Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804) was a Federalist. He was in favor of creating a strong federal government. Yet when we look at the REAL extent of power that even the Federalists advocated, we would pray for such rights today. Hamilton’s celebrated communication to the Senate of January 20th, 1795, said it all:
“[W]hen a government enters into a contract with an individual, it deposes, as to the matter of the contract, its constitutional authority, and exchanges the character of legislator for that of a moral agent, with the same rights and obligations as an individual. Its promises may be justly considered as excepted out of its power to legislate, unless in aid of them. It is in theory impossible to reconcile the idea of a promise which obliges, with a power to make a law which can vary the effect of it.”
3 Hamilton’s Works, 518, 519
Can you imagine that the idea of a Federal Government was that when it promised something, it laid down its mantle of supreme power and then it was on equal footing with the individual? Oh! If only this could be restored.
Another long forgotten principle was by the Act of May 1878, all debt had to be established with a sinking fund. In other words, debt could not be entered into without an intent to pay it off. The Supreme Court ruled that Congress even had the power to compel such fiscal responsibility upon corporations, see In Re Sinking Funds Cases 99 US 700 (1878). If we only had statesmen today instead of irresponsible dictators who stay in office forever and pretend to be representing the people. Only old age gets rid of them. Can you imagine that BEFORE the United States turned Marxist in 1890 with the first passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act and the attempt to create an Income Tax that was held to be unconstitutional in 1895, Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Company, 157 U.S. 429 (1895), you actually had a law that said debts had to be paid off? Oh, what fiscal irresponsibility has led us to today. All rights, privileges, and immunities are gone all because government needs money perpetually.
