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September 17th is Constitution Day. This day commemorates the day the U.S. Constitution was signed by 39 courageous Americans in 1787. The document these men created is the best blueprint for the organization of society yet devised. This document has allowed the people in the United States to prosper beyond the wildest dreams of every preceding generation. The government these men created was no accident. It was the result of extensive examination of all preceding governments, the problems inherent is dictatorial regimes, and, perhaps most important, the realization that freedom is a gift endowed by the Creator to which every human is entitled.

Not all of the men gathered in Philadelphia accepted the notion that black people were entitled to freedom. In fact, some of the men considered black people to be property. This difference of opinion almost destroyed the new government before it was created. Honest men, sincerely seeking a better government found a compromise that satisfied neither side, but was an acceptable way to postpone the resolution until another day.

The most distinguishing characteristic of the new government was its limitation of power. Article 1, Section 8 sets forth the specific powers the federal government may exercise. The 10th Amendment further defines this limitation by reserving all powers not delegated to the federal government, "...to the states respectively or to the people."

The government created by the Constitution is a republic, not a democracy. The Constitution requires that the federal government guarantee that every state operate as a republic. Moreover, the government was divided into three co-equal branches: legislative, judicial, and executive.

The genius of the Constitution is the built-in tension that must exist between the members of Congress, the two houses of Congress, between the Congress and the Executive, and between the Judiciary and both the Congress and the Executive. This design requires that each participant and each branch continuously fight to keep others, and the other branches of government, from usurping their power.

The system worked reasonably well until the Roosevelt administration. Much of Roosevelt's New Deal exercised powers not enumerated in Article 1, Section 8. When the Supreme Court began to nullify elements of his New Deal, Roosevelt tried unsuccessfully to expand the Supreme Court in order to appoint more judges who would uphold his expansion of powers.

To some extent, every President since Roosevelt has tried to expand presidential powers, and every Congress has turned a blind eye to the limitations of power imposed by Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. Consequently, the government now in power in Washington has abandoned any care or concern about the constitutional limitations of power, and some are even trying to revamp the Supreme Court to insure that it poses no threat to the power-grabbing aspiration of the new crowd in Washington.

Much has been said about the similarity of circumstances between the election of Roosevelt and the ascension of Obama. Perhaps the greatest similarity is that neither man recognized the Constitutional limitations imposed by Article 1, Section 8, and the 10th Amendment.

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