The God of the Machine

CHAPTER XV

The Fatal Amendments

The United States is the Age of the Dynamo. By carrying over the axiom of free will from religious to political doctrine, a Niagara of kinetic energy was released. The swelling flow calls for maximum firmness of the bases and of tensile strength in the structure, and the minimum obstructive form or action. Unhappily every alteration, except two, in the Constitution, subsequent to the Bill of Rights, was of a contrary type. *

* The Bill of Rights is integrally of the original Constitution, being "the price of ratification." It Is an itemized safeguard of the rights of the Individual, and of state sovereignty. The only objection then offered to it was that enumeration of individual rights might be construed as limiting them to the issues named or as implying that the primary right of the individual is not comprehensive—the European idea of "liberties" instead of the American liberty. The point seemed far-fetched, it was certainly far-sighted, for of late that very perversion has been proposed, in a cheap parody, with the phrases "freedom from want, freedom from fear," etc. However, it is impossible to make any instrument fool-proo and the Bill of Rights has served admirably in practical application.

The test may be applied to any amendment by general questions: Does the amendment deny the rights of the individual? Does it weaken the bases by impairing the states as political entities? Does it add to the gross bulk or tend to improper distribution of the weight of the superstructure? If it does any of these things, it must turn the beneficial operation of a high energy system into a danger of equal magnitude.

Further, all these injurious effects are interacting; one amendment may inflict dual damage; and one impairment will cause occasion or excuse for another. As the structure cracks, sags, or sways, disrupting the private economy, the alternating attack by the zealous amenders will be plied more furiously. There is a progressive increase in chronological frequency of amendments to the Constitution. And the full consequences are compounded and cumulative, becoming manifest after a lapse of time all at once in a general collapse. They are also aggravated by a concurrent drift in judicial decisions, and extensions of the political power by simple usurpation. A sedition act is such usurpation; there is no authority for it in the Constitution, and there was wrathful protest on the first occasion; now it is accepted casually, with little comment except suggestions to enlarge it, frequently at the behest of alleged "liberals."

An early usurpation long forgotten as an event, yet still in force, took effect after over a century, in 1933, with the confiscation of private property in gold. When John Jay was Chief Justice, the first to hold the position, and as one of the authors of The Federalist, surely acquainted with the nature of the Constitution, he gave a verdict sustaining the right of the citizen to sue the government. Jay said that the American theory, origin, and form of government was a departure from the European idea on just that issue, the precedent right of the citizen over the state. By the American theory, Jay said, the government is the agent of the citizen, having only delegated authority; and it is absurd to hold that a person may not sue his agent. Subsequently Jay was reversed, though he cannot be refuted. But since then the citizen has been at the mercy of government in the United States as if he were the subject of a king; he cannot even plead for redress of wrong done him by the government, without permission. And the very first amendment (Article XI) after the Bill of Rights extends this usurped prerogative to the several states as against citizens of other states. The next amendment (XII) is technical.

Sixty-two years elapsed without further alteration, until the one positively right amendment was made, the Thirteenth, which limits the political power by debarring slavery.

The Fourteenth Amendment confirmed Federal citizenship and the civil rights of citizens throughout the Union. But it would have been better if the Bill of Rights had been explicitly extended to bind the state governments. This would not have relegated various issues to "implied powers," a wretched and dangerous subterfuge.

The Fifteenth Amendment fatally perpetuated the destruction wrought by the Reconstruction Act. It deprived the states of an indispensable attribute of state sovereignty, the exclusive power to designate the qualifications of voters, originally reserved to them by the Constitution.

The proper use of a necessary power and the proper agency for its use are entirely different questions. Control of the external borders of the nation rightly pertains to the Federal government, the organization representing the full territorial extent. The Federal government has certainly discriminated between races in quotas for entry. Possibly the line drawn is morally wrong; it may be unjustifiable even to reject refugees. Great nations have always been liberal in admission of persons. Nevertheless, it is necessary that the Federal government should have the power of the border; otherwise the nation cannot remain in being.

To form a true and workable federation, the component states must cede the attribute of sovereignty of the border. But they must retain a legitimate control over admission to the state's body politic, to preserve their political entities. This is the power to admit to the franchise. Race, color, or previous condition of servitude are irrelevant. They ought not to be considered disqualifications. The correct qualifications lie in local residence and allegiance and real property. Only in these requirements can a moral principle be found. If the franchise calls for qualification at all, it is clearly conditional, not absolute. So far as the conditions are practical, they must relate to the function of the instrument. The action is that of measured extension from a permanent base, so it must be attached to immovable local property. Liquid capital will not do.*

* The ownership and residence in a slab shack with a potato patch is a sound qualification for the vote, while ownership of every share of stock in the Standard Oil Company is not.

These qualifications are moral as well as material, being all within the competence of the individual; a responsible person can fulfill them by his own choice and efforts. But it is absolutely necessary that the power to designate qualifications should also be in the state. If the Federal government has power to fix or alter any particular, even negatively, it has the ultimate full power of fixing all requirements by particulars. And a defect running through the whole structure is much more grave than a localized error.

Interference in this manner is by decomposition. It was forty years before the decomposition of the bases became fully apparent; but it made the next attack possible, when a national function was nullified, by the income tax amendment. Previously no direct or personal tax could be laid except in proportion to the population. Then the action would be equated in every voter and representative. If a tax were proposed, each would know that he must pay a proportionate share; while if any region were to receive an extra share in expenditure (as in river or harbor works, etc.), its influence would be greatly outweighed by that of the other areas. Mass inertia is the stabilizing function; it inheres in any ponderable material; but it is best understood when it is supplied separately, as in ballast. The weight (gravity) is the power; its use is in a constant relation to a center of gravity. When the interest of every voter must be practically the same, the center of gravity was a constant even though the particles of ballast were mobile. But when the Federal government could mulct a wealthy state in taxes disproportionate to the population, to buy out a poor state by expenditures disproportionate to the population, the equation vanished. The mass-inertia veto was lost. (The weight, the interest, thereafter took effect in unbalance, as uncompartmented liquid ballast surging from side to side, dislocated mass.)

