Jul 5, 2018 3 min read

As a retired high school teacher who taught government classes, I must clarify some points contained in Dave Ball’s June 28 commentary. First, the Constitution was ratified June 21, 1788, not in 1791. The Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. He stated that the Constitution does not provide for the “myriad of agencies which have been created.” A review of Article 2, Section 2, of the Constitution provides for Cabinet departments and any other office or department which the president may create to assist with the work of the Executive Department. In fact, shortly after George Washington became president he quickly created the Departments of State, Treasury, War and Attorney General. Thus, the bureaucracy began. But it is hard to argue that regulations relating to such things as food safety, child labor, workplace safety and protection of air, water and endangered species are not needed.

Ball lists a number of “unalienable rights” which have been created but are not contained in the Constitution, such as abortion, gender identification, free birth control and the right of illegal aliens to health care. I agree that those are not listed, but also not listed are political parties. When the Constitution was drafted and ratified there were no formal parties, only two groups: the Federalists who supported the Constitution and the Anti-Federalists who opposed, and from those groups parties formed early in our history. In fact, with the absence of parties, the framers believed that no candidate would receive the necessary electoral votes to be elected president; therefore, the selection would then go to the House.

In my opinion, from the beginning, parties have not been, for the most part, a positive influence. In the election of 1796, Federalist John Adams was elected president and Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson, vice president. That did not work out well, since Jefferson pretty much refused to do anything Adams requested. In the election of 1800, Adams and Jefferson, and their parties, ran two of the dirtiest campaigns in history. For example, one of Adams’ campaign slogans was “A vote for Jefferson is a vote against God!”

The strict interpretation of the Constitution, which, from my reading, Ball seems to advocate, as do many others, was not envisioned by the framers or they would not have included Article 5, which provides the process to amend and change the Constitution. The framers recognized there would be a need for the Constitution to change with expansion and growth of the country. Sadly, I fear that Benjamin Franklin, on the day the Constitution was signed, may have foreseen our present-day government when he said: “this (the government under the Constitution) is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.” Although he was not a delegate to the convention, Jefferson’s opinion of the Constitution, when he read it, was that each succeeding generation should have the opportunity to rewrite the Constitution to provide for changes in society. In the end, the framers were wise enough to provide for a Supreme Court to have the power to interpret the Constitution and specifically denied that power to the president and Congress.

I used to tell my students, “Those men who wrote the Constitution …. they were really smart guys!” And I still believe that.

Gary Ford

Washington