The US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the American History of Conservatism Now Being Threatened

TODAY's STORY STARTED ON OCTOBER 23, 42 BC. That's a long time before the Founders decided to declare independence for Britain's American colonies and write the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. • • • THE BATTLE OF PHILIPPI. Philippi was a Macedonian town, on the borders of Thracia. Situated on the summit of a hill, it dominated a large and fertile plain, intersected by the Egnatian Way. In 42 BC, Octavian and Marc Antony's combined forces, 28 legions in total, sailed across the Adriatic and into Greece. The "Liberators" -- Brutus and Cassius -- had 19 of their own legions, which were heavily supplemented by auxiliaries provided by eastern client kingdoms. • We all know Brutus -- "Et tu, Brutus" has become a cliché for stabbing a friend in the back thanks ot Shakespeare -- and Cassius -- "He hath a lean and hungry look" alos Sharkspeare's line. Brutus and Cassius had tried to overthrow the Roman Republic because Julius Caesar wanted to be the Emperor of Rome, dispensing with the Republic. They had murdered Caesar on that famous Ides of March, and had then been plundering and taking control of the east for nearly two years since then. Brutus and Cassius used their plunder by distributing it among the men to secure their loyalty. • As Octavian's and Antony's armies arrived and assembled near Dyrrhachium, Octavian was in poor health. Often described as a sickly youth, he was apparently stricken with a terrible illness just as the fate of the Roman world was about to be decided. Marc Antony, however, probably saw a grand opportunity to win a great victory for his own cause without being forced to share any credit with his young fellow triumvir and rival. As Antony marched his army east towards the Macedonian-Thracian and border and confrontation with the enemy, Octavian had no choice but to follow, despite his illness, or risk being left out of the battle to revenge his adoptive father, Caesar. • The "Liberators" hoped to win by delaying Antony's advance. But, Antony, considered second only to Caesar in military ability during this era, forced the enemy "Liberators" into battle. On October 3, the two armies drew up near the Macedonian town of Philippi, with Cassius commanding the left wing of the Republican forces directly across from Antony while Brutus confronted Octavian's army with the right wing. Octavian, however, despite his presence in the area, was still terribly ill, and was forced to stay behind the lines in his tent, while his officers conducted the battle on his behalf. As the battle opened, Antony had a clear advantage over Cassius, and overran the Republican left. Brutus, though, had nearly equal success against Octavian and pushed his lines back. Octavian was forced to flee his camp, taking refuge in a nearby marsh. Cassius was defeated, and unaware of his ally Brutus's good fortune, took his own life, rather than submit to Antony. Despite his own loss, Cassius was the stronger military mind of the "Liberator" Republican side and his own death marked the end of their ability to resist. Brutus managed to regroup and take command of Cassius' remaining army, but the writing was on the wall. Antony assuredly reveled in his own victory while Octavian was forced to retreat, but Brutus held his ground and delayed Antony's triumph. • On October 23, perhaps losing the confidence of his men, or willing to risk a final last ditch effort at victory, Brutus launched an attack. At the Battle of 2nd Philippi, Octavian was seemingly recovered from his illness and commanded his own army. He and his men, determined to revenge their defeat 3 weeks earlier, were prepared to give a better account. This time they proved themselves up to the challenge, and the triumvir's army overran Brutus. Octavian's forces captured Brutus' camp. • The Second Battle of Philippi marked the end of the Republican cause, and Brutus committed suicide on the following day. A great number of those involved in the plot against Caesar also lost their lives at Philippi and Octavian was brutal in exacting vengeance. Though some escaped to join with Sextus Pompey in his Sicilian stronghold, the battles of Philippi essentially assured the end of Republican government and paved the way for a final conflict between the victorious triumvirate of Antony, Octavian and the bit player Lepidus, as they divided the Roman world and became petty Emperors of their portions of it, with a Senate in Rome eviscerated of its Republican leaders and forced into the humiliating task of rubber-stamping the Triumverate's lawless acts. The Roman Republic was no more, and the rule of law vanished with it for nearly a thousand years. America faces a "Second Battle of Philippi" today. • • • THE 2018 MID-TERM ELECTIONS. If you read any poll available in the mainstream news right now, you will see that the Democrats -- they are Antony-Octavian side of the current fight for the future of America -- are winning by an insurmountable margin of 8 to 12%. Yet, if you read the latest online reader poll by InfoWars, you will see that its conservative readers, when asked "who do you think will be the outcome of the midterms?" respond this way : GOP Red Wave (both chambers) (88%, 30,408 Votes) // Dems take House / GOP holds Senate (7%, 2,395 Votes) // Dem Blue Wave (both chambers) (3%, 1,104 Votes) // GOP holds House / Dems take Senate (2%, 621 Votes). A total of 34,528 Americans answered the online question. • And, if you read the Monday American Thinker article by Selwyn Duke, you will learn -- not to anyone's great surprise -- that : "With perhaps the most significant midterm election in decades nigh, big tech’s censorship of conservatives has kicked into high gear. And while Facebook’s recent purge of right-leaning pages is obvious and has made news, perhaps just as destructive is the stealth censorship...