth of Democracy; Politicians
and Other Scoundrels; and the subject of this review - Cracks in the Constitution.
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- Lundberg's book was published twenty-seven years ago,
yet remains as powerfully important and relevant today as then. Simply
put, the book is a blockbuster. It's must reading to learn what schools
to the highest levels never teach about the nation's most important document
that lays out the fundamental law of the land in its Preamble, Seven Articles,
Bill of Rights, and 17 other Amendments. Lundberg deconstructs it in depth,
separating myth from reality about what he called "the great totempole
of American society."
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- He does it in 10 exquisitely written chapters with examples
and detail galore to drive home his key message that our most sacred of
all documents is flawed. It was crafted by 55 mostly ordinary but wealthy
self-serving "wheeler dealers" (among whom only 39 signed), and
the result we got and now live with falls far short of the "Rock of
Ages" it's cracked up to be. That notion is pure myth. This review
covers in detail how Lundberg smashed it in each chapter.
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- The Sacred Constitution
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- Lundberg quickly transfixes his readers by disabusing
them of notions commonly held. Despite long-held beliefs, the Constitution
is no "masterpiece of political architecture." It falls far short
of "one great apotheosis (bathed) in quasi-religious light."
The finished product was a "closed labyrinthine affair," not
an "open" constitution like the British model. It was the product
of duplicitous politicians and their close friends scheming to cut the
best deals for themselves by leaving out the great majority of others who
didn't matter.
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- The myths we learned in school and through the dominant
media are legion, long-standing and widely held among the educated classes.
They and most others believe the framers crafted a Constitution that "powerfully
restrained and fettered" the federal government and created "a
limited government (or a) government of limited powers." It's simply
not so because through the power of the chief executive it can do "whatever
it is from time to time" it wishes. In that respect, it's no more
precise and binding than The Ten Commandments the Judaic and Christian
worlds violate freely and willfully all the time. Even so-called "born-again"
types, like the current President, do it, along with Popes, past and present,
and the former Israeli Sephardi chief rabbi, Mordechai Eliyahu, who advocates
mass killing by carpet bombing Gaza to save Jewish lives.
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- The "supreme Law of the Land" here deters no
President or sitting government from doing as they wish, law or no law.
The Constitution is easily ignored with impunity by popular or unpopular
governments doing as they please and inventing reasons as justification.
Lundberg is firm in debunking the notion that America is a government of
laws, not men. It's "palpable nonsense of the highest order,"
he said. Governments enacting laws are composed of men who lie, connive,
misinterpret and pretty much operate ad libitum discharging their duties
as they see fit for their own self-interest.
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- It was no different in 1787 when 55 delegates (privileged
all) assembled for four months in the same Philadelphia State House, where
the Declaration of Independence was signed 11 years earlier, to rework
the Articles of Confederation into a Constitution that would last into
"remote futurity," as long as possible, or until others later
changed it. None of them were happy with the finished product but felt
it was the best one possible under the circumstances and better than nothing
at all.
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- The document is "crisply worded" and can easily
be read in 20 to 30 minutes and just as easily be totally misunderstood.
The sole myth in it is stated in its opening Preamble words: "We
the people of the United States....do ordain and establish this Constitution
for the United States of America." In fact, "the people"
nowhere entered the process, then or since.
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- At its beginning, "the people" who mattered
were established white male property owning delegates and members of state
ratifying conventions who rammed the ratification process through, by fair
or foul means, in the face of a "largely indifferent and uncomprehending
populace" left out entirely. They were elected to do it by eligible
and interested while males comprising only from 12.5 - 15.5% of the electorate
at the time. Women, blacks, Indians and children couldn't vote and many
or most qualified voters didn't bother to and still don't. The process,
and what it produced, showed "Democracy operatively is little more
than a fantasy."
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- The American revolution was nothing more than secession
from the British empire changing very little with one-third of the colonists
favoring it (not upper classes), one-third opposed (mainly upper classes)
and another third indifferent to the whole business. From then to now,
the country is no nearer "government by the people" than under
monarchal or autocratic rule. The latter types rule by application or threat
of force whereas sovereign people are manipulated by other means with naked
force held in reserve if needed.
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- Lundberg explained the minimum function of government,
ours or others, should be to insure the public welfare is being broadly
served. It's stated in the Preamble and Article I, Section 8 that "The
Congress shall have power to....provide for....(the) general welfare of
the United States" - the so-called welfare clause. Lundberg let scholar
Herman Finer (with more detail on his ideas below) dispel the notion from
the constitutional flaws he found and some of the many "social and
political evils" he recounted as a result through the middle 20th
century decades - rampant crime, unsafe streets, lack of justice, political
corruption, dishonest police, racketeering labor officials, corporate fraud
in pursuit of profits, raging unresolved social problems and lots more.
Only government can address these issues and unless it does successfully
it fails. Our is a long history of failure overall with only feeble attempts
to fix things.
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- Lundberg reviewed popular misconceptions about the Constitution
saying so many are embedded in the American psyche it's hard knowing where
to begin. He noted the document is called "The Living Constitution"
saying, in fact, it's "whatever government does or does not do"
or uses in whatever way it wishes. The Constitution defines itself as
the "supreme Law of the Land" in Article VI, Section 2 which
it is and includes all amendments, enacted statutes and treaties made with
the concurrence (not ratification) of the Senate. The people are left
out of the process entirely with Lundberg saying "government of the
people, by the people and for the people" is a "nonexistent entity.
The people don't govern either directly or through 'representatives.'
The people are governed."
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- In sum, although the Constitution served many of the
purposes its designers and supporters envisioned, in light of the majority
populace's great expectations of it, "it has been, quite plainly,
a huge flop." That's made clear below.
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- "We the People"
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- Lundberg destroys the romanticism and enthusiasm felt
today about the Constitution and the revolt against Great Britain preceding
it. He began by reviewing the establishment of state constitutions at
the time and the enactment of the Articles of Confederation adopted by
the Second Continental Congress November 15, 1777 with final ratification
March 1, 1781. None of these events had electoral sanction. "They
were strictly coup d'etat affairs, run by small groups of self-styled patriots
many of whom bettered their personal economic positions significantly"
from the revolution and events before and after it took place. Despite
what's commonly taught in schools, most people opposed the Constitution
when it was ratified. So by getting it done anyway, the framers (with
the conservative Federalists spearheading the effort) went against the
will of the people they ignored and disdained.
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- It wasn't easy, though, as only by promising amendments
did it happen. The anti-Federalist opposition demanded and got the "oft-hymned"
first ten amendments, commonly known as the Bill of Rights. In fact, they
"made no great difference," and did little to dilute the 1787
document. More on that below.
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- Lundberg explained that most anti-Federalists weren't
particularly happy either with the Articles of Confederation or the Constitution.
These men were mostly privileged property owners (all white, of course)
squabbling over the means to get pretty similar ends and having a generally
hostile attitude about the majority population overall. In other words,
everyone was not considered "We the people," which is how radical
English Whigs felt and whose traditions colonists adopted. "The illiterate
and underprivileged (elements) were not much considered" with the
"people" again being the privileged male property owners in charge
of everything and out only for their own self-interest.
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- Lundberg cited voting patterns earlier, up to his time,
and clearly now as well, to explain how people are left out of the political
process. Whether franchised or not, most don't vote in presidential elections
and even fewer show up for congressional, state and local ones. It indicates
the will of the people needs considerable qualifying because most of them
aren't interested, don't want to bother, don't think it matters, don't
understand the whole process, and decide to opt out and act like nothing's
going on. "Although repugnant to ideologists of democracy," Lundberg
stated, "this conclusion is quite true."
