While I took issue with most of Dr. Stephen Morris’ letter in the June 21 edition of the New Hyde Park Herald Courier, I found his statement, “That’s the constitution we fought for in 1776,” most illuminating.
Intentional or not, it was quite appropriate for Dr. Morris to use a lowercase “C” in the word “constitution.”
In 1776, the Articles of Confederation (our national constitution from ratification in 1781 to its replacement in 1789) was being drafted. This document gave the nascent federal government little power over the original 13 states.
States could ignore the federal government’s request for tax revenue, so inflation ran wild and military readiness crumbled. A unicameral Congress was the only national governing body (there were no federal courts or independent chief executive) and the United States had no ability to seriously negotiate with foreign powers or make domestic policy.
The reason I say this is illuminating is that, while members of the Tea Party movement claim to be stewards of the U.S. Constitution, their platform of a weak and ineffectual federal government and unchecked state sovereignty more closely matches the Articles of Confederation.
In fact, today’s Tea Party movement draws strong parallels to the anti-Federalist movement of the 1780s – a movement that opposed the ratification of the Constitution out of fear the federal government would become a dictatorship if given too much authority.
The Constitution, an inarguably sacred document that still shapes the American landscape today, established a balance between federal power and states’ rights. Without it, we would have never become the influential and stable nation we are today.
You can’t go back in time and reverse a course our nation took 224 years ago and you can’t pick and choose what parts of the Constitution you hold sacred and what parts you don’t.
Articles IV and VI, as well as the 16th Amendment, are just as much a part of the Constitution as the 4th Amendment, Dr. Morris. As you said, “That’s the law!”
Matthew Zeidman
New Hyde Park
