State and Local Government

As politics becomes polarized, people often opt out of discourse by remaining neutral in the public square. This results in the federal government transforming local governments in the image that best suits their needs or facilitates a state of self-enrichment; opposing the interests of the citizens. But the recognition of polarized partisanship is an even greater call for civic intervention, as states begin to federalize in an image favorable to the distributors of annual appropriations. Therefore, individuals ought to ensure that States are properly allocating funds to meet the needs of its citizenry.

Black’s Law Dictionary defines the term Local Law as “[a] statute that relates to or operates in a particular locality rather than the entire state. A statute that applies to a particular persons or things rather than and entire class of persons or things,” (Garner, B., p. 1125). Bryan Garner adds that “[t]he law of a particular jurisdiction, as opposed to the law of a foreign state,” (Garner, B., p. 1125). The term Local Option is defined as “ [a]n option that allows a municipality or other governmental unit to determine a particular course of action without the specific approval of state officials,” (Garner, B., p. 1126). A State is referred to as an “institution” that is “[t]he political system of a body of people who are politically organized; the system of rules by which jurisdiction and authority are exercised over such a body of people. Also termed political society,” (Garner, B., p. 1697). Similarly, a Federal State remains :divided between central or federal governments and the local governments of the several constituent states; a union of states in which the control of the external relationship of all the members have been surrendered to a central government so that the only state that exists for international purposes is the one formed by the union, (Garner, B., p. 1697).

State and Local governments remain an essential component of the American justice system; contingent on the presupposed binding laws of nature. The state of nature was translated to the U.S. Constitution through divine provision. The Declaration of Independence produced in 1776 laid the foundation for what would become the longest standing unchanged Constitution in recorded history. Whilst many critics believe that our nation was founded by deists with a warped view on the Christian doctrine, in reality they create a platform to sustain the Great Commission. By facilitating the means to a pluralistic nation, the Founding Fathers enabled a nation that is (1) tolerant to all religions; (2) offers the opportunity for consistent evangelism; (3) protects the nature of Christ. Rather than invoke a national religion, the Founders knew that having a nation that allowed the freedom to worship would preserve the doctrine from the influence of culture and social policy. As contemporary citizens stand divided on social issues, their inherent rights are given the same deference by existing outside of the jurisdiction of government intrusion.

Authors Ann Bowman, a professor and holder of the Hazel Davis and Robert Kennedy Endowed Chair in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University; and Richard Kearney, emeritus professor of political science and public administration at North Carolina State University, write that “[a] 2011 report found that, over a three-year period, nearly half of the states had eliminated or consolidated numerous state departments, agencies, boards, and commissions in an effort to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of government,” (Bowman & Kearney, p. 3).

Article IV

The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, enumerated in its Article IV has ensured the longevity of civic sovereignty since its inception. The encroachment of the courts and activist legislators has neared despotic detriment, yet it was the authority of the U.S. Constitution that halted further usurpation. The Constitution’s Article IV preserved the integrity of the citizen throughout the pandemic, although many attempts were made to temporarily disqualify its provisions. This led to a need to redefine the meaning of the Constitution’s authority in the contemporary polity. Therefore, it remains imperative that the original interpretation of the Framers be not only preserved but implemented in the present age.

Contemporary constitutionality ought to consider beyond Article IV, whilst invoking its supremacy throughout the legislative process.

Political Union

The Framer’s recognized the importance of political union. Alexander Hamilton remarks in the Federalist No. 9 that “[a] firm union will be of the utmost moment to the peace and liberty of the states, as a barrier against domestic faction and insurrection,” (Hamilton, A., p. ).

Hamilton believed that “[a]s this government is composed of small republics, it enjoys the internal happiness of each, and with respect to its external situation, it is possessed, by means of the association, of all the advantages of large monarchies,” Hamilton, A., p. 41).

As Hamilton wrote in the Federal No. 9, in assurance to Anti-Federalists and proponents of the Confederacy, that “[t]he definition of a confederate republic seems simply to be, ‘an assemblage of societies,’ or an association of two or more states into one state . . . The proposed constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the state governments, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation in the senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive, and very important, portions of the sovereign power. This fully corresponds, in every rational import of the terms, with the idea of a federal government,” (Hamilton, A., p. 41).

State and local governments ought to focus their efforts on political union. As Bowman and Kearney denotes, “[e]ducation, job growth, heath care, and crime are among the many concerns of state and local governments,” (Bowman & Kearney, p. 2). Rather than debate contentious issues annually; permanent solutions must be sought that can bring compromise to division—enacting ratification rather than stagnation by delineation.

