G. Edward Griffin - The Fearful Master - PDF Archive

This concept of limited government is the whole basis of the American system. By taking
the chains off the people and placing them on the government, we established the formula
for freedom and enterprise which has made us the envy of the world. While other nations
were still laboring under a system where government officials are free to do anything they
claim is in the best interests of all, American leaders had first to consult a meaningful
constitution to make sure that their proposals in addition to being "good" were also
constitutional. And if not, what then? George Washington answered that when he said:
If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the
Constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by
an amendment in the way in which the Constitution designates. But let
there be no change by usurpation; for, though this in one instance may
be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free
governments are destroyed. 10
But all that was a long time ago. Today our politicians tell us that those concepts are out of
date and antiquated; that these modem times demand fresh approaches and greater
flexibility in order to cope with the challenge of the atomic age. Only those who have never
studied the demagoguery of past ages could accept these as fresh approaches. They may
sound new, but they are the same worn arguments used to sell dictatorship to the people
from ancient Rome to Nazi Germany.
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., special assistant to President Kennedy, said in a speech delivered
on February 15, 1962: "Jefferson is today remote and irrelevant . . . a figure, not of present
concern, but of historical curiosity." 11
On August 28, 1961, President Kennedy spoke to a gathering of students at the White
House and said:
After all, the Constitution was written under entirely different conditions.
It was written during a period of isolation. It was written at a time when
there were thirteen different units which had to be joined together and
which, of course, were extremely desirous of limiting the central power
of the government. That Constitution has served us extremely well, but .
. . it has to be made to work today in an entirely different world from the
day in which it was written. 12
That same year Senator J. William Fulbright, one of the country's most outspoken
internationalists, made a speech at Stanford University. Fulbright was less guarded in his
choice of words than President Kennedy but expressed the same views when he said:
The President is hobbled in his task of leading the American people to
consensus and concerted action by the restrictions of power imposed
upon him by a Constitutional system designed for an 18th century
agrarian society far removed from the centers of world power. It is
imperative that we break out of the intellectual confines of cherished
and traditional beliefs and open our minds to the possibility that basic
changes in our system may be essential to meet the requirements of the
20th century. . . . He [the President] alone among elected officials can
rise above parochialism and private pressures. He alone in his role as
teacher and moral leader can hope to overcome the excesses and
inadequacies of public opinion. . . . 13