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- In sum, the relevance of this to the Constitution is
that its opening words are meaningless window dressing. They neither add
nor detract from the document which served as a "screen and launching
pad for practically autonomous, freely improvising politicians (like any
others in the world)....the gentry....sustained (in whatever their endeavors
were) by the constitutional structure" they created for their own
self-serving purposes.
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- What the Framers Thought
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- This section covers who these men were below as well
as more about them in the section to follow. Here, first off, the record
needs to be set straight about what these very ordinary men (contrary to
popularized myth about them) thought about their creation we extoll today
like it came down from Mt. Sinai. In fact, it was the result of wheeling
and dealing in likely smoke-filled rooms the way deals are cut today with
lots of real and figurative smoke to go along with the usual mirrors.
When they finished in September, 1787, there was no joy in Philadelphia.
The framers disliked their creation, some could barely tolerate it, yet
most signed it.
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- They understood its defects, that it was full of holes,
thought it was the best they could do under the circumstances, felt it
was a mess, but, nonetheless, believed they could live with it for the
time being, hoping it wouldn't come back to bite them. Lundberg said they
likely "kept their fingers crossed." One other thing was clear,
though, despite "crowd-titillating campaign oratory" about their
creation ever since. Not a single framer suggested "a sheltered haven
was being prepared for the innumerable heavily laden, bedraggled, scrofulous
and oppressed of the earth." On the contrary, they intended to keep
them that way showing not a lot is fundamentally different then than now,
and the so-called founders were a pretty devious bunch, not the noble characters
we've been taught to believe.
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- As already explained, the deal got done with the usual
kinds of wheeling and dealing, and, in the end, a lot of opponents being
won over by agreeing to tack on the so-called Bill of Rights that was deliberately
left out at first. The dominant elements behind the convention were what
today are called nationalists. More precisely, they were "centralizers
who were continental and global in their thinking." The opposition
consisted of "localists," later called "states-righters,"
who preferred a decentralized government. The "centralizers"
wanted a single or central national capital run by superior people by their
definition - the rich and better-connected regardless of ability. Men
like John Adams and John Jay (the first High Court chief justice) felt
government should be run, in Adams' words, by "the rich, the well
born, and the able." There was no disagreement on that notion.
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- There were no populists in the bunch, no anti-property
party, and even the most vocal civil libertarians, like Jefferson and George
Mason, were slave-owners. Washington, for his part, contributed no pet
constitutional ideas other than wanting to protect the new nation from
drifting toward disunion which, in fact, happened with the outbreak of
the Civil War in 1861. Lundberg described him as "the very top dog
of the Philadelphia accouchement (the constitutional birthing process)."
He understood the key reason for adopting a flawed document, no matter
how bad it was or how the framers felt about it. Accepting it was the way
to prevent disunion and resulting confusion that might have prevailed if
public consideration entered the equation to become accepted policy and
law.
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- Conflicting ideas of concern at the time visualized three
central governments consisting of the New England states, middle Atlantic
ones, and those in the South with likely new entries to follow in the West.
The framers worried this arrangement might cause endless bickering and
wars as well as rivalrous agreements and arrangements with other countries.
In one stroke, the Constitution produced a united front against an ever-encroaching
Europe and internal struggles.
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- Lundberg spent much time on who the founders were this
review can only touch on. It's enough just to put a few faces on a group
of crass opportunists who today are practically ranked along side the Apostles.
But who's to say those few were any better than others of their day the
way myths are constructed and passed on through the ages unchallenged in
mainstream thinking. And don't forget that, in his first term, George Bush
might have been aiming for sainthood by claiming he got his orders directly
from God who told him to "strike at Al-Queda....and then.... to strike
at Saddam." Even the framers didn't claim that type heavenly connection.
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- They did have Lundberg's focus beginning with Alexander
Hamilton, Washington's wartime aide-de-camp, first Secretary of the Treasury
and acknowledged leader of the Federalists. Here's what this noted man
thought of the Constitution in 1802. In a letter, he called it "a
shilly shally thing of mere milk and water (and) a frail and worthless
document." This is from the man, more than any other in Philadelphia,
who was its most articulate and passionate champion. Franklin, too, had
doubts as the grand old man, but mere enfeebled figurehead at the convention,
who also signed the final document. He was against two separate chambers,
disapproved of some of the articles and wanted others that weren't included.
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- Then there's James Madison miscalled "The Father
of the Constitution," which he expressly repudiated and a year later
wrote "I am not of the number if there be any such, who think the
Constitution lately adopted a faultless work.....(It's) the best that could
be obtained from the jarring interests of the states....Something, anything,
was better than nothing." Madison's disaffection went even further,
in fact. At the convention, he was an ardent "centralizer,"
but 10 years later he reversed himself by aligning with those wanting to
recapture more state power. He also spent most of his life disagreeing
with the way the document he helped write was used.
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- Lundberg covered a few other framers most people know
little or nothing about but played their part along with the better known
ones. They included men like Nicholas Gilman from New Hampshire, William
Pierce and William Few from Georgia, Pierce Butler and Charles Pinckney
from South Carolina, Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris (no relation) and
James Wilson from Pennsylvania, Jonathan Dayton from New Jersey, and James
McHenry from Maryland.
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- Of the total 55 delegates attending, 39 signed and 16
didn't, but doing it or not was just a pro forma exercise as only the states
had power to accept or reject it. None of the framers believed the Constitution
was the glorious achievement people ever since were led to believe - quite
the opposite, in fact, but most still went along with it as better than
nothing. The nation's second and third Presidents, Adams and Jefferson,
were abroad and didn't attend the convention although Adams was considered
the leading constitutional theorist at the time. His views had weight
and were strong ones. Lundberg noted for the rest of his life until 1826
he consistently criticized the document in private correspondence.
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- Jefferson overall was just as unhappy. Until it was
added, he objected to the omission of a Bill of Rights. He also disliked
the lack of any requirements for rotation in office, especially the office
of the presidency he wished to be ineligible for a succeeding term. In
1801, he was involved with others proposing a menu of changes to strengthen
a document he believed was flawed. He also didn't think any constitution
could survive the test of time, unchanged forever, able to meet all legitimate
needs, and as a consequence wanted a new convention every 20 years to update
things and fix obvious problems.
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- Lundberg felt Jefferson and Adams' main objection was
they had no part in writing it or were even consulted on what should go
in it. They had a point. Adams, as noted, was the leading constitutional
theorist of the time and Jefferson (in Lundberg's view) was the most consummate
politician in the nation's history, but by no means its best President.
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- The convention ended September 17, 1787 "in an atmosphere
verging on glumness." Delegates signing it were just witnesses to
the actions of state delegations, not as individual endorsers, and despite
their public approval, nearly all had "inner qualms." James Monroe
from Virginia, a future President, was one of them. He voted nay with
15 others that included important figures like George Mason, Elbridge Gerry
and Edmund Randolph.
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- Southern delegates were won over for ratification by
strengthening chattel slavery. The Constitution forbade the federal government
from emancipating slaves until Lincoln acted in a meaningless 1862 politically
motivated Executive Order. It wasn't until Congress passed the 13th, 14th
and 15th amendments, and enough states ratified them, that the law changed
freeing the slaves and giving them nominal rights they never, in fact,
had in the South at least for another 100 years. Lundberg noted the "slavocracy
was not terminated....for moral reasons; it committed suicide for political
and economic reasons, blinded by simple greed and vaingloriousness, and
long after slavery was abolished in most places elsewhere."