“statistics shadowbanning...”....Put simply, let’s say a site is sending you 1000 hits a day. Instead of recording and presenting this to you, your statistics service tells you that you have far fewer visits from the site -- or none at all....This matters because traffic is websites’ lifeblood -- and your apparent traffic level will determine your marketability. Why would people advertise on your site, for instance, if they believe you offer little exposure? No advertising means no revenue, and this means a restricted capacity to spread your message. Of course, this is precisely what left-wing Big Tech wants to do to conservative sites : wither them on the vine. GoogTwitFace (and WordPress can now be thrown in) also wants to control public opinion and thus defeat the GOP in November, as it seeks to establish leftist hegemony. Big Tech also no doubt has a very immediate aim, too. The Republicans may be moving toward taking antitrust action against GoogTwitFace. So Big Tech is racing to forestall this : If it can help the Democrats flip the House of Representatives, guess what? That antitrust threat goes bye-bye." AND, the key takeaway from this "statistics shadowbanning" is that Big Tech, says American Thinker; "can continue suppressing Truth, facilitating tyranny (e.g., Google’s aiding of the Chinese government) and making money via its near monopoly. It’s one dark, malevolent hand washing the other, as the Democrats provide protection in exchange for continual de facto campaign contributions in the form of propaganda favoring their cause and the suppression of any truth contradicting it." • American Thinker draws a dark comparison from the Big Tech suppression of conservative opinion and the propagandist support for Pregressive Democrats : "To put this in perspective, imagine living under a tyrannical government that indoctrinates people with an approved ideology and won’t let others even hear your ideas. Under a worst-case scenario, such censorship is essentially what Big Tech could visit upon us, as it now controls the public square. Sure, these would be private-sector machinations and thus wouldn’t violate the First Amendment. But the practical effect is the same. You can’t win political power unless you can win the political debate, and you can’t win the political debate if you’re removed from it. A mouth muzzled -- whether by big government or Big Tech -- utters precisely the same thing : NOTHING." • • • AMERICA'S HISTORY. A corollary to muzzling the American conservative voice is found in the American education system. President Reagan's warning in his farewell address hits it square on : "Younger parents aren’t sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven’t reinstitutionalized it. We’ve got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom -- freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It’s fragile; it needs protection." • That was 1989. We know how much worse the education of America's children has become since then. The ProgDems long ago latched onto education because they understood that if they could teach America's children only what they want them to know, the path to power and the defeat of constitutional Rule of Law would be simple. • Fox News' Brian Kilmeade wrote on Monday : "Here's why it's so important to fight back in the war on American history. Over the course of five book tours, I’ve had the privilege of speaking to the most patriotic Americans on the planet. However, at the same time, I’ve noticed a generation emerging that doesn’t appreciate what America is about and how we became a great nation. Instead of celebrating the past, many people judge it by their own modern values and vilify its heroes. I’ve pushed back against this kind of war on history before, and now, as I get ready for my sixth book tour, promoting the paperback edition of 'Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans,' I am looking forward to fighting it once again. Andrew Jackson went from being a 13-year-old orphan fighting in the Revolutionary War to being the winner of a victory so unthinkable it’s still studied by military colleges today. Despite being severely ill, he cobbled together a diverse army, uniting men of many creeds and colors, and turned them into a fighting machine that took down the greatest army in the world. Thanks to him, it became safe for America to spread from sea to shining sea. As I talked about these stories on the hardcover book tour, people often raised questions about the unsavory aspects of Jackson’s life. Yes, he had slaves. Yes, he fought Native Americans, and, yes, it’s true that he had a role in the Trail of Tears. I don’t want to hide these facts; Jackson was a complex and flawed man, and we should learn from his failures. What we should never do, though, is let those flaws make us forget his victories, because if we do so we lose our history." Kilmeade says : "America, though it’s an example of freedom and democracy that has inspired millions around the world, has never been perfect. We have the stain of slavery and the often heartless treatment of our native peoples on our record. But these sad facts should not overwhelm what we have become or distract us from what we owe the men and women who came before us. We have to stop judging Americans of the past by the values of today. Like us, they were limited by the prevailing views of the day, and expected us to build on what they started, not accept it as enough." • The conclusion Kilmeade draws is optimistic