Conversely, with criticism, the entire concept of political union itself is a slippery slope into despotism. The original configuration of the individual colonies allowed for the preservation of State’s rights, yet the rebellion of citizens should they oppose any policy produced a fear within the ruling class that began the wave of propaganda designed to persuade the public back into the idea of centralized power. This entity of persuasion, named Publius, was the creation of three notable Founding Fathers; and resulted in the formation of a narrative still believed by many to this day: “centralized power is necessary to protect individual rights.” This elitist narrative has appropriated persistent global wars, the siphoning of taxdollars, and the decimation of civic sovereignty for generations since its inception. Originally, the usurpation of power was willing granted to the establishment as God decrees government to be His instrument, specifically in Romans 13:1. Yet over the past century criminals have hijacked the vehicle of government created by the Founding Fathers, and evicted God from the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Now, the erroneously claimed secular document continues to be amended in the image of depravity; or worse deposed in the image of foreign bureaucracies—as witnessed during the coronavirus pandemic.

Freedom and Equality

America remains the land of the free, under the protections of our recognized inherent natural rights. The Founders presupposed man’s natural rights when they drafted and ratified the U.S. Constitution. The Founding document, when view tethered to its predecessor, the Declaration of Independence reveals that the Founders believed in God verily. Thus, it stands that America was founded under the presupposition that there exists God who created man under a presupposed set of conditioning. The Old Testament’s book of Genesis Chapter 1, describes in ten verses this conditioning God placed man subjected to. These unseen natural laws include gravity, justice, and autonomy. Yet unchecked, these presupposed qualities can become greatly mutated in the hands of the depraved.

As scribed by Moses in the Old Testament, before man walked this earth, “God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’ There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day,” (Genesis 1:21-23; NASB). The first five days were taken to enact a series of natural laws—declared to be “good”—before populating the planet with man; “[t]hen God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind’; and it was so. 25 God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good,” (Genesis 1:24-26; NASB).

God certainly thought things through before placing man in his environment. The inverse would have mean that man presupposed natural law, or that some laws were bestowed on man. Instead the opposite is true: man was bestowed on God’s natural laws—then permitted to create, enact, and enforce his own. These artificial laws, were later reminded through the works of Paul in the New Testament to be extensions of Heaven. The thirteenth chapter of Romans reveals in its first two verses that, “Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. So anyone who rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and they will be punished, (Romans 13:1-2; NLT). Yet this institution placed government in a position to devolve into despotism without continuous civic intervention. Further, each citizen is dutied with the task of embarking on a personal relationship with his creator—God. This divine relationship produces a continuous state of self-regulation necessary to invoke a sustainable fortress of liberty; one unmutated by government intervention.

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Genesis 1:26-31; NASB). So God created the world, its natural laws, filled it with creatures; then added man, armed with free-will, subjected to these conditionings within this environment. Following the Fall, man has formulated his own law to better uphold the moral portions of this natural law, set forth by God in the physical realm. We are the vehicles and instruments he invokes to uphold this image by His will and the granting of divine discernment.

Individual Preservation

In a May 1776 resolution, the Continental Congress instructed the thirteen colonies “to reorganize their governments solely on the basis of ‘the authority of the people,’” (Bowman & Kearney p. 58). This action produced two effects: the first, (1) liberty could be ratified in the image of the needs of culture; and second, (2) all actions can now be declared to be the “authority of the people,” no matter their detriment to the people themselves.

As Robert A. Goldwin writes, “If, as we see, the phrase ‘state of nature’ is sometimes not related to the condition of prepolitical man, what, then, in precise terms, is the state of nature? Locke provides this brief definition: ‘Men living together according to reason, without a common superior on earth with authority to judge between them, is properly the state of nature [§19],’” (Strauss & Cropsey, p. 680). Goldwin adds further that “[u]sing the terms of the definition of the state of nature, we can derive a definition of its opposite. That would be a state of men living together with a common superior on earth with authority to judge between them. In other words, the opposite of the state of nature is civil society,” (Strauss & Cropsey, p. 681).

State of Liberty, State of License

In the Federalist No. 61, Alexander Hamilton stated “[i]t is more than possible, that this uniformity may be found by experience to be of great importance to the public welfare; both as a security against the perpetuation of the same spirit in the body, and as a cure for the diseases of faction, (Hamilton, A., p. 317). James Madison spoke similarly of the “diseases of faction” in the Federalist No. 14. Madison wrote that “[w]e have seen the necessity of the union, as our bulwark against foreign danger; as the conservator of peace among ourselves; as the guardian of our commerce, and other common interests; as the only substitute for those military establishments which have subverted the liberties of the old world; and as the proper antidote for the diseases of faction, which have proved fatal to other popular governments, and of which alarming symptoms have been betrayed by our own,” (Madison, J., p. 62).

