A Bicentennial Question: An Ascendant or Setting Sun?

_{Dr. Carson has written and taught extensively, specializing in American intellectual history. His most recent book, The Rebirth of Liberty (1973), covers the founding of the American Republic from 1760 to 1800.}

_{As the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia drew to a close in 1787, James Madison noted some concluding remarks by the elder statesman of the gathering, Benjamin Franklin. His observations had to do with a sun painted on the back of the chair of the presiding officer. Franklin declared}

_{that Painters have found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. I have, said he, often and often in the course of the Session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.}

_{A painter of course, can distinguish between an ascendant and a setting sun. However, for those of us attempting to assess the state of the republic of the United States on the two hundredth anniversary of its founding, it is not easy to locate the position of our sun. The signs are mixed, and the sun is obscured by a cover of clouds.}

_{There are many indications that these United States are in the ascendant. Certainly, the wealth of Americans is great as is attested to by their homes, their automobiles, their appliances, their weekend and vacation paraphernalia, and the food they consume. The great abundance in the land can be viewed in the innumerable markets within easy access of almost any inhabitant of the country : the supermarkets with their array of food and drink, the department stores with their astonishing variety of goods, the gleaming automobiles for sale in the lots, and the specialty stores which cater to almost every whim and taste. Public buildings are usually massive and nearly always in a good state of repair. Superhighways crisscross the land to link the people together, as do television networks, railroads, airlines, and two-lane highways which have long since become commonplace. Engineers manipulate tiny computers to set in motion giant construction equipment to build more still of what is wanted to dwell in, work in, look at, or use in some fashion. A disinterested observer surveying this immense material achievement would surely be moved to declare that the American sun is in the ascendant.}

_{Nor should it be thought that the reaches of the mind and spirit have been neglected in the United States. Although it is not possible by alluding to outward signs to give any measure of the quality of what is provided, there is much to show that wealth and attention have been lavished upon intellectual and spiritual matters. Of books, records, libraries, schools, colleges, universities, churches, seminaries, newspapers, magazines, seminars, theaters, and auditoriums there are a plenitude. Clergymen, professors, musicians, writers, commentators, critics, evangelists, painters, architects, and lawyers abound. Missions of one sort or another to other parts of the world attest to some degree to the ascendancy of the United States.}

_{Not Clearly Marked}

_{But the signs are mixed, as I said; some point to ascendancy, others to descent, decline, to a setting sun. One such sign is the fiscal operations of our governments. Despite the huge take in taxes, the debt of the United States government, already grown astronomical, continues to mount. Our politicians do not have the courage to balance the budget, reduce expenses, or set aside funds for the retirement of the debt ; indeed, few appear to reckon the debt as a problem. Many states and municipalities totter under the heavy burden of bonded indebtedness. The huge debt, both public and private, is kept afloat largely by massive infusions of paper money which results in a continuous deterioration of the value of the dollar.}

_{Back of this mounting indebtedness accompanied by the decline in the value of the dollar is a related development which is its cause. It is the proliferating government programs of aid, subsidy, and welfare. Most of these programs have started modestly and then begun to balloon in fairly short order. The Medicare program cost somewhat over $3 billion in 1967, its first full year. Advance estimates of the cost in 1975 are just under $14 bi1lion. So it has been, in program after program. The advance commitments of the Federal government have reached the point that it is difficult to conceive how the budget could be balanced, much less that the debt should be funded.}

_{It is not my intention, however, to enter upon a lengthy recital of the assets and liabilities of either their government or the American people. Whatever the merits of such assessments, they are regularly made by the Bureau of the Budget and wrestled with, however ineffectively, by the President and Congress. And certainly, it is not to the purpose here to construct lists of American virtues and vices from which to draw conclusions about where we are headed. Those with a taste for American virtues and vices, particularly the vices, can find accounts aplenty, if the daily newspaper does not entirely dull the appetite for more.}

_{Whether the American sun is in the ascendant or is setting cannot be determined by totting up what someone or other believes are our virtues and vices, entering them in separate columns, and drawing conclusions about which predominate. The question must be answered, if it can be answered even tentatively, in terms of deep-seated trends and where they are tending. Unbalanced budgets, deficit spending, and inflation are long-term trends, but back of them and lying at their roots are others which need to be explored.}

_{Between Hope and Despair}

_{To discern these, it helps to recall what it was that led Franklin to conclude that the painting was of a rising sun. His remarks were prompted, of course, by the approval which the Convention had given to their handiwork of the last several months, the United States Constitution. If Franklin intended any effect from his words – and he probably did, for he was a skilled diplomat with many years of practice in calculating the effect of what he said with great care – it was to say to those who heard him to get on with the business of getting this Constitution ratified and put into operation.}