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- Who the Framers Were
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- Lundberg asked: "Who were these men about whom so
many (unjustifiably) have rhapsodized? Fifty-five in total showed up in
Philadelphia in 1787 out of 74 authorized by state legislatures. A fourth
of them stayed only briefly, another quarter checked in and out like tourists,
and no more than five men carried most of the discussion with seven others
playing "fitful" supporting roles.
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- Further, they didn't, in fact, come to write a new constitution.
They were congressionally authorized only to propose amendments to the
prevailing Articles of Confederation. Little did they all know in May
what would emerge in September, or maybe the ones who counted most did.
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- Of the 19 non-attending delegates, 11 wanted nothing
to do with the affair, were opposed to it, distrusted it, and thought it
rigged from the start. The other eight had various excuses - illness (political
or real), focused at home with other business, not having their travel
expenses covered, and reluctant to make such a long trip to be away from
home and hearth for months.
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- Of those showing up, 33 were lawyers, 44 present or past
members of Congress, 46 had political positions at home, including seven
as former governors and five high state judges. These were men of note
and economic means who promoted their own financial interests and parallel
activity in government. In a word, they were movers and shakers or as
Lundberg called them - "wheeler dealers."
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- He described the group as a "gathering of the rich,
the well-born and, here and there, the able (with that quality being the
exception)." Washington and Robert Morris were reputed to be the
richest men in the country with property holdings in most cases being their
main component of wealth at the time along with slaveholdings on it. Directly
or indirectly as lawyers or principals, these men were an assemblage of
"planters, bankers, merchants, ship-owners, slave-traders, smugglers,
privateers, money-lenders, investors, and speculators in land and securities"
- essentially a group of powerful figures not much different from their
counterparts today. With a few exceptions, Lundberg said they'd now be
called a "Wall Street crowd."
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- In their mind, "The clear aim of the Constitution
was to launch a system that would protect, and enable to flourish, the
general interests there represented." With Great Britain removed,
a vacuum was created. The Constitution, with a new government, was created
to fill it restoring the same essential British commercial and financial
system under new management, or as the French would say, everything changed
yet everything stayed the same. Republican government simply removed British
monarchal wrappings to operate pretty much the same way. Lundberg quoted
Daniel Leonard saying "Never in history had there been so much rebellion
with so little real cause" and so little change following it. As
for the ingredients of the Constitution, Lundberg explained nearly all
of them could have been "stamped with the benchmark 'Originated in
England.' Only the mixture was different."
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- Further, 27 delegates were future members of Congress,
two were future Presidents, one a future Vice-President, one a Speaker
of the House, and five future High Court justices. They produced a Constitution
generated along predetermined lines by the government itself by "a
small self-selected elite at the center of government affairs." They
did it in deliberately general, vague, ambiguous language, the product
of consummate self-serving insiders. The "people" were nowhere
in sight then or for the later future amendment ratifications, all of which
were done solely by similar-minded self-serving later officials for their
own political purposes. It's always been that way from the beginning,
of course, and is strikingly so today.
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- Lundberg then reviewed the political background and record
of the delegates starting off with the elder statesman in Philadelphia,
Benjamin Franklin, the wisest of the bunch. In 1787, he was an octogenarian,
attended as a mere figurehead, signed the final document, but was too enfeebled
to address the convention at its end, so he enlisted a friend to read his
rather notable and prescient remarks to the others saying:
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- "I agree to this Constitution with all its faults....I
think a General Government (is) necessary for us (and) may be a blessing....if
well-administered; (I "farther" believe that's likely) for a
Course of Years (but) can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done
before it, when the People shall have become so corrupted as to need Despotic
Government, being incapable of any other." Imagine such a dark prophecy
at the nation's birth by a man who never met George Bush but was wise enough
to know he'd arrive sooner or later. Franklin today would surely say "I
warned you, didn't I."
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- Other notable signers were less insightful, or if they
were, didn't let on. Two of them, John Dickinson and William Johnson were
members of the 1765 Stamp Act Congress. Six others were members of the
mainly conservative First Continental Congress of 1774 - Thomas Mifflin,
Edmund Randolph, George Read, John Rutledge, Roger Sherman, and George
Washington.
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- Other important attendees were Elbridge Gerry, Roger
Sherman, George Mason, John Langdon, Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris (no
relation) and William Livingston. Lundberg called Langdon, Livingston,
Randolph, Rutledge and R. Morris political power bosses or power-brokers
of their day, and Robert Morris was known to his friends and enemies as
the "Great Man." He was the unmatched financial giant of the
era with Lundberg saying "his brain would have made two of Hamilton"
and that his economic and political power at the time were unrivaled matching
that of the House of Morgan in the early 20th century combined with New
York's Tammany Hall.
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- According to Lundberg, however, this was no "all-star
political team" compared to other more distinguished figures not there
- Jefferson, John and Sam Adams, John Jay, John Hancock, Thomas Paine,
Benjamin Rush, Paul Revere, John Paul Jones, Patrick Henry and many others.
Apart from two notables, Washington and Franklin, as well as Robert Morris,
few later became prominent nationally. In 1787, Madison and Hamilton (Washington
proteges) were virtual unknowns.
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- Lundberg noted nothing on record shows this assemblage
to have been extraordinarily learned, profound in their thinking or even
unusually capable. Only 25 attended college, and "the one man who
held the convention together by the mere force of his presence"....Washington,
never got beyond the fifth grade. Franklin was mostly self-taught and
Hamilton was a college dropout his first year. Robert Morris, the JP Morgan
of his day, and George Mason also never attended college. Of the 25 college
attendees, only Madison, Wilson and G. Morris were contributors of note.
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- In point of fact, colleges in those days were quite rudimentary
and graduated students at a much earlier age, often as young as 16, and
a bright student could master the law for a degree in a matter of weeks
the way Hamilton did. The same was true in England at the time with Oxford
and Cambridge not then considered distinguished educational centers as
they are now.
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- Most of the attending delegates also had military backgrounds,
but writing about them kept that information secret. Lundberg stressed
it saying "the gathering took on the complexion of the general staff
of the war of the revolution." Why not, the boss himself was there,
Washington, along with his leading officers. In all, 27 delegates served
under him in the war. He knew them, most of the others, and all of them
stood in awe of him as a larger than life figure. He was "always the
nonpareil," assured he'd be the new nation's uncontested first president.
He had no party affiliation, ran unopposed twice and got all the votes
for two terms in a process more like coronations than elections.
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- He and the other delegates came to Philadelphia, assembled,
did their work and went home in many cases to pursue "their eclipse."
Lundberg explained "As a collection of supposedly highly sagacious
men, the post-convention careers of the framers raise a big question mark."
Ten went bankrupt or became broke, several were involved in financial
scandals, two died in duels, one became a shattered drunkard, two "flittered"
with treason, one was expelled from the Senate, one went mad, others quarreled
bitterly among themselves about politics and interpreting the document
they created, and most switched political sides for convenience in their
subsequent quests for office. Washington himself, likely died from medical
malpractice, the victim of a bloodletting procedure, after he took ill,
when he needed all he had.
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- Other framers began dying off as well, a number of them
right after the convention and at ages considered very young today for
some. Robert (JP Morgan) Morris went bankrupt speculating in public lands
and securities, owed millions as a result, served three and a half ignominious
years in debtors' prison, and died broke in 1806. Other framers also speculated
and lost heavily in their financial dealings.