and it points to the profound wellspring of Americans who still know America's history, understand its role and destiny, and fight as voters, as soldiers, and as conservative political leaders, to keep that destiny alive. Kilmeade ends with this : "I know that as I head out on tour again, my confidence in America’s future will increase. My optimism is largely due to the readers who come to my events, who love our country and who see themselves in the stories I tell. They know that the great American secret is that our nation was built by everyday Americans who did extraordinary things....While America was never perfect, we try to be, which is what makes us great." • • • THE CONSTITUTION IS AMERICA'S NORTH STAR. Back in 1988, the Heritage Foundation published an essay by James McClellan titled "The Constitution from a Conservative Perspective." James McClellan begins : "The extent to which the conservative tradition in American law and politics upholds our constitutional edifice is a question that is seldom raised. This is so because it has always been generally assumed that conservatives have no basic quarrel with the American constitutional system and throughout American history have been its most avid, loyal supporters. Indeed, we are hard pressed to name a single book or article written from the conservative perspective that is critical of the Constitution or rejects any of its fundamental principles. This is an oversimplification of the constitutional struggles that have gripped our nation since the founding, however, and upon closer examination we shall see that it is also somewhat misleading. The truth of the matter is that our Constitution, as we know it today, may be seen in retrospect to contain a number of inherent flaws....When we speak of the Constitution, of course, we are speaking not merely of the Constitution of 1787, but of the entire Constitution as amended -- the original Constitution and the 26 amendments that have been added since 1791. Whereas the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights (as originally understood) have enjoyed the universal acclaim of thoughtful conservatives, a number of amendments, particularly the 14th, have proved to be anathema not only to conservative political values, but also to limited government." • McClellan noted in his essay that : "...the Constitution of 1787 predates the emergence of a coherent conservative intellectual tradition in American politics. As we are reminded by Russell Kirk in his superb classic, The Conservative Mind, "Conscious conservatism, in the modem sense, did not manifest itself until 1790, with the publication of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. In that year the prophetic powers of Burke defined in the public consciousness, for the first time, the opposing poles of conservation and innovation....If one attempts to trace conservative ideas back to an earlier time in Britain, soon he is enmeshed in Whiggism, Toryism, and intellectual antiquarianism; for the modem issues, though earlier taking substance, were not distinct. Nor does the American struggle between conservatives and radicals become intense until Citizen Genet and Tom Paine transport across the Atlantic enthusiasm for French liberty....It is not surprising, therefore, that the great Federal Convention of 1787 was remarkably free of ideological rancor. There were no liberal or conservative factions contending for power in Philadelphia, let alone libertarians, egalitarians, or socialist splinter groups. The Convention functioned under a broad consensus respecting our fundamental principles of government. There were no great debates on the merits of separation of powers. No one questioned the need for rotation of officeholders. The desirability of bicameralism was taken for granted. Most everyone agreed that a democratic republic, operating under enumerated and thus limited powers, was the best political regime for the American people. The factions that did exist were generally transient and unorganized, and were based principally on local and sectional interests. What divided the delegates more than any other issue was federalism - the nature of this new union they were creating and the appropriate division of powers between the two levels of government. This was the theme song of the Convention, and it colored the entire proceedings from beginning to end. States' Rightists, usually but not always representing the small states, doggedly insisted upon protecting the interests of the states in structuring the three branches of the federal government; and the nationalists, or Federalists as they later came to be known, labored unceasingly to reduce the power and influence of the states and to energize the central government. The conflicting views expressed in the Convention over the role of the states in the new republic stemmed not so much from fundamental differences over the nature of man, the functions and ends of government, or the scope and meaning of freedom, but over question s of power. In sharp contrast to the nationalists, who envisioned a strong central government and may even have entertained notions of a vast empire in the making, the States' Rightists harbored a deep suspicion of political power and were ever mindful of the oppressive nature of distant, centralized government, such as that experienced under George III. Acutely aware of the cultural differences that separated the several states, they found safety and comfort in local independence, diversity, and the idea of loosely associated small republics. Not a few were prescient doomsayers who foresaw the great sectional conflict that would later engulf the nation and destroy the Union. The Constitution that emerged