Conservatives romantically cling to the Constitution despite all the evidence amassed over 200 years of experience. They laud the Federalist papers, those essays that, when scrutinized coldly and without romantic attachment, reveal themselves to be monuments to error and miscalculation--if not worse.
As stated in the header of this essay, by 1819, some of the dire predictions of the anti-federalists had already come to pass. Chief Justice Marshall--appointed by George Washington---in 1819 interpreted the "Commerce Clause" in broad terms, paving the way for an unrestrained federal leviathan. This same Marshall had some 15 years earlier declared the Supreme Court the final decider and interpreter of Constitutionality.
The anti-federalists were right. They were right about the federal power to tax. About the dangers of the federal judiciary. About the impossibly broad language of "all laws necessary and proper", "promote the general welfare", etc. They were right that what the Constitution created was a federal beast that would obliterate the power of the states, lord over every detail of life, and lead to civil war.
The point I'm trying to make is that the conservative movement, to the extent that it wishes to "return to the Constitution" and "founding principles" is on a fool's errand. Not simply because the battle to keep the national government contained was lost long ago, but because the true founding principles, the Spirit of 76, LOST when the Constitution was ratified.
I don't know if it's possible for conservatives to give up their romance with the Constitution, with the "founding fathers." Probably not. As so here we are, playing around at the margins.
I'll try to post more essays from the time of the founding that demonstrate how well understood the perils of the national government were to those who OPPOSED it at the time. George Mason and Patrick Henry are heros. Madison, Hamilton, and the rest of the Constitutional Convention, truth be told, are the GOATS.
todays government is removing the liberty word.
“If [the Peoples’ representatives] are sufficiently numerous to be well informed of the circumstances, . . . and have a proper regard for the people, [the People] will be secure.”
And if the People’s representatives are mostly slime?
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The original Constitution held against the onslaught until it was sabotaged by a combination of Supreme Court interpretation and the 14th Amendment. It took that much (actually unratified and fraudulent) power to cobble together an effective neutralization of the Constitution, and even then, and after a hundred years of twisting and lying, the entirety of the fraud still hangs on the single thread of "presumption."
The Founders knew the evil they were up against, and warned that the Constitution of Negative Rights would have to be deeply understood in order to be adequately defended. Which is why the Left has invaded academia, to destroy the education necessary for a free people to be able to defend their freedom. But taken at face value, the original Constitution is still a monstrously strong bulwark against tyranny, and has not been defeated - only buried by lies and forceably ignored by a deviously sabotaged ignorant citizenry.
Patrick Henry was an Anti-Federalist while the Constitution was being debated, but became a Federalist (federal supremacy, implied powers) after it was adopted.