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- Hamilton was one of the few Philadelphia delegates to
achieve a notable post-convention record as Washington's Secretary of the
Treasury and Federalist Party leader. Noteworthy as well was Gouverneur
Morris, no relation to Robert. Finally, there was James Madison who was
neither the Constitution's father or its indispensable or principle source.
He, in fact, had no original or unique ideas to bring to the convention.
In this respect, he was like all the others.
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- Madison did perform a hugely important function as an
"amanuensis," dutifully and painstakingly recording the convention
proceedings in what historians today call an accurate and complete stenographic
record, the best available. It was not until 1840 that it became public
after Congress bought it from his estate. He documented what Lundberg
called "startling" - that the convention delegates were "a
group of men intent upon securing various special economic interests"
and weren't the "philosophically detached cogitators they had been
held up in propaganda to be."
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- Madison's report shattered the view that these men came
together to devise the best possible government. From the start, they knew
what they wanted (at least the key ones there) and set about getting it.
Madison was also a powerful advocate on the convention floor of widely
discussed views. Unlike the others, he had no considerable property or
means, but he lived to age 85, outlasted all the other framers, and served
as the nation's fourth President. In total, eight delegates at most can
be considered weighty. The rest were "routine or parochial or both,"
and that conclusion is astounding for a group of 55 leading men of the
day who "participated in the formulation of a reputed deathless document"
and are revered in classrooms and society as larger-than-life icons.
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- The Gorgeous Convention
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- Lundberg stared off saying "The constitutional convention
of 1787, an historical event of first-class importance, was itself an entirely
routine, utterly uninspiring political caucus....it produced absolutely
no prodigies of statecraft, no wonders of political (judgment), no vaulting
philosophies, no Promethean vistas." In point of fact, as already
stressed and repeated, what happened contradicts all we've been "indoctrinated
from ears to toes" to believe that's pure nonsense. Lundberg called
the main fantasy the popular conception that the Constitution is "a
document of salvation....a magic talisman." The central achievement
of the convention, and a big one, (at least until 1861) was the cobbling
together of disparate and squabbling states into a union that held together
tenuously for over seven decades but not actually until Appomattox "at
bayonet point."
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- As mentioned above, the delegates came to Philadelphia
merely to amend the unwieldy Articles of Confederation so what it did was,
"strictly viewed, illegal." The finished product emerged as an
amalgam of the existing Maryland, New York and Massachusetts constitutions
dating respectively from 1776, 1777 and 1790, the latter one written almost
entirely by John Adams in a few days. Even though he was abroad in London
at the time, the finished Constitution was largely the product of his earlier
work. Of those attending, no individual theorist dominated proceedings,
but two dominant personalities held things together as its "living
core." Without the force of their presence, Lundberg explained, the
whole process "would almost surely have foundered."
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- Those men were George Washington, the larger-than- life
victorious general of the revolution, and "Great Man" Robert
Morris, the JP Morgan-type figure who later went bust because even financial
whizards can succumb to excess greed. Gouverneur Morris also was prominent
in the proceedings while Madison and Hamilton, as already explained, were
virtual unknowns.
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- Lundberg called the convention "very much a prefabricated
group affair" with internal differences over concentrating power in
the President or Congress. Then, there were the "tight nationalizers,
those generally wanting a national government, and lastly in the minority
"states-righters" believing no state power should be surrendered
to a federal authority. "As for flat-out democrats," said Lundberg,
"there were none in sight." In terms of what they achieved, he
called it "Old Wine in a Fancy New Bottle" with a new name under
new management. The purpose of the convention was to gain formal approval
for what the leading power figures wanted and then get their creation rammed
through the state ratification process to make it the law of the land.
On that score, and after much wheeling and dealing, they achieved mightily.
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- The convention began in May, went on through three phases
for 120 days, and concluded in September after dozens of parliamentary-type
votes to postpone, reconsider, amend, etc. with a document produced and
turned over to a committee of detail in late July. The final phase ran
from August 6 to September 17, nine states were needed for ratification
with the larger, more populous ones, granting concessions to the small
ones to win the day.
-
- Several scenarios or plans were proposed, one of which
was the Virginia Plan envisioning a central national government with a
bicameral legislature that, of course, was adopted. All the plans were
"strongly rightist" or conservative. Members of the lower house
were to be elected by the people and those in the upper body by members
of the lower one. That became the law and stayed that way until the 17th
Amendment, ratified in 1913, allowed the people of each state to elect
their own senators.
-
- Also proposed was a chief executive, a national judiciary
with a Supreme Court at the top, and provisions for admitting new states
with republican governments in them all. In addition, the finished Constitution
included proposals for amendments and much else including terms of office
and staggered elections to prevent too many officials being unseated at
the same time. The final product was what one academic observer called
a "bundle of compromises" from beginning to end.
-
- Lundberg described the delegates as "flinty hard-liners,
determined to have their way, never to yield on anything substantial....willing
to make purely political compromises (over) the means of carrying on government
(but) adamantly resistant....when it came to (its) ends." Those were
primarily economic and social, and those were left as they were when ties
with Great Britain were cut.
-
- Thinking then was much like today with provisions in
the Constitution targeting the discontented. Congress was empowered to
raise revenue through taxation, always hitting the less advantaged hardest.
It was authorized to borrow money without limit meaning the people would
have to service the debt. It was given power to regulate foreign and interstate
commerce assuring the rich their interests would be served, and much more.
In sum, the document created "was the means by which the traditional
establishment....was re-establishing itself" leaving out of the mix
the interests of the "common man (who) in point of fact was going
to be allowed to remain....common (with) the Constitution, contrary to
political blarney (offering) him no bonuses for it."
-
- Lundberg titled one sub-section: "Down with the
People." In it, he caught the mood of the delegates as expressed by
Roger Sherman of Connecticut who said "The people should have as little
to do as may be about the government." Elbridge Gerry then denounced
the evils stemming from "the excess of democracy," and debating
delegates drubbed democracy and "the people" repeatedly. That's
how Alexander Hamilton saw things in his view of "mankind in toto
(being) wholly depraved" disagreeing with Thomas Paine's notion of
government being depraved and people being inherently good. Paine wasn't
a delegate so he had no input into the proceedings and couldn't argue against
the central interest of property as a requirement for voting and holding
office.
-
- Even Jefferson accepted this idea but hated the word
enough to use another expression for it in the Declaration of Independence
he authored. His substitute language for "property" was "the
pursuit of happiness," meaning the same thing. While Jefferson abhorred
that "word," the attending delegates (Madison and Hamilton among
them) found it their "favorite (one), often brought to the fore as
a matter of deepest concern." Also brought up was the "minority,"
but not "any minority or all minorities. It was the minority of the
opulent."
-
- The far-sighted among them foresaw a bonanza coming from
the revolution that came about when the states passed confiscation acts,
putting properties up for sale at bargain prices, still only affordable
to the affluent. It sounds very much like the way corporate predators planned
to pillage and plunder Iraq and have done a pretty good job of it.
-
- There was also plenty of graft to go around, again just
like in Iraq and at home as well. Lundberg noted "the other big bonanza
of the revolution was the trans-Allegheny domains in which patriot speculators
made and lost fortunes." The well-off had their eyes on thousands
of parcels of land and buildings wrested from their lawful owners. They
also wanted to assure that never happened to them.