from these proceedings was a compromise between these two schools of thought, both sides relatively satisfied with the end result by the time the first Congress convened in 1789. Instead of mounting the barricades or falling into permanent opposition, the defeated anti-Federalists rallied around President Washington, pledged their allegiance to the Constitution, and joined their fellow countrymen to forge a new nation. Such a remarkable consensus was not achieved a few years later in revolutionary France, of course, where the armed doctrine of ideology, eradicating established political, social, and religious institutions in the name of liberty, equality, and brotherhood, brought the nation to ruin and left it deeply divided." • McClellan explained the elements of the US Constitution : (1) "Though distinctly American and unique in many ways, the Constitution thus created was also Anglican in character, a tributary of the English constitutional tradition. Its essential features included the following : "(1) First, it was based on the idea that the only legitimate constitution was that which originated with, and was controlled by, the people. Thus a constitution was more than a body of substantive rules and principles. As Thomas Paine wrote, 'A constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government, and a government without a constitution is power without right.' This principle is declared in the Preamble of the Constitution, which proclaims that the Constitution is ordained and established not by the government, but by 'We the People.' American jurists in the early 19th century commonly referred to the Constitution as an expression of 'the permanent will' of the American people. (2) Second, the US Constitution subscribed to the view that the government must in all respects be politically responsible both to the states and to the governed. This was achieved through the election and impeachment process, with only the members of the House of Representatives being directly accountable to the electorate. Though not directly represented, the states exercised some influence by virtue of the indirect election of Senators, the electoral college, exclusive control of the franchise, and the amendment process. (3) Third, the US Constitution rested on the proposition that all constitutional government is by definition limited government. A constitution is a legal, not just a political limitation on government; it is considered by many the antithesis of arbitrary rule; its opposite is despotic government, the government of will instead of law. The modem tendency toward legal positivism, identifying all law with legislation, is thus hostile to the American Constitution, which declares that the Constitution shall be the supreme law of the land. (4) Fourth, the US Constitution embraced the view that, in order to achieve limited government, the powers of government must be defined and distributed -- that is, they must be enumerated, separated, and divided. A unitary or centralized government, or a government in which all the functions or functionaries were concentrated in a single office, or a system built upon the supremacy of one branch, such as the legislature, over the other branches was a government that invited despotism and would inevitably become tyrannical and corrupt. This tendency toward 'tyranny in the head' might be prevented, or at least discouraged, through a separation of powers among the three branches of the federal government, and a reservation to the states of those powers that were not delegated to the federal government. Conversely, the Framers were also mindful that, in order to be limited, it did not follow that government must also be weak. Too little power was as dangerous as too much, and if left unattended, might produce 'anarchy in the parts,' or a state of disorder into which the man on the white horse would ride to forge tyranny out of chaos. The solution for avoiding these extremes of too much and too little power was to balance power and to balance liberty and order, allocating to the people and to each unit of government a share of the national sovereignty. (5) Fifth, the US Constitution was premised on the seemingly unassailable assumption that the rights and liberties of the people would be protected because the powers of government were limited, and that a separate declaration of rights would therefore be an unnecessary and superfluous statement of an obvious truth. Since the government of the United States was to be one of enumerated powers, it was not thought necessary by the Philadelphia delegates to include a bill of rights among the provisions of the Constitution....In short, the Constitution itself was a bill of rights because it limited the power of the federal government. Indeed, said Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 84, it might even be dangerous to add a bill of rights. 