Commentary, commentary yet more commentary

Commentary given at a Hot Air Green Room posting by Doctor Zero on Night of the yeoman.

In arguing that the yeoman reappear in the Republican party, there is a point missed about America and Americans.

My original text has had a spelling error or two changed, but all else remains the same for the amusement of the populace.

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There are also Americans that understand the following, but those that are attached to the corrupt system cannot fathom:

But this act does not permit competition in the purchase of this monopoly. It seems to be predicated on the erroneous idea that the present stockholders have a prescriptive right not only to the favor but to the bounty of Government. It appears that more than a fourth part of the stock is held by foreigners and the residue is held by a few hundred of our own citizens, chiefly of the richest class. For their benefit does this act exclude the whole American people from competition in the purchase of this monopoly and dispose of it for many millions less than it is worth. This seems the less excusable because some of our citizens not now stockholders petitioned that the door of competition might be opened, and offered to take a charter on terms much more favorable to the Government and country.

But this proposition, although made by men whose aggregate wealth is believed to be equal to all the private stock in the existing bank, has been set aside, and the bounty of our Government is proposed to be again bestowed on the few who have been fortunate enough to secure the stock and at this moment wield the power of the existing institution. I can not perceive the justice or policy of this course. If our Government must sell monopolies, it would seem to be its duty to take nothing less than their full value, and if gratuities must be made once in fifteen or twenty years let them not be bestowed on the subjects of a foreign government nor upon a designated and favored class of men in our own country. It is but justice and good policy, as far as the nature of the case will admit, to confine our favors to our own fellow-citizens, and let each in his turn enjoy an opportunity to profit by our bounty. In the bearings of the act before me upon these points I find ample reasons why it should not become a law.

Back in the days when the legislative branch understood that the gifts bestowed by them in the name of the people must come up for review, the licensing of companies put into a secured government position must come up for a re-vote. Thus corruption is countered by having the very question of 'if' such a body should be held by the government is addressed often so as to review the corruption of such institutions helped in the name of the people. What has happened is a class of federal bodies has been formed with the largesse of the people, with a permanent grant into our treasury, that have NO re-vote ever cast upon them. They become havens for corruption and then feed that corruption back into the system with those who formed them and supporting them getting kickbacks from those organizations. Thus federal money is put in support of politicians, not the government, and the depth of corruption becomes commonplace and those wanting to stop it are then decried as 'neophytes' or 'dreamers' and the system is supported as 'good' or 'helpful' while they, in fact, drain the accounts of the people unaccountably. When laws are drafted to help some over others, to support federal corporations against their private counter-parts, and when the power of government is granted unaccountably, you do not get sweetness, light and the wisest governing. You get rulers and a ruling class. In that era it was a bank, a far reaching, federally authorized bank that did things that were not allowed by the Constitution and secured money for the rich and powerful, and put the common man at a disadvantage. Yet the cries of that age echo again:

The principle here affirmed is that the "degree of its necessity," involving all the details of a banking institution, is a question exclusively for legislative consideration. A bank is constitutional, but it is the province of the Legislature to determine whether this or that particular power, privilege, or exemption is "necessary and proper" to enable the bank to discharge its duties to the Government, and from their decision there is no appeal to the courts of justice. Under the decision of the Supreme Court, therefore, it is the exclusive province of Congress and the President to decide whether the particular features of this act are necessary and proper in order to enable the bank to perform conveniently and efficiently the public duties assigned to it as a fiscal agent, and therefore constitutional, or unnecessary and improper, and therefore unconstitutional.

