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Beware the Politician Who Speaks of Limited Government

Beware the Politician Who Speaks of Limited Government

by Scott Ott, editor in chief of ScrappleFace.com,

When I read the speech, given by a governor of one of these United States, I thought, ‘We have finally found the politician who understands limited, Constitutional, Republican government — in which the people and the states delegate specific powers to the Federal government, and retain all others to themselves.’


It is, perhaps, the best brief analysis I have read of this clear Constitutional principle. I wish only that I had seen him deliver the speech in person, but you will come to understand why I did not. I have excerpted it below, then added a warning.

“Wisely or unwisely people know that under the Eighteenth Amendment [alcohol prohibition, later repealed] Congress has been given the right to legislate on this particular subject, but this is not the case in the matter of a great number of other vital problems of government, such as the conduct of public utilities, of banks, of insurance, of business, of agricultural, of education, of social welfare and of a dozen other important features. In these, Washington must not be encouraged to interfere.”


“The proper relations between the government of the United States and the governments of the separate States thereof depend entirely, in their legal aspects, on what powers have been voluntarily ceded to the central government by the States themselves. What these powers of government are is contained in our Federal Constitution, either by direct language, by judicial interpretation thereof during many years, or by implication so plain as to have been recognized by the people generally.”


“Thus it was clear to the framers of our Constitution that the greatest possible liberty of self-government must be given to each State, and that any national administration attempting to make all laws for the whole Nation, such as was wholly practical in Great Britain, would inevitably result at some future time in the dissolution of the union itself.”

“The preservation of this ‘Home Rule’ by the States is not a cry of jealous Commonwealths seeking their own aggrandizement at the expense of sister States. It is a fundamental necessity if we are to remain a truly united country.”


“The doctrine of regulation and legislation by ‘master minds’, in whose judgement and will all the people may gladly and quietly acquiesce, has been too glaringly apparent at Washington during these last ten years. Were it possible to find ‘master minds’ so unselfish, so willing to decide unhesitatingly against their own personal interests or private prejudices, men almost god-like in their ability to hold the scales of Justice with an even hand, such a government might be to the
interest of the country, but there are none such on our political horizon, and we cannot expect a complete reversal of all the teachings of history.”


“Now to bring about government by oligarchy masquerading as democracy, it is fundamentally essential that practically all authority and control be centralized in our National Government. The individual sovereignty of our States must first be destroyed, except in mere minor matters of legislation. We are safe from the danger of any such departure from the principles on which this country was founded just so long as the individual home rule of the States is scrupulously preserved and fought for whenever it seems in danger.”

The governor who delivered this speech was Franklin D. Roosevelt, of New York, on March 2, 1930. You may read the complete text of the speech here. Please do.


On the basis of such an address, FDR would have earned my vote for President of the United States.

After reading this, in the context of my knowledge of his subsequent behavior, in direct contravention of nearly all he here espoused, I recognize the risk we face in November 2010.


Lately, many have gone forth in the land, or sprung up seemingly from the grassroots, proclaiming similar sentiments, perhaps not so eloquently as FDR. But ‘right thinking’ about the Constitution provides no assurance of right action once elected. Many recently-awakened and patriotic Americans run the risk of a
devastating, demoralization when they discover that their favored ‘grassroots’ candidates likewise cannot withstand the gale-force wind of power and influence. Whether FDR really meant these words, or was simply singing a Siren song designed to draw the sailors toward the cliffs, we cannot surely know.


What we can know is that those upon whom we have so recently cast our hopes, because they say what we wish to hear, are as vulnerable to ignorance, temptation and malevolence as any who came before. We must not place our hope in man. We know what’s in a man, for we are likewise weak. First, Constitutional limits must be restored, the States re-animated and the individual re-liberated. Otherwise, November will signify a mere changing of the guard, new name tags for our jailers.


Scott Ott is editor in chief of ScrappleFace.com, the world’s leading family-friendly news satire source, and a co-host of the thrice-weekly news commentary and humor show,Trifecta (with Bill Whittle and Steve Green) on PJTV. His non-satirical text, video and audio work can be enjoyed at ScottOtt.org

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