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Claude Bohn comments on Mark Webster’s book review:

            Mark Webster’s review of John Gordon Steele’s book: “Hamilton’s Blessing,” was a joy to read; and it has left me with a desire to acquire and read this book. Perhaps I should reserve any comments until such time as I have been able to read Mr. Steele’s work; and I may have some additional comments to make at that time, but I should like to comment now on some of the points that are brought up in Mr. Webster’s review in the JeffersonReview.com for March 26, 2001.

            While I will not here debate whether or not a national debt is a blessing or a curse, I will point out that, like most things in life, it depends solely on the degree of national debt. That is, a government without the ability to borrow is, likely to be ineffective; but a government that incurs too much debt, or uses the borrowing power indiscriminately will likely become despotic. As in all things then, moderation is the key.

            Those who, seeing our present government out of control, wish to, once again, harness Leviathan with “the chains of the Constitution,” have placed much emphasis on the Constitution itself and the Federalist Papers. Very little attention however is paid to the prescient words of warning of the “Anti-federalists,” who opposed the adoption of the proposed Constitution and the creation of a strong central State. History, it seems, has justified their fears.

            In his book, entitled: “Our Enemy the State” [I highly recommend you acquire and read this short  (88 pages)   and powerful essay as a companion piece to Mr. Steele’s book], author, Albert Jay Nock writes:

            “Finally, however, a constitutional convention was assembled, on the distinct understanding that it should do no more than revise the Articles [of Confederation] in such a way, as Hamilton cleverly phrased it, as to make them ‘adequate to the exigencies of the nation,’ and on the further understanding that all the thirteen units should assent to the amendments before they went into effect; in short, that the method of amendment provided by the Articles themselves should be followed. Neither understanding was fulfilled. The convention was made up wholly of men representing the economic interests of the first division. [Those being, according to Nock, the “speculating, industrial-commercial and creditor interests, with their natural allies of the bar and bench, the pulpit and the press.”] The great majority of them, possibly as many as four-fifths, were public creditors; one-third were land speculators; some were money-lenders; one-fifth were industrialist, traders, shippers; and many of them were lawyers. They planned and executed a coup d’Etat, simply tossing the Articles of Confederation into the waste-basket, and drafting a constitution de novo, with the audacious provision that it should go into effect when ratified by nine units instead of by all thirteen. Moreover, with like audacity, they provided that the document should not be submitted either to the Congress or to the local legislatures, but that it should go direct to a popular vote!”

            Now I do not wish to give the impression that I would not welcome a return to a strict interpretation of the Constitution as written and intended; as opposed to our present out of control  [and UN-controllable?] government, one restrained by a strict interpretation of the Constitution as originally written and intended would seem to be a thing to be much desired. And any strict interpretation of that document would quickly lead to the elimination of both a central bank and debt based, inflationary paper money! However, it must be remembered, that, the Constitution – even “as written and intended,” is but words on paper. As Mr. Nock points out, at another point in his essay:

 “The interpretation of the Bible, like the judicial interpretation of a constitution, is merely a process by which, as a contemporary of Bishop Butler said, anything may be made to mean anything; and in the absence of a coercive authority, papal, conciliar or judicial, any given interpretation finds only such acceptance as may, for whatever reason, be accorded it.”

Although the Constitution itself, like the original Articles of Confederation, provides an inherent vehicle by which its terms and conditions may be “modified” so as to make it “adequate to the exigencies of the nation,” [i.e. – the amendment process of Article 5] it must be realized that most of the divergences from a strict interpretation of the Constitution have been accomplished using the time tested [and accepted?] “coup d’Etat” method of judicial “interpretation,” clearly provided for in the Constitution itself. In other words, the Constitution is whatever the Supreme Court decides it is! The Anti-federalists were right!