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The Big Government Sponge: Part 2

Examining how our freedoms fared when we yielded them in favor of security.

The Big Government Sponge: Part 2

See Part 1 Here

We Americans love our Freedom and Liberty! Why, then are we willing to give it away to a central government that absorbs power like a sponge?

In times of crisis, we have proven to be a people who prefer security to freedom -a sad truth of human nature, but a lesson to be kept at the front of our minds, especially when crises become convenient opportunities for the sponge to absorb power. Rom Emanual’s famous tagline, “Never let a crisis go to waste,” comes to mind.

Last time we examined the first of six major crises in American History where We the People voluntarily yielded our freedoms to the central government, and how we wrung out the sponge to get much of that freedom back – the great story of the Constitutional Convention and the ratification of the Bill of Rights.

We move now to the next two major crises and examine how our freedoms fared when we yielded them in favor of security.

The War Between the States:

An existential crisis for certain, the splitting of our nation called for emergency powers to save the Republic. Extreme executive and legislative measures were employed during the war including Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus and with it, suspension of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments. Any speech against the regime was punishable by immediate incarceration without due process or appeal. Newspapers were seized and free speech was repressed.

The first Federal Income Tax was levied (unconstitutionally of course), and private property was expropriated. Life, Liberty, and Property were no longer secured by our fundamental document.

It can be argued that temporary tyrannical measures in times of war and national emergency are acceptable assuming they are temporary, and expire immediately upon the conclusion of the crisis. Unfortunately, crises tend to not end cleanly or abruptly, and power once yielded is never fully restored. Once the sponge has absorbed, it returns less liquid when wrung out.

The Income Tax was finally ruled unconstitutional and would remain so until the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913. (More on that later). Most other constitutional “suspensions” were over time restored, but the years of Reconstruction inevitably led to the era of “Big Government” as we had never known it. The sponge absorbed.

The Rise of Marxism:

The Progressive era in the United States coincided with the rise of Marxism, Socialism, and Communism in Europe. Our Republic was much more robust in allowing free speech and decent than the monarchies of Europe. Revolution was never a real threat to our Constitutional Republic as was the case in the Russian Empire, Germany, and other European empires. The tides of socialism nonetheless tugged at the shores of American political thought.

In fact, by design, our Constitution allowed for changing political thought to reshape the founding document to conform with the wishes of the progressive leanings of “We the People” during the first two decades of the twentieth century.

Our “March to Folly,” led us as a Nation to ratify amendments in quick succession, that would unravel our freedoms as we knew them, and change our Republic forever.

Nineteen-thirteen was a very bad year. The zeal to make taxation “fair,” led to the Sixteenth Amendment which not only allowed taxation based on personal income from any source but changed the way the Federal Government allocates taxation from the state to the individual. No longer do the states fund the operation of the Federal Government, but the hand of the Federal tax collector is in the pocket of every citizen. Now the Feds can collect taxes DIRECTLY and dole money back to states as they see fit – an erosion of personal freedom AND state rights under the tenth amendment.

Also in 1913, we ratified the Seventeenth Amendment allowing US Senators to be elected by the people rather than appointed by State Legislatures. The founders created Senate appointments for a very specific reason – to allow each state to have equal representation in the upper chamber of Congress and to allow state legislatures to have essential control of how they were represented. The lower house was to be the “democratic – people’s house” while the upper house was to ensure state representation. A zeal for “democracy” had the unintended consequences of completing the neutering of the tenth amendment in one swoop.

So, three crises down and three to go. The grade is steepening and the train is picking up speed, but as they would say in the 1920s: “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” Next stop the Great Depression and the New Deal. Buckle up!

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Created:	2023-09-03 17:54 GMT
Updated:	2023-09-15 07:00 GMT
Published:	2023-09-08 04:00 GMT
Converted:	2025-11-11 12:02 GMT
Change Author:	Michael Harper
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