Ameritopia_ The Unmaking of America - Mark R. Levin [79]
Of course, Wilson read the Ninth and Tenth amendments out of the Constitution, as they are the most explicit statement of individual and state sovereignty in the Constitution. His view has been adopted by most federal courts in modern times, using the Civil War and popular opinion as sham rationales for licensing unfettered federal authority. “The old theory of the sovereignty of the States, which used so to engage our passions, has lost its vitality. The war between the States established at least this principle, that the federal government is, through its courts, the final judge of its own powers.”15 Furthermore, “we are impatient of state legislatures because they seem to us less representative of the thoughtful opinion of the country than Congress is. We know that our legislatures do not think alike, but we are not sure that our people do not think alike.…”16
Wilson contended that this is all necessary and proper. Indeed, it is the inevitable tide of history and mankind’s fate. “Undoubtedly the powers of the federal government have grown, have even grown enormously, since the creation of the government, and they have grown for the most part without amendment of the Constitution. But they have grown in almost every instance by a process which must be regarded as perfectly normal and legitimate. The Constitution cannot be regarded as a mere legal document, to be read as a will or a contract would be. It must, of the necessity of the case, be a vehicle of life. As the life of the nation changes so must the interpretation of the document which contains it change, by a nice adjustment, determined, not by the original intention of those who drew the paper, but by the exigencies and the new aspects of life itself. Changes of fact and alterations of opinion bring in their train actual extensions of community interest, actual additions to the catalogue of things which must be included under the general terms of the law.…”17 Again, Hobbes would approve. As Hobbes wrote, “So that it appeareth plainly, to my understanding, both from reason and Scripture, that the sovereign power (whether placed in one man, as in monarchy, or in one assembly of men, as in popular and aristocratical commonwealths) is as great as possibly men can be imagined to make it.…” (135)
Throughout his treatise, Wilson used the lexicon of the Constitution to justify its deconstruction—a practice employed regularly by utopian masterminds today, including those who serve as judges and justices. He argued that the federal masterminds and their experts were best qualified to rule over the people, yet he simultaneously claimed they were most knowledgeable of and responsive to the opinion of the people—another rhetorical device adopted by modern utopian politicians and propagandists. Hobbes wrote, “Nothing the sovereign representative can do to the subject, on what pretence soever, can properly be called injustice, or injury, because every subject is author of every act the sovereign doth.…” (138)
Moreover, Wilson proved the insight of Madison’s fear—that is, without the Constitution’s limits on the federal government’s authority, an election could empower a temporary majority or faction to fundamentally alter the governmental structure in ways that threaten the individual’s liberty and rights. Furthermore, since the federal courts are free to exercise extraconstitutional power and, according to Wilson, have the final word, elections that deliver results contrary to utopian ambitions become largely inconsequential in containing or reversing those ambitions, for the masterminds, in the name of the people, can blunt or reverse them.
Wilson argued for obstructing every avenue for preserving