The Preamble to the Constitution

The Preamble to the Constitution is a most accurate and comprehensive statement of the purpose of government. It explicitly sets forth the fundamental purposes for which government is primarily organized. The brevity, simplicity, and directness of its original draft, after 150 years of experience, require no change. We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure Domestic Tranquility, provide for the Common Defense, promote the General Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America. - Preamble to the Constitution. "We, the people." - The convention, which met in Philadelphia in 1787, adopted a Constitution based upon the proposition that a people are able to govern themselves. Under the Articles of Confederation the State assumed control. A single State might exercise veto power over the will of all the others. In the government set up under the new Constitution the power and rights of the people are the source and final authority. It derives its "just powers from the consent of the governed." For the first tune in human history "the people" assumed control and government became subject to their will. Nowhere is American independence and self-reliance better exemplified than in the words, "We, the people." The people, the highest authority known to our system, from whom all our institutions spring and upon whom they depend, formed it. - President Monroe. Its language, "We, the people," is the institution of one great consolidated national government of the people of all the States, instead of a government by compact with the States for its agents. - Patrick Henry. "A more perfect Union." - In the original federation the States were but loosely joined. The Constitution was a demand for more effective control of the Union by the Government. In the efficacy and permanency of your Union a government for the whole is indispensable * * *. You have improved upon your first essay (Articles of Confederation) by the adoption of a constitution of government " " " for the efficacious management of your common concerns. * * * Indignantly frown upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts. - Washington - Farewell Address. In the course of the Civil War the Southern States sought to dissolve our Union; President Lincoln sought to preserve our Union. The States have their status in the Union, and they have no other legal status * * *. The Union, and not themselves separately, procured their independence and liberty. * * * The Union is older than any of the States and, in fact, created them as States. - Abraham Lincoln - Message to Congress, July 4, 1861. The right of secession was forever settled by the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution, which declares, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." The National Government is not an assemblage of States, but of individuals. To refuse allegiance to the United States is to be a traitor to the Nation. However, in the dual capacity of citizenship, we render service as citizens of both the State in which we hold legal residence and the United States. Each of our 48 States retains its own sovereignty in all matters relating exclusively to State affairs, in which it is protected by its own constitution. In all interstate, national, or international affairs both the citizen and the State owe allegiance to the Union. "Justice." - Our Government, assures "justice" in that it is a government of laws, not of men. In the heat of passion or sectional interest, in clashes between groups or questions of policy, no minority or bloc may enforce its will. Should a majority seek to injure the rights of an individual citizen, the power of veto resting in the President, or the power of the Supreme Court as an unbiased tribunal, will insist that justice be done. A series of checks and balances, which prevent the selfish interests of either individuals or groups from exercising their will to the injustice of another, is provided by the Constitution. Wherever there is an interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done, and not less readily by a powerful and interested party than by a powerful and interested prince. - James Madison. In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief to the chains of the Constitution. - Thomas Jefferson. "Domestic tranquillity." - At the conclusion of the Revolutionary War the Colonial States were bankrupt. Foreign credit was exhausted and could not be reestablished until a responsible central government was created. Soldiers remained unpaid long after the war was ended. Colonies quarreled with each other over duties imposed upon the goods sold or bartered. Chaos and anarchy, disillusion, and despair prevailed, all because of lack of proper organization and power in government. The Government established under the Articles of Confederation "defrayed all expenses out of the common treasury" to which each State was supposed to contribute, but this was done in full only by New York and Pennsylvania. All nonenforceable obligations were left to conscience, individual or collective. "Domestic tranquillity" requires a measure of enforced responsibility, mutual faith, and harmonious and prosperous conditions. These are provided under the Constitution through the powers conferred upon the National Government regulating interstate affairs, making interchange of commodities, communication, transportation, and freedom of residence, occupation, and industry equal to all. "Domestic tranquillity" is further assured by religious freedom, free speech, and free press, thereby establishing interchange of thought which results in the creation of a national public opinion and brings within its influence every citizen, regardless of race, religion, financial condition, or social qualification. "Common defense." - A country worth fighting for to establish was worth fighting for to preserve. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts' and Excises, to pay the debts and provide for the Common Defense and Welfare of the United States. * * * To declare War, grant letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on Land and Water; to raise and support Armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years. * * * To provide and maintain a Navy; To make rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval forces; To provide for calling forth the Militia; to execute the laws of the Union, to suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the Militia. * * * - Constitution, Article I, section 8. Attention is especially called to the limited period of two years as the length of time to be covered by any appropriation of money for the military forces. Without the consent of the people through their Representatives in Congress, any army created would fall to pieces for lack of funds. A great deal is said about the effort to "militarize" America through carrying out the provisions of the national defense act of 1920. This act was created by the people, for the people, to be paid for by the people. It can be killed by repeal or by refusal to make necessary appropriations. In the last analysis the people are the military force of the United States; their employees, the Regular Army, National Guard, and Organized Reserves, are working for them, and in absolute obedience to rules and regulations laid down by their agent, the Congress. The United States is not solicitous, it never has been, about the methods or ways in which that protection shall be accomplished; whether by formal treaty stipulation or by formal convention, whether by the action of judicial tribunals or by that of military force. Protection, in fact, to American lives and property is the sole point upon which the United States is tenacious. - William M. Evarts (1878). "General welfare." - The United States is a family of Commonwealths. Each State is possessed of its own natural resources, in the development of which it is necessary for its own best interests to have the full cooperation of every, other State in exchange of raw materials, finished products, and farm produce. Its great land areas and mighty rivers are frequently the concern of several States or of the entire Nation. It is within the power of Congress to appropriate funds for constructing canals, river and harbor development, and control irrigation projects where more than one State is interested, hard roads, and Postal Service; to regulate communications and transportation; and, through its various departments, perform such other services as will result in benefit to all citizens. This is not paternalism, but that protection of person and property which enables the citizen to obtain the greatest possible returns in the exercise of his own initiative. "Blessings of liberty." - To secure the "blessings" of liberty was the fundamental purpose of the makers of the Constitution and its subsequent adoption. They include all the rights and privileges that a citizen of this country enjoys - a voice in the Government; freedom to worship according to the dictates of the individual conscience; freedom of speech and of the press; the lack of restriction upon all inherent individual rights. The liberty of America is not that which permits the individual citizen to do as he pleases. He may so long as he does not interfere with the liberty of others. The liberty of the individual ends where the rights of others begin. We all declare for liberty, but in using the word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men and the product of other men's labor. Here are two not only different but incompatible things called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny. The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. - Abraham Lincoln. The "blessings" which the citizen enjoys under our form of government are secured through "liberty under law," the enforcement of which is their only safeguard. The purpose of our Government is to protect (not to provide) the property of its citizens; to guard his person (not to provide his subsistence) while he acquires the means of livelihood; to give every citizen equal opportunity in his chosen work and assure him of equal standing before the law. Our Government is the most nearly perfect of all in securing individual rights and insuring the blessings of liberty. In no other nation is equal opportunity and equal protection assured, with such equal division of reward for labor and services rendered.