'For why declare,' he queried, that things shall not be done where there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed. I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power. They might urge, with a semblance of reason, that the Constitution ought not be charged with the absurdity of providing against the abuse of an authority which was not given, and that the provision against restraining the liberty of the press afforded a clear implication that a right to prescribe proper regulations concerning it was intended to be vested in the national government.' In addition, the proponents of the Constitution thought that a bill of rights would be inappropriate for a fundamental law resting on popular sovereignty. However important under a monarchical government, a bill of rights was rather meaningless in a constitutional system established by and for the people themselves, whereby public affairs were to be administered by publicly controlled agencies of government. Bills of rights are for kings and their subjects, argued Hamilton, not for the American people, 'Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing; and, as they retain everything, they have no need of particular reservations.' " • • • THE BILL OF RIGHTS. Why, then did the Federalists agree to the adoption of the Bill of Rights? McClellan argued : "The principal reason is that the Bill of Rights changed nothing as far as the constitutional structure was concerned. It neither reduced federal power nor increased state power. It simply declared what was already understood - that the national government had no authority in the general area of civil liberties. In its original form, the Bill of Rights had a twofold purpose. The first and most obvious was to protect each individual from encroachments upon his liberty by the federal government. Thus the First Amendment provides that Congress shall make no law abridging the free exercise of religion, and by inference, leaves the question of religious freedom as practiced in the states to the states themselves. The second purpose of the Bill of Rights was to calm the fears of the anti-Federalists and States' Rightists that the new government under the Constitution would use its powers to nullify state bills of rights, and to assure the states that they would retain exclusive jurisdiction over all civil liberties disputes within their borders, except on those instances where they had agreed to submit to a uniform national standard, as exemplified by Article I, Section 10 [1: No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility. 2: No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Control of the Congress. 3: No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay]. By exempting the states from its provisions, the Bill of Rights thus guaranteed to each state the right to decide for itself, under its own constitution, bill of rights, and statutes, all matters of public policy regarding the rights of speech, press, religion, and other personal freedoms that its citizens claimed against the state. The Bill of Rights, in other words, was a States' Rights document, the bulwark of American Federalism. It rested on the assumption that personal freedom was far too important a matter to entrust to a central government and that individual liberty would best be protected at the local level, where the citizens had a greater say in public affairs and public officials were near at hand and were likely to share the same values and beliefs or cultural background. In other words, the Bill of Rights was not only entirely consistent with the basic scheme of the Constitution, but actually reaffirmed and strengthened the federal system embodied in it." • • • THE CONSTITUTION EMBRACES CONSERVATIVE VALUES. This may explain why, according to McClellan : "Throughout much of American history, particularly during the last century, liberal and radical elements in American society have been at war with the Constitution in a great number of ways, and have labored long and often successfully to change its fundamental structure in order to implement liberal programs and policies. This liberal assault on basic constitutional principles is, in fact, a dominant theme of American constitutional history since the War between the States. It involves first and foremost an interminable struggle to increase the powers of each branch of the federal government and reduce substantially the reserved powers of the states. Beginning with the Reconstruction Amendments, which enlarged the powers not only of the federal courts but of Congress as well, the radical Republicans cut the heart out of federalism by stripping the states of their sovereignty respecting citizenship, state criminal procedures, and voter qualifications. Using an interpretive device known as the doctrine of incorporation, the federal courts later used the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment to obliterate the reserved powers of the states respecting nearly all of the liberties enumerated in the Bill of Rights, thereby accomplishing a complete nationalization of all civil liberties and overturning the main purpose of the first ten amendments." • McClellan's poit is on target : "Since 1870, eleven amendments have been added to the Constitution, or just nine if we eliminate the 18th and 21st involving Prohibition. It is noteworthy that of these remaining nine amendments, six - the 15th, 17th, 19th, 23rd , 24th, and 26th, have dealt with voting. Taken together, they have whittled down the reserved powers of the states regarding the suffrage to the point of extinction. The few remaining powers left to the states have been eliminated by the Voting Rights Act and judicial embellishments of the 'Times, Places and Manner" clause of Article 1, Section 4, the 14th Amendment, and the 15th Amendment. It is difficult to contend that the several states are sovereign in any sense in light of these changes. They have no real voice as to who shall be their citizens, they cannot shape any of their voting districts as they wish, they must now provide for the direct election of their Senators, they have little control over who votes and thus determines their political leadership, and they no longer have any authority to determine the scope and meaning of most civil liberties that their citizens exercise. As a result of the Income Tax Amendment, adopted in 1913, the states have also lost their economic base of power and financial independence and are now dependent upon federal largess or subject to federal control in providing