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We are so far off track from government as it was meant to be

Published in The Orlando Sentinel on September 5, 1999.

One way to understand how far off the track we've gone from our constitutional roots is to think about how government was supposed to be in the United States.

The federal government, as intended by the founders, was to be, in the words of George Washington, the man whose prestige won ratification for the new Constitution, " . . . a stronger confederation." In other words, not something radically different -- just a stronger confederation of sovereign states.

James Madison, in the Federalist Papers, stated that, in time of peace, 95 percent of the governing would be done by the states and only 5 percent by the feds. If you will sit down and read the Constitution, you will see clearly that it was to be an agent for the states and would do only those things that made sense.

It made sense, for example, to have one standard of measurements, one monetary system, one trade policy and one foreign policy rather than 13 different ones. It made sense to have the mechanism in place for all the states to act in unison if attacked by a foreign power.

The proof of its intent lies in the wording (as well as the historical record) of the Constitution. It was to be ratified by the states, not by a majority vote of the people in all the states. It would take effect if nine states ratified it. What about the other four? They would remain what they were: independent countries with their own constitutions.

In the original constitution, senators were selected by state legislatures. Their duty was clearly to represent the interests of their respective state governments. They were described in one instance as "ambassadors from the states to the new federal government."

Now, was that a better system than the one we have today? Today, the Constitution is occasionally paid lip service but not otherwise heeded, with the federal government ruling practically every aspect of our lives, either directly or indirectly.

I think that the old system was infinitely better because it was pragmatic. It's impossible for a handful of people in a central government to govern a large area and millions of diverse people wisely, whether we are talking Washington, Rome or Moscow. Central governments always collapse eventually from sheer incompetence if nothing else.

The other disadvantage of centralized government is that concentrating so much power in so few hands facilitates corruption and coups. There are, so to speak, only a few pockets to fill or, in the case of a coup, only a few heads to lop off. One bad attorney general with central power can cause a lot of problems. It is unlikely that all 50 states would have bad attorneys general.

Finally, of course, the advantage of the old constitutional system was that the governments that did most of the governing were closest to the people. The people could watch those governments and understand them. They could get to know their officials. That's much less easy to do when dealing with the federal government.

One size does not fit all, and one centralized government mucking about in everybody's lives is bound to make a mess of things. Keep in mind that advocates of centralized government generally imagine themselves wielding the power, not you or I.

American children would have a better chance of education, for example, if all 50 states were free to adopt their own ideas. Today the bureaucrats in Washington, in direct and indirect ways, control the system. The arguments for individual liberty apply to states. Odds are that 50 states trying to find an answer to a problem will find it better than if only one federal bureaucrat is in charge of seeking the answer.

[Posted 09/04/1999 7:36 PM EST]