-
- Then there was the ratification process itself that turned
out to be a tussle as soon as the Constitution was sent to Congress. Lundberg
reviewed the arduous give and take process of compromise that finally got
the document passed by 13 states with three others rejecting it.
-
- This was when adopting the Bill of Rights made the difference.
The ones adopted in the first 10 amendments weren't for "the people,"
nowhere in sight, but to provide them to property owners who wanted:
-
- -- prohibitions against quartering troops in their property,
-
- -- unreasonable searches and seizures there as well,
-- the right to have state militias protect them,
-
- -- the right of people to bear arms, but not the way
the 2nd Amendment is today interpreted,
-
- -- the rights of free speech, the press, religion, assembly
and petition, all to serve monied and propertied interests alone - not
"The People,"
-
- -- due process of law with speedy public trials, and
-
- -- various other provisions worked out through compromise
to become our acclaimed Bill of Rights. Two additional amendments were
proposed but rejected by the majority. They would have banned monopolies
and standing armies, matters of great enormity that might have made a huge
difference thereafter. We'll never know for sure.
-
- Lundberg stressed the importance of the amendments adopted.
Without them, the movement for a second convention likely would have prevailed
that might have derailed the whole process or greatly changed the Constitution's
structure. That possibility had to be avoided at all costs and was by this
compromise that had nothing to do with granting rights to "The People."
-
- Government Free Style
-
- Lundberg destroyed the popular myth of a government constrained
by constitutional checks and balances. In fact, it can and repeatedly
has done anything judged expedient, with or without popular approval, and
within or outside the law of the land. In this respect, it's no different
than most others able to operate the same way and often do. It's done
through "the narrowest possible interpretations of the Constitution,"
but it's free to "operate further afield under broader or fanciful
official interpretations" with history recording numerous examples.
-
- Many presidents operated this way. Lundberg noted Kennedy,
Johnson, Nixon, Wilson, T. and F. Roosevelt, Jackson, could have named
Lincoln, and didn't know about Reagan, GHW Bush, Clinton and, most of all,
GW Bush when his book was written.
-
- A key point made is that "government is completely
autonomous, detached, in a realm of its own" with its "main interest
(being) economic (for the privileged) at all times." In pursuing
this aim, "constitutional shackles and barriers (exist only) in the
imaginations of many people" believing in them. Regardless of law,
custom or anything else, sitting US governments have always been freelancing.
They've been unresponsive to the public interest, uncaring about the will
and needs of the majority, and generally able to finesse or ignore the
law with ease as suits their purpose. As Lundberg put it: "forget
the mirage of government by the people," or the rule of law for that
matter, with George Bush only being the most extreme example of how things
work in Washington all the time under all Presidents.
-
- Lundberg went on to explain the Constitution effectively
confers unlimited powers on the government. He cited Article I, Section
8, Sub-section 18 allotting to Congress power "to make all laws which
shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing
powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution....or any department
or officer thereof." It's up to government, of course, to decide
what's "necessary" and "proper" meaning the sky's the
limit under the concept of sovereignty. The power of government is effectively
limited only "by the boundaries of possibility." Special considerable
powers are then afforded the President, dealt with in a separate section
below, and another on the Supreme Court.
-
- Lundberg explained how the "three divisions of the
American government operate under the immoderately celebrated system of
checks and balances" with the framers believing too much power in
the hands of one person or group of persons was a potential setup for tyranny.
Lundberg believed the theory was false, used the British model to make
his case, but he never met George Bush who might have given him pause.
-
- In Britain, the legislature and executive are inextricably
linked, a single House of Commons runs the government, the upper House
of Lords is only advisory, the courts can only apply the law the legislature
hands them, all laws passed become part of the constitution, and new elections
are generally called if a sitting government loses a vote of confidence.
-
- In the British parliamentary system, the government consists
of a committee of the House of Commons called the Cabinet presided over
by a prime minister elected by his party members. He and all cabinet members
are elected members of parliament (MPs) and can be voted in or out in any
general election with all members standing at the same time. It's a vastly
different and much fairer system overall than the convoluted American model
even though, in theory, a British prime minister has much more control
of the parliament than a US president has over the Congress with two parties
and numerous disparate interests.
-
- In practice, many US presidents get their way, despite
the obstacles, and George Bush gets nearly everything he wants, takes it
when it's not offered, and hardly ever faces congressional objection. The
section below on the power of the presidency shows how the Constitution
makes it so easy to do with Presidents, like Bush, taking full advantage
on top of all the enormous powers he has under the law.
-
- Britain has another interesting feature unheard of in
Washington that would be refreshing to have. Once a week, there's a question
period when the prime minister and his cabinet are held to account by the
opposition and must answer truthfully or pretty close to it, at least in
theory. Also, theoretically, a minister is supposed to face certain expulsion
if an untruth stated is learned. In the US, in contrast, Presidents routinely
lie to Congress, the public and maybe themselves to get away with anything
they wish. They face no penalty doing it, under normal circumstances, with
exceptions popping up occasionally like for Richard Nixon's serious lying
and smoking gun evidence to prove it and Bill Clinton's inconsequential
kind that was no one else's business but his own.
-
- Lundberg then reviewed the labyrinthine US system the
framers devised under the Roman maxim of "divide and rule" as
follows:
-
- -- a powerful (and at times omnipotent) chief executive
at the top;
-
- -- a bicameral Congress with a single member in the upper
chamber able to subvert all others in it through the power of the filibuster
(meaning pirate in Spanish);
-
- -- a committee system ruled mostly by seniority or a
by political powerbroker;
-
- -- delay and circumlocution deliberately built into the
system;
-
- -- a separate judiciary with power to overrule the Congress
and Executive;
-
- -- staggered elections to assure continuity by preventing
too many of the bums being thrown out together;
-
- -- a two-party system with multiple constituencies, especially
vulnerable to corruption and the power of big money that runs everything
today making the whole system farcical, dishonest and a democracy only
in the minds of the deceived and delusional.
-
- This is a system under which Lundberg characterized the
US electorate - left, right and center - as "the most bamboozled and
surprised in the world" and leaves voters "reduced to the condition
of one of Pavlov's experimental dogs - apathetic, inert, disinterested."
It got Professor J. Allen to say "A system better adapted to the purpose
of the lobbyist could not be devised," and that remark came long before
the current era with things in government totally out of control leading
one to wonder what Lundberg would say today if he were still living and
commenting.
-
- Court Over Constitution
-
- Article III of the Constitution establishes the Supreme
Court saying only: "The judicial power shall be vested in one Supreme
Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time
ordain and establish." Congress is explicitly empowered to regulate
the Court, but, in fact, the Court "seems to regulate Congress."
Lundberg believed it was to allow those unelected on it to be blamed for
unpopular decisions getting them off the hook. Congress, if it choose
to, has the upper hand, and even Court decisions on various issues only
apply to a specific case leaving broader interpretations to other rulings
if they come.
-
- As for the common notion of "judicial review,"
it's unmentioned in the Constitution nor did the convention authorize it.
This concept is derived by deduction from two separate parts of the Constitution:
In Article VI, Section 2 saying the Constitution, laws, and treaties are
the "supreme Law of the Land" and judges are bound by them; then
in Article III, Section 1 saying judicial power applies to all cases implying
judicial review is allowed. Under this interpretation of the law, appointed
judges theoretically "have a power unprecedented in history - to annul
acts of the Congress and President."