_{But his words conveyed more than that. They summed up the alternating hope and despair which he and others must have felt about developments in America in the preceding dozen years or so. Against great odds, odds lengthened by the ineffectiveness of their governments, they had achieved independence from Britain. Not only were they confronted all along the way by the danger of breaking up into factions and camps; but also, once victory was won, they were little nearer to achieving real unity. The Constitution promised a government which could bring the states into union.}

_{The Constitution provided for more than an energetic government which would bring about a United States, however ; if it worked as intended, it would provide for Americans something rare, much sought after but seldom achieved. The United States Constitution promised limited government and free men. It promised to bind those who governed to the performance of their appointed tasks and thus to loose the energies of Americans to go about their constructive activities. If it accomplished this, there should be little doubt that the American sun was rising.}

_{How unlikely that this promise should be fulfilled is not sufficiently appreciated. The story of most governments in the course of what we know of history is more sordid than not. It is the story of unleashed power, of tyrants, of oligarchies, of Caesars, of arbitrary kings, of absolute monarchs, and of dictators. It is the story of the plundering of peoples by robber barons, of ubiquitous tax collectors eating out their substance, of contests for power erupting in assassinations, intrigues, rebellions, and wars. It has been all too often the story of rulers riding roughshod over the populace while they were oppressed and bound.}

_{Limitations on Power}

_{There have been, of course, governments which provided greater measures of justice than this would suggest, rulers who were contained to allow considerable freedom for the people, and monarchs who were held in check by constitutions. But these latter have been rare enough to make the promise of limited government and free men something out of the ordinary if it could be fulfilled.}

_{Perhaps "promise" is not the right word. The United States Constitution does not just promise limited government and free men ; in fact, no such statement is to be found in the document. The Preamble does state that one of its purposes is "to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity," but the body of the document is taken up with arrangements for the exercise of power, who should exercise it, and what powers were to be exercised at all. From what the Founders produced we can deduce that they thought promises would be nothing more than rhetorical flourishes. The Constitution at that point did not even contain a bill of rights. What they attempted to do was to build into the structure of the government the limitations which would free men.}

_{The main way they attempted to do this was by an intricate dispersion and balance of powers. The powers of government were dispersed among the three branches of the Federal government and between the Federal and state governments. (Of course, the United States Constitution does not grant powers to the states, though it prohibits them from exercising certain powers ; the powers of state governments derive from their own constitutions.)}

_{Three Branches}

_{The Constitution says, "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States .. .." "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." "The Judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." The main purpose of the separation, balance, and dispersion of power was not only to prevent its concentration but also to limit its exercise ; each branch and government might be expected to guard its own powers and prerogatives by preventing the growth in the powers of the others. The underlying idea was to invoke human nature in the continuous struggle to limit government.}

_{Benjamin Franklin’s prophecy of a rising sun was correct. Under the auspices of the new constitution, the United States did expand and grow. Americans, their energies loosed by it, did press on across the Appalachians, push their way to the Mississippi, surge across the great plains, pick their way through the Rockies, and establish themselves on the Pacific. Those who were at first denied the full benefits of liberty were in the course of time freed. Americans built on a scale hitherto unimagined: they hacked their way through forests to make farms, built roads, canals, railroads, bridges, factories, and cities. The production of the United States became one of the wonders of the world to which others sought the secret. In time, they were so productive that the Europe which had once succored them would turn to America for sustenance. The United States became a power among the powers of the world and wielded great influence in world affairs.}

_{The rise of America followed upon the establishment of individual liberty, upon allowing the individual scope for exercise of his abilities for the benefit of himself and others with whom he worked, traded, discoursed, played, and prayed. The pertinent Bicentennial question is this: Do those same conditions still prevail in these United States? Is individual liberty still the keystone of the American government arch? George Washington could say with assurance in his Farewell Address, "Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment." Would the statement be true if it were made today, and what does it portend if not?}

_{Now it is doubtful that the question of whether Americans love liberty today as they were said to do in 1797 could be answered directly. The individual in America is attached to many values, and we may hope that one of those values is liberty. The chances are good that if someone were to attempt to answer the question for today he would take a poll of a selected group of Americans. Those polled would probably be asked to rank liberty with other values which would be named. The results might have some interest, but their reliability would be most doubtful. So much would depend upon how the questions were posed; what we would most likely get would tell us more about the pollsters than the polled.}

_{At any rate, there is a much better way to get at what people believe. By their fruits you shall know them, Scripture says, and that is certainly much more to the point than what people say or think they believe. The thrust of political activity for a good many years now has not been in the direction of maintaining or extending individual liberty. Rather, it has been in the direction of centralizing power in the Federal government, the empowering of groups, the imposing of controls, increases in taxes, and the political determination of more and more questions.}

