A Limiting Document?

There is a common mantra among those who pursue the old republican principles of freedom and limited government that the Constitution limits the power of the central government, and therefore if we just followed the document everything would be ok; if it were only that simple. They are not entirely wrong, but the characterization of the Constitution as a “limiting document” is only partly true.

During the great "sales job" of 1787 and 1788, proponents of the Constitution swore that the powers of the central government, as enumerated in the Constitution, could never be enlarged or enhanced. The Constitution, it was said, differed from the English model because it was a written document, as opposed to the unwritten British model of common law that could fluctuate with the will of ambitious and unscrupulous judges. The only interpretation could be found in the language of the document itself, and if the general government exceeded its constituted authority, the people were no longer duty bound to follow such tyranny. Alexander Hamilton said as much in the Federalist essays, as did other proponents of the document, such as James Iredell of North Carolina, George Nicholas and Edmund Randolph of Virginia, and James Wilson of Pennsylvania, among others.

More