With all the major news in the last few days from around the world, it would be easy to forget the history of tyranny right here. Today is the 212th anniversary of America?s adoption of the Bill of Rights. (The original bill also included two other amendments, one of which eventually became the 27th Amendment when it was ratified on May 7, 1992.) For those who relish anniversaries, tomorrow you can cherish the Boston Tea Party, which took place on that day in 1773.
In the meantime, it is worth pausing to remember how seriously the Founders took something like the enumerated powers. Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 84, ?I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?” Hamilton, of course one of the most expansive among the Founders in his view of the national government, sought controls on power lest it come to people like King George III.
Imagine, public officials who proclaimed that ?things shall not be done? without explicit authority from the Constitution. It really introduces a sense of tragedy to the column John Hood wrote last week. On a more positive note, Hamilton provides precisely the type of thinking that I hope informs the loya jirga ? grand council ? that has just convened in Afghanistan to draft a post-Taliban constitution.