_{A Tenuous Balance}

_{The semblance of a balance of power remains in the structure of our governments, but if the heavens were as out of kilter as this "balance," the law of gravity would not suffice to keep the stars on an orderly course. In the first place, there is today a gross imbalance between the powers of the Federal and the state governments. The sway of the Federal government is such that states depend increasingly for revenues upon the government of the union, contrive their programs to fit the Federal formulas, and seek increasing aid while clinging to the remnants of fiscal and legal independence. The states are today little more than puppets, moving in whatever way they are manipulated by the government in Washington.}

_{In the second place, the balance within the Federal government among the branches has been greatly altered. There never was a perfect balance among the branches in the sense of each of them having equal power. The makers of the Constitution gave considerably more weight in decision making to the Congress than to the President or Supreme Court. (Within the Congress, however, the weight of the House and the Senate was made about as nearly equal as might be.) Congress was given the power not only to make the laws, appropriate money, and declare war, but also a share in appointive powers and authority to impeach and remove members of other branches as well as that of governing themselves.}

_{In the twentieth century, however, the weight has shifted away from Congress, if not technically then in actuality. From the early 1930′s to the mid 1960′s the powers of the President were vastly augmented. In effect, the President usually initiated legislation, conceived programs for the government and administered them, conducted the increasing involvement in world affairs – dispatched armies, disposed of foreign aid,and carried on extensive personal diplomacy with the leaders of other nations – and was everywhere understood to be at the apex of power in the United States.}

_{Since the mid 1960′s, however, indications are that the office of the presidency has declined in power and influence. It began during the last years of the Johnson administration, continued through the Nixon years, may have been accelerated by the disgrace of Nixon, and has not abated with the coming of President Ford. The trend does not thus far signal a restoration of a balance of power, however. The executive branch continues to grow in numbers and powers accorded it; but it is the growth of a body while the head shrinks. Most likely, it was Nixon’s inept wrestling to gain control over the executive branch which may now be beyond administering that was his undoing.}

_{The Supreme Court}

_{Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has assumed unprecedented powers in recent years. The Warren Court, as it came to be called, solidified this trend in the 1960′s by its activist decisions. Under the sway of a mass of decisions, the Federal courts became not only the final arbiter of the meaning of the Constitution but also the only arbiter. Congressmen are heard to say that we cannot know whether this or that measure is in keeping with the Constitution until there is a court ruling on the matter. This is a serious abrogation of the duties of a Congressman and a contribution to the unbalancing of powers.}

_{Congressmen are sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution. Their first line of defense of the Constitution is to enact no laws believed to be in conflict with its provisions. This is made more serious by the presumption of the courts in favor of the constitutionality of acts of Congress signed into law by the President. Be that as it may, the Federal courts have assumed extensive powers over American schools and unusual powers to determine the legal rules under which we live.}

_{There is yet another development, however, which more seriously effects the balance of power than the others, if that is possible, and has changed the posture of our government. It is the accelerated growth of the bureaucracy and its expansion into more and more areas of our lives. Some have referred to the bureaucracy as a fourth branch of the government. The intent of the characterization may be good, but it fails adequately to describe the development. The bureaucracy is not just anotherbranch of the government, it comes nearer to being another government. It is as if we now have over us the state, Federal, and bureaucratic government. There is hyperbole in this way of looking at the matter, but not as much as might be supposed.}

_{Growth of Bureaucracy}

_{The separate bureaucratic government phenomenon is best exemplified by the "independent" boards and commissions, such as, Federal Communications Commission, Civil Aeronautics Board, Interstate Commerce Commission, Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, National Labor Relations Board, and so on. They are called independent because they are creatures of Congress and do not fall under the administrative authority of the chief executive. They may be thought of as separate governments because they perform all three functions of government ; they legislate, administer, and enforce the laws which they devise. The constitutional separation of powers is abridged, and power is concentrated in single bodies.}

_{These and other bureaus now produce 10 times as many rules or, more accurately, laws as does Congress. This lawmaking power has become so obtrusive that there is now before Congress a bill to suspend the operation of some of the bureaucratic legislation until Congress has had the opportunity to examine it. Congress, which has all the constitutional authority to legislate, would gain a veto power over bureaucratic acts – a notion sufficiently strange to provoke mirth if not tears.}

_{Bureaucratic control, however, is not a fit subject for mirthmaking; it is serious, often dead serious. Bureaus now hold life and death powers over virtually all activities in America. Whether one wishes to build a church, operate a printing press, produce a car, buy a house, buy and sell widgets, hire or fire, he finds one or more or many bureaucrats athwart his path. They license, certify, approve or disapprove, inspect, classify, lay down rules, hold hearings, compile dossiers, make rulings, restrict, restrain, and confine. They are ubiquitous and omnipotent and often behave as if they were omniscient.}