-
- Lundberg then reviewed some notable examples of judicial
power, first asserted in the famous Marbury v. Madison case in 1803. It
established the principle of "judicial supremacy" articulated
by Chief Justice John Marshall meaning the Court is the final arbiter of
what is or is not the law. He set a precedent by voiding an act of Congress
and the President. It put a brake on congressional and presidential powers,
theoretically, but Presidents like George Bush act above the law by ignoring
Congress and the Courts and usurping "unitary executive" powers
claiming the law is what he says it is. He gets away with it because the
other two branches do nothing to stop him.
-
- In 1776 and at the time of the convention, few in the
country believed in judicial review with theoreticians like Madison and
James Wilson zealously opposed to it. They wanted legislatures and the
executive to be the sole judges of their own constitutional powers. Lundberg
then said "Judicial review....is just one of the usages of the Constitution
that sprung up in the course of jockeying among the divisions, personalities
and factions of government."
-
- Lundberg then reviewed numerous other notable Court cases,
including the shameful Dred Scott decision when claimant Scott, a slave,
sued for his freedom on justifiable grounds and lost due to the tenor of
the times.
-
- A few others were:
-
- -- Fletcher v. Peck in 1810 that stabilized the law of
property rights, especially regarding contracts for the purchase of land;
-
- -- Dartmouth College v Woodward in 1819 with the Court
holding charters of private corporations were contracts and as such were
protected by the contact clause;
-
- -- McCulloch V Maryland also in 1819 with the Court ruling
a state couldn't tax the branch of a bank established by an act of Congress;
-
- -- Gibbons v. Ogden in 1824 when the Court upheld the
supremacy of the United States over the states in the regulation of interstate
commerce;
-
- -- Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 with the Court affirming
discrimination in public places;
-
- -- a number of cases, including US v. EC Knight Company
in 1895, in which the Court vitiated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890
while at the same time keeping "hot on the trail of labor unions"
as conspiracies in restraint of trade in violation of Sherman in Loewe
v. Lawler in 1908;
-
- -- Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad in
1886 when Court reporter JC Bancroft Davis wrote what the Court refused
to refute, thereby granting corporations the legal status of personhood
under the 14th Amendment with all rights and benefits accruing from it
but none of the obligations. In this writer's non-legal judgment, this
decision above all others, adversely changed the course of history most
by opening the door to the kinds of unchecked corporate power and abuses
seen today. It stands as the most far-reaching, abusive and long-standing
of all harmful Court decisions now haunting us.
-
- Lundberg ended this chapter with a section titled "The
Corporate State" citing what's pretty common knowledge today in the
age of George Bush. The US is a corporate-dominated society run by near-omnipotent
figures within and outside government. They believe in an "individualistic
economy," with the law backing it, based on the inviolate principles
of free private enterprise, with them in charge of everything for their
self-interested gain. In a zero-sum society, it means their benefits harm
the rest of us, and that's pretty much the way things are today with things
far more out of control than when Lundberg wrote his book.
-
- Even so, his comments pre-1980 observed how giant corporations
arose "under the ministering hand of government officials, especially
in the courts (and there emerged) wealthy dynasties of successful corporate
intrepreneurs, insuring a line of (future) Robber Barons." With the
Constitution forbidding "the granting of titles of nobility,"
corporate titans, in fact, had all the "material substance pertaining
to European nobility (making) Money per se....ennobling in the American
scheme."
-
- Gross disparities in income and personal wealth, far
more out of proportion now than three decades ago, are largely the result
of these earlier events with government and business conspiring to make
them possible. Earlier, and especially now, "successful wealthholders
in almost every case had an omnipotent lever at their service: the government,
including Congress, the courts and the chief executive." The constitutional
story comes down to a question of money and money arrangements - who gets
it, how, why, when, where, what for, and under what conditions. Also, who
the law leaves out.
-
- This story has nothing whatever to do with guaranteeing,
as they say, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; establishing justice;
upholding the rule of law equitably for everyone; promoting the general
welfare; or securing the blessings of freedom for the general public unconsidered,
unimportant and ignored by the three branches of government serving monied
and property interests only, of which they are part.
-
- This was how it was when the Constitution was drafted,
it stayed that way through the years, and is written in stone today with
Lundberg concluding "It seems safe to say (this way of things) will
never be rectified." Never is a long time, hopefully on that count
he's wrong, but how insightful and penetrating he was on the constitutional
story he revealed equisitely so far with more below, beginning with the
crucially important next section. George Bush will love it if someone
reads it to him or this review.
-
- The Veiled Autocrat
-
- Lundberg's dominant theme here is that the US President
is the most powerful political official on earth, bar none under any other
system of government. "The office he holds is inherently imperial,"
regardless of the occupant or how he governs, and the Constitution confers
this on him. Whereas under the British model with the executive as a collectivity,
the US system "is absolutely unique, and dangerously vulnerable in
many ways" with one man in charge fully able to exploit his position.
"The American President," said Lundberg, stands "midway
between a collective executive and an absolute dictator (and in times of
war like now) becomes in fact quite constitutionally, a full-fledged dictator."
-
- A single sentence, easily passed over or misunderstood,
constitutes the essence of presidential power. It effectively grants the
Executive near-limitless power, only constrained to the degree he so chooses.
It's from Article II, Section 1 reading: "The executive power shall
be vested in a President of the United States of America. Article II,
Section 3 then almost nonchalantly adds: "The President shall take
care that the laws be faithfully executed" without saying Presidents
are virtually empowered to make laws as well as execute them even though
nothing in the Constitution specifically permits this practice. More on
that below.
-
- Lundberg said the proper way to understand the Constitution
is to view it as a "symphony" with big themes being like separate
movements. Theme one in Article I, Section 1 says "All legislative
powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States."
Theme two is the dominant one on the Executive in Article II, Section
1 cited above. The final movement or theme three deals with "The
judicial power."
-
- Lundberg then continued saying "to understand the
inner nature of the United States government (the key question is) What
is executive power? - aware all the time that it is concentrated in the
hands of one man." He also reviewed how Presidents are elected "literally
(by) electoral (unelected by the public) dummies" in an Electoral
College. The process or scheme is a "long-acknowledged constitutional
anomaly." They can subvert the popular vote, never meet or consult
like the College of Cardinals does in Rome to elect a Pope, so, in fact,
its use is "a farce all the way."
-
- Now to the issue of executive power covered in Section
2. It's vast and frightening. The President:
-
- -- is commander-in-chief of the military and in this
capacity is completely autonomous in peace and a de facto dictator in war;
although Article I, Section 8 grants only Congress the right to declare
war, the President, in fact, can do it any time he wishes "without
consulting anyone" and, of course, has done it many times;
-
- -- can grant commutations or pardons except in cases
of impeachment. Nixon resigned remember before near-certain impeachment;
-
- -- can make treaties that become the law of the land,
with the advice and consent of two-thirds of the Senate (not ratification
as commonly believed); can also terminate treaties with a mere announcement
as George Bush did renouncing the important ABM Treaty with the former
Soviet Union; in addition, and with no constitutional sanction, he can
rule by decree through executive agreements with foreign governments that
in some cases are momentous ones like those made at Yalta and Potsdam near
the end of WW II. While short of treaties, they then become the law of
the land.
