Last week I wrote about how we MUST repeal the 17th Amendment. I am serious. We cannot continue on the path we are on with any hope of preserving the nation as founded. To some, my words came as a shock. For many, the Constitution is somehow a document given to us from on high, from God above. Many have no concept, no understanding, of what transpired during our founding. I blame my fellow historians for that as it is easier to teach the simply myth of our founding than to get down into the actual evidence of what transpired.
Recently, Dr. Thomas Kidd, who teaches history at Baylor University, wrote an insightful piece on the Constitution for the blog The Imaginative Conservative.
Kidd’s argument was that Patrick Henry, one of the rock stars of the Revolution, was strongly and openly opposed to the work that created the Constitution. This comes as a shock to most people. What most people are taught is that we had our Revolution, then, after a few years, decided to write a set of governing documents. Everyone loved this idea…except for a few ne’er–do–wells who simply were grumpy and stupid…they were the “anti-federalists” and of course we know that anyone called “anti” is dumb.
Nope.
Instead, many of the main Founders of the Revolutionary age like Patrick Henry, Sam Adams and John Hancock were uncomfortable with the direction these new founders were heading. As I teach my class, what we can glean is that there are actually TWO SETS of Founders. The 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence and the 39 men who signed the Constitution. Even Thomas Jefferson was wary of what was going on. He and John Adams were in Europe as the nation’s ambassadors to France and England respectively. Adams thought the direction was fine, but Jefferson was not so sure. In letters to his protege James Madison, who would ultimately be seen as the Father of the Constitution, he shared his discomfort. Madison of course tried to put Jefferson at ease, and ultimately brought the future third President around…but only barely.
Kidd shares that for Henry, 
the point was that establishing a strong central government was damning to the entire point of the Revolution…freedom FROM an all-powerful central government. Kidd writes:
Federalists (supporters of the Constitution) said that in order to have a powerful, effective government, the Constitution required these new powers. To Henry, this was hogwash. The Constitution’s defenders, he warned, believe “we must be a great and mighty empire,” he said. But “when the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, sir, was then the primary object.”
Henry concluded his assault on the new Constitution with his remarkable thunderstorm speech, but he could not derail ratification. Virginia voted 89-79 to approve the Constitution, and when his longtime ally, Washington, became the first president, Henry slowly began to reconcile himself to the new government. But he never got over the feeling that when the nation ratified the Constitution, it betrayed the principles of the Revolution.
Patrick Henry thought that a national government invested with the unlimited power to tax and spend would inexorably transform into a monstrosity, one that the Founders—even Madison—never intended. Most Americans believe that the Constitution, at least as originally designed, fostered a wise system of checks and balances that divided power between the states and national government. But when you consider the titanic government we have today, and the struggles to contain our mind-boggling rates of federal debt and spending, Henry’s warnings about what the government under the Constitution could eventually become seem more and more reasonable.
For myself, I do still support the Constitution. I think Madison et al did a good job there. But Henry’s warning echoes ever louder today as the nation, over the past 100 years, has massively drifted from the Founders. Even Alexander Hamilton, the strongest proponent of a strong central government, would be shocked (and I think) dismayed to see how much power we have allowed in DC. That they tax us, spy on us and generally control us in a variety of ways (think about things like forced auto insurance, forced driver’s licenses, forced health care, rules about what you can do at your own house, etc…) would be an anathema to Hamilton.
To move in the correct direction, we have to remember that the Constitution is not unassailable. We can restore ourselves to our better selves. We can remember that this was a nation conceived in liberty and founded on principles of self-responsibility, moral virtue and moderation.