_{Judging by these developments, a reversal has been and is taking place. The constitutional principle was, as stated, a limited government and free men. The trends examined show government being loosed and men being limited and confined. The concentration of power in the Federal government, the growth of the executive branch, the assertion of power by the Federal courts, and the proliferation of the bureaucracy have been a letting loose of government from its constitutional confinement. The one being confined by the sway of this power is the individual.}

_{What do these things portend for America? Is the sun in the ascendant or is it setting?}

_{At the rate things are going, the sun is setting for individual liberty in America. There are those who claim that what is being regulated and controlled is only the economy. Such claims are entirely specious ; the economy is an abstraction to which government controls cannot be applied. It is people who are regulated and controlled. Moreover, it is not possible to regulate people in the economic aspect of their lives and leave them otherwise free.}

_{Economic Factors}

_{There is no aspect of our lives that is not hinged in some way to the economic. Everywhere that we are and everything that we do involves the use of property ; whether asleep or awake, whether eating or fasting, whether reading or looking at television, whether walking or riding, it is all upon or with property. Every transaction we engage in, whether buying a newspaper or book, whether contributing to the church or buying a house, whether traveling to Europe or visiting Colonial Williamsburg, is economic in nature. Indeed, there is no angle from which to control our lives that can begin to equal the economic. The spread of economic controls, or the control of business, as it is sometimes called, signals the decline of individual liberty.}

_{Government control signals, too, the setting of the sun for America. There is no knowing how long a people can survive ever-tightening controls. For a very long time, no doubt. But they do so at the expense of prosperity, of economic growth, of that vitality which makes for greatness of a people and a nation. Controls make it ever more difficult to adjust to changing circumstances and conditions.}

_{There is good reason to believe that the United States is already visibly suffering from the rigidity of an economy made so by bureaucratic controls. Repeated efforts to revive the economy by massive jolts of government power by inflating fails in its object. It fails because the problem is not monetary in origin, though the attempt to solve it in this way certainly aggravates the problem. The problem arises, in the main, from inflexibility, rigidity, and restrictions which stand in the way of making the needed adjustments. The long wait for bureaucratic approval and inspection beforechanges can be made hampers businesses. We would probably have Alaskan oil today rather than at some date in the future if environmentalists had not intemperately delayed the drilling and laying of pipelines. A people who will tolerate such interference with their lives can expect that their lives will become harder and harder.}

_{Time to Reconsider}

_{The American sun may appear to be in the ascendant, but there is strong reason to believe that it has entered upon its descent. It is especially appropriate in this Bicentennial season to think back upon and ponder these things. Anyone who cares to know may rediscover those principles which reassured Franklin that he was looking upon a rising sun. Those who care to do so may review as well the histories of peoples who have not been so fortunate as to start their national careers on the foundation of great political principles. When they have thus studied history, they may well wish to restore those principles to their former place. It will be no easy matter to do so.}

_{Governments are not easily induced to relinquish the powers they have obtained and are used to exercising. Politicians and bureaucrats do not relish yielding up their authority over our lives.}

_{Only a resolute populace determined to assert itself and claim its rights can prevail against them. Only those who have that love of liberty intertwined with every ligament of their hearts could be expected to make the effort.}

_{There is one hopeful thought. The rotation of the earth on its axis which produces the rising and setting of the sun is a natural phenomenon, something we can only observe but not control. The sun having risen, continues upward to its zenith, commences to descend, and must inevitably set. It is not so with peoples and withnations. It is within their power to change the course, even to reverse it, to restore principles, to be revived and revitalized. When liberty gives way to fullfledged oppression it is most likely lost for a long time, but liberty threatened can be more readily recovered.}

_{It would be good indeed if we could use the occasion of our national Bicentennial not to pay tribute to the dead but to rediscover and reinstitute those great principles which characterized the American Revolution – principles which could be made to live again in America.}

_{My Freedom Depends on Yours}

_{In order for the highest ideas and ideals of mankind to prevail generally, it seems obvious that a condition of peace and freedom is required – a society wherein no person molests any other person; a society wherein no person prevents any other person from developing his creative potentialities to the fullest extent of his understanding and ability.}

_{This desirable state of affairs will not occur all at once. It will grow only as freedom is understood and as faith in it is restored. If one person decides today to practice freedom, the evolutionary process in human relationships will move forward one more step. That is the only possible path to freedom – a peaceful change in thought and understanding and action among individual persons.}

_{Anyone can begin the practice of freedom whenever he chooses to do so.}