John Locke

John Locke was an extremely influential figure to the Founding Fathers insomuch that many ascribed to Lockean philosophy when advocating a formidable approach to representative government. John Locke explained that “[f]or the Law of Nature would as all other Laws that concern Men in this World be in vain, if there were no body that in the State of Nature, had a Power to Execute that Law, and thereby preserve the innocent and restrain offenders, and if any one in the State of Nature may punish another, for any evil he has done, every one may do so, (Capaldi & Lloyd, p. 10). Yet, warned Locke, government legislators musn’t impose temporal arbitrary policy. Locke wrote that “[f]irst, It is not, nor can possibly be absolutely Arbitrary over the Lives and Fortunes of the People, “(Locke, J., p. 67). Locke added that “no Body can transfer to another more Power, than he has in himself; and no Body has an absolute Arbitrary Power over himself, or over any other, to destroy his own Life, or take away the Life or Property of another,” (Locke, J., p. 68).

Natural law is inescapable. Locke revealed this, in that “it is impossible to conceive that a whole nation of men should all publicly reject and renounce what every one of them certainly and infallibly knew to be a law; for so they must who have it naturally imprinted on their minds,” Locke, J., p. 69). Locke asserted that “[p]ower in the utmost bounds of it, is limited to the publick good of the Society,” (Locke, J., p. 68).

Arbitrary Power

Alexander Hamilton believed, as disclosed in the Federalist No. 12 that “[t]he arbitrary and vexatious powers with which the patrols are necessarily armed, would be intolerable in a free country,” (Hamilton, A., p. 58)

Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist No. 78 “[t]o avoid an arbitrary discretion in the courts, it is indispensable that they should be bound down by strict rules and precedents, which serve to define and point out their duty in every particular case that comes before them; and it will readily be conceived, from the variety of controversies which grow out of the folly . . . [requires] laborious study to acquire a competent knowledge of them . . . [thus] there can be but few men in the society, who will have sufficient skill in the laws to qualify them for the stations of judges, (Hamilton, A., p. 407).

Of arbitrary powers, John Locke believed that “[a] Man, as has been proved, cannot subject himself to the Arbitrary Power of another; and having in the State of Nature no Arbitrary Power over the Life, Liberty, or Possession of another, but only so much as the Law of Nature gave him for the preservation of himself, and the rest of Mankind; this is all he doth, or can give up to the Commonwealth, and by it to the Legislative Power, so that the Legislative can have no more than this,” (Locke, J., pp. 68, 69). Locke added “[t]he Legislative, or supream Authority, cannot assume to its self a Power to Rule by Extemporary Arbitrary Decrees,2 but is bound to dispense Justice, and decide the Rights of the Subject by promulgated standing Laws, and known Authoris’d Judges,” (Locke, J., pp. 68).

Executive Power

Executive power is necessary in civil society to uphold the image of polity expected by God. Robert A. Goldwin writes on Locke that, “war is more likely to begin in the state of nature than in civil society and, once begun, is also more difficult to terminate there, because force cannot give way to ‘the fair determination of the law’ (§20), as it does in civil society,” (Strauss & Cropsey, p. 684).

Impacts to the Constitution

The States ultimately retained their ability to craft their own Constitutions, so long as it does not violate Article IV’s Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. While state constitutions have changed since the ratification of the Constitution, one original state constitution remains; “[o]nly one of the thirteen original state constitutions, that of Massachusetts, survives (although it has been amended 120 times). It is the oldest functioning constitution in the world,” (Bowman &Kearney, p. 58).

Contemporary Influence

The influence of the Framers continues in contemporary polity; functioning as the basis of our nation’s legal system and legislative foundation. The Constitution ensures the stability of the nation, while allowing for local and state representation.

Conclusion

In sum, the Founding Father’s composition of government ensured the preservation of natural law and personal sovereignty; observable at both state and local forms. The Constitution allows for States to preserve their own tradition, but places a national boundary over each state’s jurisdiction under its provisions.

Bibliography

Capaldi, N., (2011). The Two Narratives of Political Economy. Wiley. Kindle Edition.

Locke, J. Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration (Oxford World's Classics). OUP Oxford. Kindle Edition.

History of Political Philosophy (p. 680). The University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.

Strauss, L., et al. (1963, 1972, 1987). History of Political Philosophy. The University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.