Causes of the American Devolution
Can the federal government command us in every area of life? Are the feds the supreme law of the land? NO! The Constitution is the law that governs the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and it leaves almost all civil power in the hands of the states and the people. So how is it that the federal government now regulates the ingredients in your toothpaste? What caused the American republic to devolve into a bloated federal empire?
Here is how things were supposed to be...
With the ratification of the Constitution, thirteen united States delegated specific powers to a federal government made up of elected representatives from each state in the union. This federal government could only exercise powers delegated to it in the covenant document called the Constitution.
John Jay confirms this understanding in Federalist Paper #2, “The general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic.” Hamilton agreed in Federalist Paper #33, “All authorities, of which the States are not explicitly divested in favor of the Union, remain with them in full vigor.”
This understanding of our government was codified in the 10th amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Thus, we were originally established as a Constitutional republic that left most authority in the hands of the states and the people. Family, church, and local governments were the real powers behind the American republic.
Resistance to Early Federal Usurpations
Very early, however, the federal government began to assume authority not delegated to it by the Constitution. Several states resisted these usurpations in the early years of the republic. The New England states resisted federal expansion during the War of 1812, even considering secession at the Hartford Convention in 1814. Valiant statesmen continued to resist federal encroachments throughout the mid-1800s until the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, prompted South Carolina to take the ultimate step of resistance by seceding from the union.
The End of the Resistance
Lincoln ultimately refused to acknowledge a state's right of secession and requisitioned troops from the other states in order to invade South Carolina. He was determined to force the state's submission to the federal government. Since the Constitution did not give the federal government power to use armed force against a state, this usurpation of authority moved Virginia to secede from the union. Mr. Lincoln then proceeded to invade Virginia, resulting in a war that devastated the land and changed forever the nature of our voluntary union.
Increasing Centralization
After the war, the centralization of power in the federal government steadily increased, while state and local authority diminished. The 20th century saw the tentacles of federal authority worm their way into every area of human life, regulating business, education, medicine, and even milk.
The devolution of the United States government from a limited, decentralized, representative government to an unlimited centralized federal power was not just the result of a war. It was the result of a religious change.
Once upon a time a Decentralized Protestant Republic...
Early Americans were largely Protestant in their thinking, and they ordered society according to their religious beliefs. In accord with the Scriptures' teaching, they placed the greatest authority in the hands of those who were closest to those they governed. The greatest authority was in the hands of the family. Parents governed the health, education, and welfare of the family, even regulating diet, clothing, and table manners in their children.
The next greatest authority in the lives of Americans was the church, which taught and disciplined their members, and through them shaped their communities. As Alexis de Tocqueville noted, "Almost all education is entrusted to the clergy." The protestant church once taught and shaped the culture of the American people.
The local civil government was the authority that dealt with the everyday administration of justice. The average American rarely had any dealings with state or federal officials. Alexis de Tocqueville said in 1835, “The prominent feature of the administration in the United States is its excessive decentralization.”
A New God Arose
As Americans, however, began to neglect the true God and look to the state for help, the authority of the family and the church diminished while humanistic federal power expanded. The decentralized biblical social order was displaced by a federal government that sought to regulate the health, education and welfare of a vast nation.
Education by the church, a voluntary association, was replaced with state-controlled education and compulsory attendance. Having been 'set free' from family and church, Americans became enslaved to the state. “When people forget God, tyrants forge their chains.”
Hope for A New American Revolution
Forgetting God and our Constitutional covenant spawned the 'American Devolution.' Thus, for the moment, the kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over us, and we foolishly call them ‘benefactors.’ When, however, we again confess Jesus as King of Kings, there is hope that He shall free us from these petty tyrants in a new American Revolution. For it is in slavery to Christ that men find true liberty. “If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”