The Stakes in the Midterm Elections: Are We Citizens or Subject?

James Madison, referring to a bill to subsidize cod fishermen introduced to the First Congress said,

If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands;they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, everything, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress…. Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.”

Prior to that, in Federalist 41, Madison wrote,

Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,” amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction.”

Madison’s incredible forethought underscores exactly what all Americans are facing today as we move into the November 2^nd Election.

With all the important national issues of the jobless recovery, the obvious need and desire to repeal Obamacare, the runaway National Debt and all the financially unsustainable government spending, the one overriding issue that is not being clearly debated is the choice between central authority control of all aspects of our lives and the restoration of individual liberty as our Founders intended. Make no mistake about it, and James Madison knew this, the shortest distance in a free society is the distance between being citizens living free and being subjects whose lives are controlled by government.

From before the ratification of the Constitution, as is evidenced by the necessity of the Federalist Papers arguing for its passage, to the early beginnings of the First Congress there were those who sought to establish themselves as rulers rather than representatives of the people. These individuals wanted the government to be the basis for their rule and sought more power for such government than originally granted to it by the Constitution.

Our current 111^th Congress controlled by the Democratic Party, along with the Obama Administration, honestly believes that government should be the final arbiter in most if not all aspects of our lives. They want education, health care, energy usage, wages, prices and even private property rights to be distributed as government deems to be fair. This is the main issue while all those areas they seek to control are only related to it.

The opposing view is that all of these areas should be left to individual citizens to determine for themselves; that we have equal opportunity in America not the guarantee of equal outcome; that we have the God given right to the pursuit of happiness not to the achievement of the same; that we have the freedom to fail as much as we have the freedom to succeed; and that our toil and persistence will determine winning from losing, not some central authority.

There has never before in our history as a nation been a distinction as clear as this one, a choice between living under governmental control and living free. The coming election may be the most important election in our history. Yes, it is about the candidates, local issues, broad national themes relative to the economy and national defense, but at its core is the fundamental structure of our society. We have a choice that will determine not only how various issues will be worked out, but how our children and generations to come will define themselves relative to government.

When we go to the polls on November 2^nd, we need to keep James Madison’s words in our minds and a desire for individual liberty in our hearts. We need to vote out those who seek to consolidate more power to the government and elect those who will restore more liberty to the people. We need to reject the sweet siren call of government entitlements, which is a false call that will collapse under the weight of fiscal irresponsibility. We must accept the more difficult path of self-reliance and individual liberty, so that our children will live in a society where they are higher than the government and have the right to live free of arbitrary authority.