Probably the majority of people had no comprehension of these altered relations. They thought of it in simple terms of taxing the rich, perhaps with a vague infantile further expectation that the proceeds would be "given to the poor." Money obtained from the rich in any form except wages is never given to the poor. If it is taken by an ordinary hold-up man, it goes to the hold-up man. If it is taken by a philanthropic organization, it goes to the organization. If it is taken by the government, it goes to the politicians. Neither does increased taxation of the rich lower the rate of taxation on the poor; it is bound to cause an increase in all taxation, reaching down inchmeal until it expropriates a portion, not merely of the last dollar of a poor man, but of the first dollar he can earn. The tax will have to be paid before he can even touch his earnings. The present tax on wages, accurately described as "the Social Security swindle," could not have been imposed under the original Constitution; it is validated only by the income tax amendment. There is no means by which "the rich" can be taxed without ultimately taxing "the poor" far more heavily. And one tax tends to increase all other taxes, instead of lessening them, because tax expenditure goes into things which require upkeep and yield no return (public buildings and political jobs). Kinetic energy has been converted into static forms, which then necessitate the diversion of more kinetic energy to carry the dead-load.

The final and formal stroke in disestablishing the states was the Seventeenth Amendment, which took the election of Senators out of the State Legislature and gave it to the popular vote. Since then the states have had no connection with the Federal government; representation in both Houses of Congress rests only on dislocated mass. The simultaneous abdication of both Houses in 1933 was the result. They were not thrust apart, they did not even fall apart, because they were no longer in any structural relation whatever, neither to mass nor to each other nor to the superstructure. They had simply ceased to function. The immediate appearance of an enormous bureaucracy was the natural phenomenon of the structureless nation.

Concurrently and by interaction with these political events, the productive economy was distorted, and energy diverted into the political channel. The Civil War precipitated the sequence. The looting of the defeated Southern states (under the direction of philanthropists as usual in collaboration with crooks), was most demoralizing because the political power pretended to legitimacy in the acts of extortion. Scoundrels were immune within the law, while honest men were forced to revert to the primitive pre-legal mode of association; the chief, informal council and posse comitatus. There was no government, there was only force, the moral control having been disconnected. People lived by the moral order; they cannot survive otherwise; but the ancient and erroneous identification of government with force became plausible again. Likewise politics became lucrative.

Generally speaking, up to the Civil War any man seeking political honors expected to do so at some financial loss to himself; he lived by his private means. It is only when this condition prevails that men of intelligence, integrity, and good taste—the productive character—will be inclined to enter public life. Lord Acton was referring to political power when he said: "All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Political power has this effect by its relation to production. The productive man is aware that political expenditure is a charge upon production, net expense. He does not like to live at the expense of others. If he is obliged to forego in his private earnings more than he receives in the remuneration of office, though he may not be sure that he has earned his salary, he is at least certain that he did not seek office as a parasite. It is to be observed that today the men who refuse to accept any pay for government positions are without exception those who have been most actively engaged in production, industrial managers. The previous "social workers," professional politicians, and persons with unearned incomes, are distinguished by the eagerness with which they attach themselves to the political payroll, or turn their political position to incidental gain. They are not aware of any objective in political life except parasitism. The parasitical view of politics was formulated unconsciously when the argument began to be heard that larger salaries, perquisites, more ostentatious public buildings, embassies, and uniforms must be 'provided to maintain the dignity of office. If a position is rated by its expense or display, obviously it must be deemed wanting in intrinsic dignity or worth. The ambassadors who feared that in ordinary clothes they might be taken for waiters were probably right. No one would have taken Franklin, Adams, or Jefferson for a lackey.

It is this derogation of values that the productive man dislikes. Further, he knows he will be constantly importuned for favors he has no right to grant, by the parasites he would never meet in productive life. Hence the best men are found in public life only when it is dangerous, burdensome, and at their own expense.

The cost and display of government is always in inverse ratio to the liberty and prosperity of the citizens, as with the impoverished nation and magnificent monarchy of Louis XIV. Today, when our agriculture is in distress, the Department of Agriculture grows like a monstrous fungus. The huge Department of Commerce grew as international trade dwindled and internal commerce dived into the depression.

Further, political power has a ratchet action; it works only one way, to augment itself. A transfer occurs by which the power cannot be retracted, once it is bestowed. In the lowest illustration of this, a candidate for office may promise the voters that he will reduce taxes, or the number of offices, or the powers of office. But once he is elected, he can use the taxes, the officeholders, or the powers to ensure re-election; therefore the motive of the promise is no longer operative. By cutting down expenditure or the number of officeholders or graft, he will certainly create enemies, so the reverse motive, impelling him to evade his promise, is doubled. The voter can only vote the incumbent out; but the next officeholder will come into those augmented powers, and be still harder to get rid of in turn. The difficulty of taking back powers once granted is illustrated in the repeal of the Prohibition Amendment; although it was demanded and carried by overwhelming sentiment of the citizens, the article of repeal contained a proviso which would retain numerous Federal jobs; it was impossible to make a clean sweep of the pernicious usurped power. The Prohibition Amendment was an assertion of absolute government, the indication of complete decomposition of the body politic. The "lame duck" amendment is a triviality indicating nothing but the degradation of the charter, a scribble on the margin.