-
- -- can appoint administration officials, diplomats, federal
judges with Senate approval, that's usually routine, or can fill any vacancy
through (Senate) recess appointments; can also discharge any appointed
executive official other than judges and statutory administrative officials;
-
- -- can veto congressional legislation, with history showing
through the book's publication, they're sustained 96% of the time;
-
- -- while Congress alone has appropriating authority,
only the President has the power to release funds for spending by the executive
branch or not release them;
-
- -- Presidents also have a huge bureaucracy at their disposal
including powerful officials like the Secretaries of Defense, State, Treasury
and Homeland Security and the Attorney General in charge of the Justice
Department;
-
- -- Presidents also command center stage any time they
wish. They can request and get national prime time television for any
purpose with guaranteed extensive post-appearance coverage promoting his
message with nary a disagreement with it on any issue;
-
- -- throughout history, going back to George Washington,
Presidents have issued Executive Orders (EOs) although the Constitution
"nowhere implicitly or explicitly gives a President (the) power (to
make) new law" by issuing "one-man, often far-reaching"
EOs. However, as Lundberg explained above, the President has so much power
he's virtually able to do whatever he wishes, the only constraint on him
being himself and how he chooses to govern.
-
- -- George Bush also usurped "Unitary Executive"
power to brazenly and openly declare what this section makes clear - that
the law is what he says it is. He proved his intent in six and a half years
in office by subverting congressional legislation through his record-breaking
number of unconstitutional "signing statements" - affecting over
1132 law provisions through 147 separate "statements," more than
all previous Presidents combined. In so doing, he expanded presidential
power even beyond the usual practices recounted above.
-
- -- Presidents are, in fact, empowered to do almost anything
not expressively forbidden in the Constitution, and very little there is;
more importantly, with a little ingenuity and a lot of license and chutzpah,
the President "can make almost any (constitutional) text mean whatever
(he) wants it to mean" so, in fact, his authority is practically absolute
or plenary. And the Supreme Court supports this notion as an "inherent
power of sovereignty," according to Lundberg. He explained, if the
US has sovereignty, it has all powers therein, and the President, as the
sole executive, can exercise them freely without constitutional authorization
or restraint.
-
- In effect, "the President....is virtually a sovereign
in his own person." Compared to the power of the President, Congress
is mostly "a paper tiger, easily soothed or repulsed." The courts,
as well, can be gotten around with a little creative exercise of presidential
power, and in the case of George Bush, at times just ignoring their decisions
when they disagree with his. As Lundberg put it: "One should never
under-estimate the power of the President....nor over-estimate that of
the Supreme Court. The supposed system of equitable checks and balances
does not exist in fact (because Congress and the courts don't effectively
use their constitutional authority)....the separation in the Constitution
between legislative and the executive is wholly artificial."
-
- Further, it's pure myth that the government is constrained
by limited powers. Quite the opposite is true "which at the point
of execution (reside in) one man," the President. In addition, "Until
the American electorate creates effective political parties (which it never
has done), Congress....will always be pretty much under (Presidents') thumb(s)."
Under the "American constitutional system (the President) is very
much a de facto king."
-
- Lundberg cited examples such as Franklin Roosevelt, considered
one of the nation's three greatest Presidents along with Lincoln and Washington.
He "waged (illegal) naval warfare against Germany before Pearl Harbor."
During the war, he stretched his powers to the limit and functioned as
a dictator. Truman atom-bombed Japan twice gratuitously and criminally
with the war over and the Japanese negotiating surrender. He also went
around Congress to wage a war of aggression on North Korea when its forces
attacked the South after repeated US-directed southern incursions against
the North. Lyndon Johnson attacked North Vietnam February 7, 1965 using
the contrived August, 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution as justification even
though there was none. The examples are endless, Presidents take full
advantage, and nearly always get away with it.
-
- The only thing Presidents can't do, in theory, is openly
violate the law. But since he can interpret it creatively, it's up to
Congress and the High Court to hold him to account, and that rarely happens.
Nixon was forced to resign to avoid impeachment because there was smoking
gun evidence on tape to convict him on top of his being roundly disliked
making it easier to act. But what he did overall wasn't unusual except
that he paid the price for it.
-
- As Lundberg put it, "highhandedness, unpalatable
doings (and) scandals" are part and parcel of politics from top to
bottom in the system at all levels of government. Jethro Lieberman showed
this type behavior "is a steady occupation at every level of government"
in his pre-Watergate book - "How the Government Breaks the Law."
At the executive level, he showed government proceeds "pretty much
ad libitum outside the stipulated rules at all levels." In other
words, the nation was always infested with Nixons at all levels, but most
got away with their offenses and today that's truer than ever.
-
- As for impeaching and convicting a President for malfeasance,
Article II, Section 4 states it can only be for "treason, bribery,
or other high crimes and misdemeanors." Based on the historical record,
it's near-impossible to do with no President ever having been removed from
office this way, and only two were impeached, both unjustly.
-
- Lundberg quoted John Adams on this issue saying he was
right believing it would take a national convulsion to remove a President
by impeachment, it hasn't happened up to now, which is not to say it never
will with no President more deserving of the "distinction" than
the current sitting one who almost makes Richard Nixon look saintly by
comparison. It's long past the time to smash the inviolate notion of presidential
invincibility, and given the growing groundswell, it could happen against
all odds. If it does, it will be a first, and if he were still living,
it would also make Lundberg rethink his final comment on the subject that
it's "virtually impossible to remove a President (and) His security
in office....is but one facet of his power." Still remember, an exception,
when it happens, only proves the rule, so Lundberg's assessment is still
valid.
-
- Presidential power since WW II is also reinforced by
their own private army through the vast US intelligence apparatus and much
more. The CIA is part of it and today functions mainly as a presidential
praetorian guard and global mafia-style hit squad operating freely outside
the law as a powerful rogue agency backed by an undisclosed budget likely
topping $50 billion annually. And since January, 2003, the Department
of Homeland Security functions as a national Gestapo about as free to do
as it pleases as CIA that also operates outside its mandate on US soil
along with the equally repressive FBI. They mainly target disaffected political
groups and individuals publicly standing against government policies with
enough influence to make a difference.
-
- The Risks in One-Man Rule
-
- Lundberg quoted noted political scientist Herman Finer
(1898 - 1969) again reinforcing what's covered above that "there is
(virtually) no limit to the Chief Executive's power." In six and a
half years in office, George Bush proved he was right and then some. Finer,
even in an earlier less complex era, portrayed the President as overweighted
with responsibilities while having enough concentrated power in his hands
to make irresponsible, rash or dangerous decisions with potentially immense
repercussions.
-
- Finer proposed a way to improve the presidency by relieving
one man of more responsibility than anyone can handle alone and minimize
incompetency or villainy at the same time. His idea was for a collective
and supportive leadership formed around the President, including a cabinet
of 11 Vice-Presidents elected in combination with the chief executive every
four years.
-
- The framers structured the government to frustrate and
confuse the electorate. They did it through staggered elections to avoid
a clearly visible line of authority as well as maintain a continuity of
governance whatever else the public might prefer. Finer wanted to correct
these kinds of faults in the current system. He also understood that Presidents
are plucked out of almost anywhere because of their perceived electability,
not from their ability to govern effectively in an office enough to overwhelm
anyone no matter how able and dedicated.
-
- His idea was for Presidents and Vice-Presidents to be
required to have served in either house of Congress a minimum four years
to learn how Washington operates that can be quite different from a state
or the military where former generals of note, like Dwight Eisenhower and
others, went on to become very ordinary or failed Presidents. Only George
Washington was the exception proving the rule, and being a new nation's
first President (governing a population smaller than Chicago today) was
quite different from how things are now.