We hear the cry, today, of 'too big to fail' and taking corporations over as a 'necessity'. That those federally granted corporations now taking over the majority of home loans, thus having a stake in them, is 'good' no matter how much red ink they bleed of our expense. This is a shirking of responsibility of the first order and against the fundamental system of review by our representatives, who we grant the power to use in our name in a limited way. It is not that such corporations are 'convenient' or 'necessary', it is that they are unaccountable:

On two subjects only does the Constitution recognize in Congress the power to grant exclusive privileges or monopolies. It declares that "Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." Out of this express delegation of power have grown our laws of patents and copyrights. As the Constitution expressly delegates to Congress the power to grant exclusive privileges in these cases as the means of executing the substantive power " to promote the progress of science and useful arts," it is consistent with the fair rules of construction to conclude that such a power was not intended to be granted as a means of accomplishing any other end. On every other subject which comes within the scope of Congressional power there is an ever-living discretion in the use of proper means, which can not be restricted or abolished without an amendment of the Constitution. Every act of Congress, therefore, which attempts by grants of monopolies or sale of exclusive privileges for a limited time, or a time without limit, to restrict or extinguish its own discretion in the choice of means to execute its delegated powers is equivalent to a legislative amendment of the Constitution, and palpably unconstitutional.

A limit of time is necessary so that institutions and their venues do not trump the public will as it is the public will that is the holder of all authority. To insure that such institutions follow our will, they must be renewed on a regular basis... and yet you cannot get that for the Federal Reserve, SEC, Fannie, Freddie, Ginnie, Sallie, and now GM and Chrysler, along with some banks. When the government determines in its biased way who is or is not 'too big to fail' then we become beholden to government, not government to the people. The lax approach of 'so what, I get mine' and 'its all for the good' mask the horrific deed of our government seeking to own our goods, our companies, our land and our liberty in the seizure of same via these unaccountable agencies:

The Government of the United States have no constitutional power to purchase lands within the States except "for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings," and even for these objects only "by the consent of the legislature of the State in which the same shall be." By making themselves stockholders in the bank and granting to the corporation the power to purchase lands for other purposes they assume a power not granted in the Constitution and grant to others what they do not themselves possess. It is not necessary to the receiving, safe-keeping, or transmission of the funds of the Government that the bank should possess this power, and it is not proper that Congress should thus enlarge the powers delegated to them in the Constitution.

If the power is not granted to the federal government to do these things, then they can be neither necessary or proper, no matter how 'convenient' those actions are. The concept of rule of law is that the law knows no favorites and prefers to use the sword of justice to chop off the thumb on the scale rather than allow it. If these powers were seen as not necessary and proper, then it behooves the American public to take those agencies and corporations to court to ask where the federal government gets the power to seize lands and property without due process of law and without consultation of the States in plural. The federal government can no more 'invest' in these property bearing entities than it can in your home, save via grant from each State for each piece of land. Not accumulated and aggregated, but piecemeal as that is a necessary protection of you from your government. From all this and more, much more, the summation of why such things should not be continued, should not be upheld and should be countered rings as true today as it did when first given:

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society-the farmers, mechanics, and laborers-who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government. There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just principles.

Nor is our Government to be maintained or our Union preserved by invasions of the rights and powers of the several States. In thus attempting to make our General Government strong we make it weak. Its true strength consists in leaving individuals and States as much as possible to themselves-in making itself felt, not in its power, but in its beneficence; not in its control, but in its protection; not in binding the States more closely to the center, but leaving each to move unobstructed in its proper orbit.

Experience should teach us wisdom. Most of the difficulties our Government now encounters and most of the dangers which impend over our Union have sprung from an abandonment of the legitimate objects of Government by our national legislation, and the adoption of such principles as are embodied in this act. Many of our rich men have not been content with equal protection and equal benefits, but have besought us to make them richer by act of Congress. By attempting to gratify their desires we have in the results of our legislation arrayed section against section, interest against interest, and man against man, in a fearful commotion which threatens to shake the foundations of our Union. It is time to pause in our career to review our principles, and if possible revive that devoted patriotism and spirit of compromise which distinguished the sages of the Revolution and the fathers of our Union. If we can not at once, in justice to interests vested under improvident legislation, make our Government what it ought to be, we can at least take a stand against all new grants of monopolies and exclusive privileges, against any prostitution of our Government to the advancement of the few at the expense of the many, and in favor of compromise and gradual reform in our code of laws and system of political economy.

Never forget that what we have today is not the only way and that if we grow used to the festering sore we shall be consumed by it.