The Founders left us a sustainable Republic, if we could keep it. The biggest threat to sustainability always has been the unwillingness of people who have taken the Oath of Office to be honest with the meaning of the words in the Constitution.
Compare Hamilton’s refusal to give money out of the public treasury with the river of money disbursed under the now “reimagined” and ever-elastic Commerce and Welfare clauses.
Compare:
“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” (James Madison)
With:
“It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance at success, too… My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody. If you’ve got a plumbing business, you’re gonna be better off [...] if you’ve got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you, and right now everybody’s so pinched that business is bad for everybody and I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” (candidate Obama)
A night and day difference to say the least.
Unless and until we find a way for the States to improve the fidelity of federal officials to adhere to the plain meaning of the Constitution, our Republic cannot be sustainable.
For me, the risks of calling a Constitutional Convention are now less than the risks of allowing the present train wreck to continue.
brain fart: scratch “Hamilton” in previous post! It was Madison all along.