Here's where you'll enjoy the oddities and ironies of history. Your guide is Bruce Kauffmann, who worked at CBS as Dan Rather's top radio writer and speechwriter.
Between deadlines, he grew increasingly wrapped up in the news of yesteryear.
The result? Lively history columns full of the fun your teachers may have denied you.
Two critical, but oft neglected, Constitutional amendments
12/15/2008 01:00 AM Bruce Kauffmann
“A right is not something someone gives you; it’s something no one can take from you.” – Ramsey Clark
Our first 10 amendments to the Constitution — better known as the Bill of Rights — were ratified this week (Dec. 15) in 1791. On this year’s anniversary I want to discuss the two amendments whose importance to our nation’s governance is, alas, not only inversely proportional to their recognition, but also to their actual practice, which in my mind explains much of the unprecedented growth in federal power that has occurred during the past 60 years. They are the Ninth and 10th Amendments, and although they have mostly been forgotten in our legal and political debates, they address the two primary concerns that their author (my hero), James Madison, had about the new federal government he did so much to create.
Recall that Madison was originally against a bill of rights, not because he was against protecting people’s rights, but because he feared the federal government might eventually conclude that the people possessed only those rights mentioned in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and none other. Madison thought this point “one of the most plausible I have ever heard urged against the admission of a bill of rights into the system.”
The Ninth Amendment was written in response. It says “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” In other words, just because the Constitution doesn’t specifically mention a right, doesn’t mean the right does not exist.
Madison’s second concern centered on the federal government’s powers, which — as originally written in the Constitution — were limited, specific and struck a fair balance between the need for the states to retain their long-standing sovereign powers and the new nation’s clear need for a stronger federal authority.
But Madison worried things might not stay that way. The “nature-of-the-beast” theory says governments will use what powers they have to grab more powers. So the 10th Amendment was written to remind the federal government that it possesses only those powers spelled out in the Constitution, while the states retain every power that isn’t specifically denied them by the Constitution.
The 10th Amendment says, “The powers not delegated to the United States (the federal government) by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people.”
Of course it hasn’t worked out that way. Today’s federal government has 20 times the power that Madison and his fellow Founders envisioned, while expanding to a size beyond their wildest imagination, or worst nightmare, depending on your point of view. But the reasons for that are another lesson for another time.
Author’s note: In response to countless requests, a collection of my columns is now available in book form. “Bruce’s History Lessons: The First Five Years (2001-2006)” can be ordered on the Web sites IUniverse.com, Amazon and Books-a-million. The ISBN# is 9781440106422
The main reason we have lost, or, have had infringed many of the rights granted to us by the “Bill of Rights” is mainly the lose that the Confederate States of America experianced due to northern invasion,a forced union, and reconstruction. The War for Southern Independence was a war fought to protect not only a newly formed Nation but also that form of governance the founding fathers invisioned,True Representative Republic.We lost our Republic as Appomatox.
That is certainly a theory shared by many, but any fair reading of the Civil War leads one to only one conclusion. The Confederate states left the Union because they perceived Lincoln’s election as a threat to the institution of slavery. And the southern states were not forced into a Union – they left a Union that they had willfully joined, which is why Lincoln considered them in a state of rebellion. The age-old question, did the states create the nation or did the nation create the states, is a debate that will last forever, but my reading of history mirrors Lincoln’s. The Founding Fathers insisted that the Constitution be ratified by “the people” of the various states in special Constitutional conventions, rather than having it ratified by the state legislatures. As one historian has put it, “The ratification process itself would induce Americans to think of themselves as a nation, encouraging them to look beyond their state’s borders in deciding whether to support the Constitution and disposing them to adopt a new government for the American nation.” In other words, the new United States of America, governed by the new Constitution, created the states. The states did not create America and as a result had no power, or right, to simply secede from it. Bruce Kauffmann
The main reason we have lost, or, have had infringed many of the rights granted to us by the “Bill of Rights” is mainly the lose that the Confederate States of America experianced due to northern invasion,a forced union, and reconstruction. The War for Southern Independence was a war fought to protect not only a newly formed Nation but also that form of governance the founding fathers invisioned,True Representative Republic.We lost our Republic as Appomatox.
— Les Cogar 01/28/2009 09:32 PM #
That is certainly a theory shared by many, but any fair reading of the Civil War leads one to only one conclusion. The Confederate states left the Union because they perceived Lincoln’s election as a threat to the institution of slavery. And the southern states were not forced into a Union – they left a Union that they had willfully joined, which is why Lincoln considered them in a state of rebellion. The age-old question, did the states create the nation or did the nation create the states, is a debate that will last forever, but my reading of history mirrors Lincoln’s. The Founding Fathers insisted that the Constitution be ratified by “the people” of the various states in special Constitutional conventions, rather than having it ratified by the state legislatures. As one historian has put it, “The ratification process itself would induce Americans to think of themselves as a nation, encouraging them to look beyond their state’s borders in deciding whether to support the Constitution and disposing them to adopt a new government for the American nation.” In other words, the new United States of America, governed by the new Constitution, created the states. The states did not create America and as a result had no power, or right, to simply secede from it. Bruce Kauffmann
— Bruce Kauffmann 01/29/2009 07:22 AM #