-
- Finer also wanted the President and his cabinet to sit
in the House of Representatives to make them more visible and responsible
like the British model. His main concern was that too much responsibility
lay with one man, with too much power to discharge it, and far too often
that man turns out to be incompetent, venal or both. Under the present
system, the President is near-omnipotent, operates in secrecy, is most
often the wrong one chosen, and is able to spring surprises at will, often
with potentially disastrous implications like today under George Bush.
-
- He was also concerned about Presidents having secret
ailments, impediments or becoming seriously ill enough to be unable to
govern yet still be able to retain the power of the office. Woodrow Wilson
was a case in point as he suffered a severe stroke and paralysis on his
left side 17 months before his second term of office expired. His principle
biographer said he was "either gravely ill (his last year in office)
or severely incapacitated at the time the country needed his leadership
most."
-
- Wilson never should have been allowed to run at all as
it was known seven years earlier he was a bad health risk. He did it because
the information was concealed from the public even though Wilson himself
thought he might die at any moment, was blind in one eye, suffered episodes
of depression, dyspepsia, colds, headaches, dizziness and feelings of dullness
and numbness in one hand the result of diseased nerves. In short, he was
a physical and emotional basket case running the country and unable to
do it much of the time and not all late in his second term.
-
- Franklin Roosevelt is another prime example. At age
39, eleven years before being elected President, he was stricken with what
was thought to be polio and was permanently paralyzed from the waist down.
Yet, he kept his condition secret and (before the age of television) was
never photographed in a wheelchair in public. In his third term, he was
advised not to run for a fourth time because of his health. He did, of
course, and won, but in 1941 his blood pressure was high and rising, his
heart was enlarged, and he suffered from congestive heart failure from
which he finally expired in April, 1945. By early 1944, he was in marked
decline and a dying man.
-
- With the most calamitous war in history in its late stages
and the power of the chief executive most needed, Lundberg described FDR
as "a burned-out matchstick" barely able to function. It showed
in some of his irrational decisions at the end. Yet, he was still in charge
as commander-in-chief and the most powerful leader on earth as the war
in Europe and Asia still raged, and he alone was calling the shots.
-
- With future Presidents just as vulnerable to serious
health problems, Lundberg's view was as the presidency is now structured,
"the American people are sitting on a bomb....likely to explode (unexpectedly)
at any moment." The problem, he said, isn't just about an imperial
presidency, but an "anarchic," "wild-cat" or "Protean"
one under which "anything can happen." Drawing an analogy to
a modern-day corporation, he explained the obvious. No large publicly-owned
corporation would ever operate this way. It would never put its chips
on a single person or "choose its chief executive (as) nonchalantly
as does the United States."
-
- Wilson and Roosevelt weren't the only Presidents who
served in office while experiencing serious illness. Eisenhower suffered
two heart attacks along with other health problems, and Kennedy "was
a walking bundle of ailments" with much of it concealed. Lyndon Johnson,
as well, was in trouble from the start, suffered a massive heart attack
before winning national office, and (unknown to the public) was never judged
physically or mentally sound while President.
-
- His actions proved it and give pause to what may be afflicting
George Bush, kept secret from the public. A disastrous six and a half year
record conclusively shows this man is unfit to serve in the nation's highest
office or in any responsible capacity. Because he's there taking full advantage,
all humanity is held hostage to what's coming next at the hands of a venal,
incompetent and possibly mentally unbalanced or deranged US chief executive.
-
- For all the above-stated reasons along with the examples
just cited, Finer believed the office of the President was ill-structured
and should be drastically changed for the betterment of the country (and
all humanity). As far as achieving any of what he proposed or any other
type broad brush makeover of the system, Lundberg believed it's near-impossible.
Doing it would involve amending the Constitution and in a wholesale way.
With certain opposition in enough states, there's almost no chance these
type changes can happen.
-
- How did this happen, and were the framers at fault, Lundberg
asks? To some degree, but not entirely. It's pure fantasy to imagine any
group of men, even if they'd been the most talented and far-sighted, could
have met in 1787 to produce a Constitution, elaborate, detailed and ingenious
enough to "anticipate and provide for every facet and contingency
of the nation" that would eventually encompass 50 states and grow
to a diverse population exceeding 300 million. It was impossible then
and now everywhere. Furthermore, they made the amending process extremely
hard to do even though it was subsequently accomplished 17 times after
the Bill of Rights was added to get the Constitution ratified in the first
place.
-
- At a much simpler time, the framers didn't understand
that governments fundamentally act in their own self-interest whatever
the law says. The Constitution complicates it for them by consisting of
a "set of incomplete prescriptions, ostensibly frozen in time except
as subject to an almost impossible amending process." So to get around
the problem or ignore it, governments function ad libitum with one man
at the top calling the shots even though this isn't what the framers had
in mind.
-
- So all the "patriotic praise....heaped upon the
Constitution in schoolbooks....is simple nonsense, pap." How well
the country is served at any time depends on the pure luck of the draw
to get a really first-rate capable leader as President. It rarely happens,
and Lundberg cites only the three example of Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt.
None of the others matched them, and far too many were abysmal failures
or worse with one candidate just cited standing out prominently as the
overwhelming choice for the worst and most dangerous ever.
-
- On top of all the other flaws and faults, "the people"
were deliberately and willfully left out of the process proving "democracy
is not recognized in the Constitution," shocking as that notion is
to most people reading these words. Lundberg had hopes, however, that
a future time would come that would embrace constitutional improvement
on a significant scale. As he put it, this document, "as it stands,
is by no means the system the United States is ultimately fated to embrace
(forever). For there is a great deal of room for improvement - a great
deal" (indeed, and then some).
-
- A Renewed Call for a Second Convention
-
- With the need so much greater now than 30 years ago,
in the age of George Bush, it's time we went about the process Lundberg
advocated in the title of this section. Doing it, however, is infinitely
harder than achieving relatively simpler amendment tinkering here and there,
even though Article V allows for such a procedure. With everything in mind
from what's covered above, it's easy to believe, whatever the Constitution
allows, convening a convention for constitutional change is near-impossible
given the way the country is now run, by whom and most importantly for
whom - the immensely powerful monied interests sitting in corporate boardrooms
running the country, the world and our lives.
-
- They've got everything arranged their way, it's taken
decades to get it, they engineer elections to get the best "democracy"
they can buy, and it always turns out that way, more or less. The bankers
and Wall Street even own the Federal Reserve giving them the most powerful
instrument of government - the right to print and control the nation's
money supply and charge interest on it. By so doing, the government (and
the public) must pay interest on its own money that wouldn't happen if
it printed its own as Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution says only
the government can do.
-
- It relinquished that power when Woodrow Wilson betrayed
the public by signing the most disastrous piece of legislation in the nation's
history willfully after Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act in the
dead of night December 23, 1913 with many of its members away for the holiday
and most others unaware of what, in fact, they were signing.
-
- Today, with a virtual stranglehold on state power, in
league with Democrat and Republican governments in their pockets, why would
corporate giants ever give up what took so long for them to get. They never
will, Lundberg knew it, too, and said the chance for real change from a
second convention "is almost nil....if (these pages) have shown anything,
(it's clear as day) the government (backed by the power of money) controls
the Constitution," not the other way around or "the people"
either, left out completely from the start.
-
- Lundberg didn't say it but surely believed achieving
the kinds of democratic changes he wanted would have to come from the bottom
up. Only an aroused public, en masse and undeterred, fed up with the state
of things and committed can make it happen. Impossible as it seems, history
at times surprises, and if it does this time, it will be the greatest one
ever....and not a moment too soon.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
-
- Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
listen Saturdays to the Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com
at noon US central time.
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