for the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens under their police powers. In addition, the few remaining powers they enjoy under the 10th Amendment, such as education and local or intrastate commerce, have been usurped by the federal government through congressional statutes and Supreme Court decisions. So sweeping is federal control of the states that they cannot even determine the salaries for t heir state employees. In truth, the 50 states are little more than administrative units of the central government, and the United States is a federal system of government in name only. With the death of federalism, we thus witness the destruction of what must surely be the main pillar of the Constitution." • • • PROGRESSIVISM. But, says McClellan : "The lust for power does not stop at the tomb of federalism. Since the dawn of the progressivist era in the late 19th century, liberal and radical forces have also assaulted, root and branch, the separation of powers and checks and balances system of our Constitution. From Woodrow Wilson down...there has been an outpouring of books, monographs, and articles among prominent liberal thinkers, which purport to show that separation of powers produces political paralysis, or 'deadlock' as James MacGregor Burns puts it, and that our presidential system of government should therefore be scrapped in favor of a parliamentary scheme....the liberals over the past century have targeted different branches for attack at different times. When, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries the Supreme Court stood in the way of economic regulation and the welfare state, liberal scholars produced a whole library of books challenging the legitimacy of judicial review....Since 1937, of course, the liberals have become the stalwart champions of the judiciary, urging it to assume a more activist posture. Similar reversals have occurred regarding the office of the President, which at one time was said to be too weak but is now subjected to increasing restraints, as exemplified by the War Powers Act. The liberals have been no less dissatisfied with the Constitution's preference for slow and gradual change over rapid innovation. Unmindful, or perhaps indifferent to the fact that the amendment process is designed to protect federalism and the interests of the states, they have routinely argued that the system is 'undemocratic' because it requires extraordinary majorities. Fearing a popular uprising, they have on the other hand vigorously opposed constitutional amendments initiated by the people and the states through the convention method....What is particularly disturbing is the subtle transformation that has taken place over the past fifty-some years concerning the meaning, scope, and constitutional basis of our liberties. To an alarming degree, the American people are losing control over their own rights and liberties, which are now defined for them by an unelected judiciary. If, when the Constitution and Bill of Rights were presented to the American people for ratification, they had been told that they would be free to regulate their own affairs except as regards their personal freedom, would any citizens have agreed to such a constitution? Did the American people surrender their right to decide what their rights shall be when they ratified the Bill of Rights? Or the 14th Amendment? Such does not appear to be the common understanding of the time. Yet this is precisely what has happened." • • • THE LOSS OF PERSONAL LIBERTIES. McClellan concludes : "There are at least two underlying causes of our present predicament. The first is the emergence of the notion - when it first took hold is unclear -- that the purpose of the Bill of Rights was not to protect the right of the people in the states to define their rights as they saw fit, in the democratic tradition of majority rule, but to protect minorities, in the abstract. In whatever way minorities were to be protected, however, they were expected to look to their state assemblies, state courts, and state bills of rights for protection, not to the Supreme Court. For the American democratic republic was never established under the belief that minorities would govern the affairs of the communities on all matters respecting civil liberties through some Olympian Supreme Court. In other words, the main purpose of the Bill of Rights was not to protect minorities, but to protect separate and distinct majorities in the several states. As we noted at the outset of this paper, the American Constitution is based on the idea that the only legitimate constitution is that which originates with, and is controlled by, the people. The practice of imposing the will of the minority upon the majority, through the Bill of Rights, is inconsistent with the democratic premise of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights....The ability of the nation to encourage religion and promote morality, to limit the powers of those who govern us and hold them accountable for their actions, and to resist the forces of ill-considered innovations has been severely weakened by an activist judiciary and its army of collaborators. In this situation there is a glimmer of hope, for the American Constitution has deep roots and is still a powerful force. But it will require a massive educational effort to kindle this glimmer into a flame....if we are to restore the forces of civilization, so too we must repress constitutional corruption if we are to save our conservative Constitution. At present the fate of our civilization and our fundamental law is in the balance." • • • DEAR READERS, tomorrow, we'll wrap up this review of who we are as Americans, and where we stand now and for the future.