Hanging it all on a Preamble, which is not substantive law? Nice try. Here is Heritage, which is hardly a hotbed of originalist thinking (remember, it birthed Romneycare):
http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/0/essays/1/preamble
But, really, the rest of your response gives your position away. The federal government isn’t bound by the provisions of the Constitution; Americans have no rights that the government is bound to respect. If most people like some unlawful action, well then, those who object must be eccentric. I would point out that Hitler legitimately won his first election. That didn’t make his subsequent actions lawful or right, and the election certainly didn’t create an obligation to obey a lawless state.
“If Obama did something like that, “it would be wrong, that’s for sure.” (Sorry, Nixon.) However, I would not pretend that his wrongful act should render him responsible for choices that Americans make about the size of their government in the year 2165.”
You obviously don’t understand precedent, either in how it affects what we call a legal system or the role it plays in social conditioning. Lincoln and the Radical Republicans that held power after him established institutions and precedents that others built on. I didn’t say Lincoln was the sole source of the problem of a lawless federal government, but in many cases he and the RRs were the fountainheads.
“our bills are our bills?” No debt incurred unlawfully is a legal or moral obligation, e.g. the invalidation of billons of dollars of “WHOOPS” bonds because the Washington utilities lacked the authority to enter into certain kinds of contracts?
A government actually operating under the Constitution doesn’t have the authority to spend or do most of what is spent or done, whether a majority approves or not. Of course, I would agree, as I’ve said before, that the American Constitutional Republic is as dead today as the Roman Republic in the days of Augustus Caesar. Conservatives with views like yours are a contributing cause. Hope you like our lawless police state.
Of course the federal government is bound by the provisions of the Constitution. However, I don't pretend that the federal government (or anyone else) is bound to always accept or adopt my views (or your views) when it comes to interpreting the Constitution. I don't think that I even want that kind of personal power.
Americans have no rights that the government is bound to respect.
That was the position of the "secessionists." They thought that they could unilaterally strip each and every American citizen in the South of his/her American citizenship. Well, the "secessionists" were shown that they couldn't do that to American citizens.
The "secessionists" also thought that they could unilaterally strip each and every American citizen living in the South of each and every one of his/her individual Constitutional rights under the United States Constitution. Well, the "secessionists" were shown that they couldn't do that to American citizens, either.
Thanks to the resolve of Lincoln, the citizenship and Constitutional rights of those American citizens were preserved and protected. The message: no state or local government can deprive an American citizen of his/her American citizenship or deprive an American citizen of his/her Constitutional rights under the United States Constitution
Today, most folks in this country (including folks living in the South) are very, very grateful that Lincoln did what was necessary to preserve this nation and to protect the rights of its citizens. And, today, most folks in this country (including folks living in the South) are also grateful that Lincoln freed the slaves and grateful, too, that he freed the slaveholders from the culture of dependency in which the slaveholders were trapped.
No one can' ever please everyone, of course. But Lincoln has come pretty close, hasn't he?