… [T]he framers were not visionaries. They knew that rules of government, however brilliantly calculated to cope with the imperfect nature of man, however carefully designed to avoid the pitfalls of power, would be no match for men who were determined to disregard them. In the last analysis, their system of government would prosper only if the governed were sufficiently determined that it should.So this is what we ourselves have been up against since the end of the war. The United Kingdom had it set upon themselves before the war, with Churchill giving a brief reprive, but rapidly reverted with Attlee’s leadership.
“What have you given us?” a woman asked Ben Franklin toward the close of the Constitutional Convention. “A Republic,” he said, “if you can keep it!”
We have not kept it. The [Dean] Achesons and [Arthur] Larsons have had their way. The system of restraints has fallen into disrepair. The federal government has moved into every field in which it believes its services are needed. The state governments are either excluded from their rightful functions by federal preemption, or they are allowed to act at the sufferance of the federal government. Inside the federal government, both the executive and judicial branches have roamed far outside their constitutional boundary lines. And all of these things have come to pass without regard to the amendment procedures prescribed by Article V.
The result is a Leviathan, a vast national authority out of touch with the people, and out of their control. This monolith of power is bounded only by the will of those who sit in high places. …
— The Conscience of a Conservative (1960), ch. 2, pp. 19-20
Agreed.