How To Make America Great Again

If I were advising President Trump, here are the recommendations – with the supporting analysis – I would offer to him to Make America Great Again. To achieve this laudable goal, which would secure for him a pre-eminent place in history, a return to the fundamental principles that made America great is needed.

As numerous polls reveal, the American people recognise that their country is headed in the wrong direction. To correct its course, the rash changes wrought by the Progressives in the last century need to be reversed. They have caused government to become overly involved in people’s lives by disrupting the checks and balances of the American political structure.

America began an unsound path with the ill-advised tinkering to key provisions of the Constitution with the 16th and 17th amendments ratified in 1913. Both need to be repealed as occurred with the 18th amendment (ratified 1919, ended in 1933). The 18th was the Progressives ill-fated attempt to control social behaviour by the autocratic prohibition of alcoholic beverages, an un-American restriction eliminating free choice.

Government in America

After the former colonies won their independence from Great Britain and became sovereign states in 1783, their leaders recognised the need “to form a more perfect Union” than provided by the wartime confederation. Seemingly intractable problems plagued the 13 new independent states.

Britain was seen as an ongoing threat with its presence in Canada and the Caribbean. The economy – even though largely self-sufficient and agricultural – was suffering from the consequences of war and perhaps most telling of all, because the continental – their fiat currency – collapsed in a whirlwind of hyperinflation.

To address these problems the Constitution emerged from Philadelphia’s Independence Hall in the summer of 1787. The states relinquished 17 of their sovereign powers by delegating them to a new federal government that would provide for the general welfare of their Union and “secure the Blessings of Liberty” for each state’s citizens, an objective eventually achieved with the 13th amendment. The document – written to make certain its permanence – provided carefully crafted check-and-balance mechanisms to harmoniously ensure the federal government did not encroach on the sovereign powers each state retained, or the states did not interfere with the tasks they delegated to the federal government. In response to the concerns of thoughtful citizens, the states then added ten amendments, the Bill of Rights. They reinforced the underlying governing principle that citizens are the ultimate supreme power in America.

To reinforce the separation of powers visually, the new federal government would operate outside of state boundaries from federal-owned territory called the District of Columbia. Virginia and Maryland vacated control of 68 square miles, geographically highlighting the separation of state and federal power that is a fundamental element of the Constitution. The 9th and 10th amendments then ring-fenced the federal government’s authority to the 17 delegated powers, with any power not specifically stated in the Constitution being reserved by the states or the American people.

This venerated document established a Union – a term I use purposefully but found infrequently now. It was the Union that President Lincoln sought to preserve, putting into clear view the political structure of America prior to the Progressive era and its relentless march toward centralisation of political power and quest for absolute control by a federal ruling elite. The Constitution set up a framework for:

• a common defence, with each sovereign state providing a militia to protect the Union’s borders should any state be invaded,
• a common market, much like Europe set about forming after the Second World War, to facilitate unimpeded commerce among the several states of the Union,
• a common currency for the Union, with Congress given the power “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof…”

America advanced and prospered because these ideals were achieved. Responsibility for them rests with the federal government. Every other governmental matter rests with each state, all of which had constitutions protecting for its citizens the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and private property, which together make possible the pursuit of happiness. The limited tasks of the federal government were clear, and its power was contained until the Progressives began their campaign of change, for which money requires special attention.

Money and the Constitution

While the words “coin Money” and the action they intend are explicit, the confusion today about the phrase “regulate the Value thereof” disappears when this entire power given to Congress is read as one. The phrase recognises that the value of assets – in this case, gold and silver – fluctuate in relation to each other. As a purely practical matter, Congress would need to occasionally adjust the ratio of gold and silver to ensure a sufficient quantity of both metals in the country for coining. The Mint Act of 1792 – one of the first bills presented by Congress to President Washington – set the ratio at 15.4 ounces of silver to one ounce of gold. In the 1834 Congress adjusted it to 16-to-1, which became the famous rallying cry of silver advocates late that century as paper currency became more widespread and inflation rose.

A different monetary provision of the Constitution impacts the states. Because they had delegated to Congress their sovereign power to coin money, no state is permitted to “coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts”. Thus, each state can only use constitutional money, which perforce is gold and silver – and not today’s ‘dollar’. A dollar bill in one’s pocket by its full label is an unconstitutional dollar Bill of Credit and entirely different from a constitutional silver dollar coin.

As noted above, hyperinflation was a factor causing the unfavourable economic conditions in the 13 newly independent states. This backdrop adds significance to the power given to Congress to “coin Money”. It is obvious that neither Congress nor any other branch of the federal government has the power to ‘print’ currency. Because it only has the powers delegated to it, Congress cannot grant the power of printing currency to the Federal Reserve – another 1913 intervention of the Progressives – from which we can conclude that the forced circulation of the dollar fiat currency it issues is unconstitutional.

America today is plagued by an unconstitutional monetary system that has enabled, among other ills that have put America on the wrong path, a $36 trillion federal debt. The structural changes made to the Constitution a century ago insidiously disrupted the carefully crafted checks and balances between state and federal power, while Progressives through laws, monetary debasement, and other means diminished the ultimate supreme power of American citizens. As a result, each state and every American to their detriment have lost control of the federal government.

Take Back Control

In 2016 Britain voted with Brexit to take back control from a costly eurocrat bureaucracy in a distant territory that was eroding the quality of British life. Americans can take back control of a costly and un-American bureaucracy in the District of Columbia by repealing the 16th and 17th amendments, just as they wisely did with the 18th. But one further step is required, which I learned from reading a speech given in 1948 by Congressman Howard Buffett, father of Wall Street legend, Warren Buffett. The full speech can be read here.

In the words of the senior Buffett, who asks and then answers his own revealing question:

“Is there a connection between Human Freedom and A Gold Redeemable Money? At first glance it would seem that money belongs to the world of economics and human freedom to the political sphere. But when you recall that one of the first moves by Lenin, Mussolini and Hitler was to outlaw individual ownership of gold, you begin to sense that there may be some connection between money, redeemable in gold, and the rare prize known as human liberty.

Also, when you find that Lenin declared and demonstrated that a sure way to overturn the existing social order and bring about communism was by printing press paper money, then again you are impressed with the possibility of a relationship between a gold-backed money and human freedom.”

The outlawing of gold in 1933 by President Roosevelt was the keystone of the Progressive movement to undo the American system of government. A justice of the Supreme Court at the time stated: “The Constitution as we know it is gone.”

Fortunately, gold ownership is no longer prohibited, but Americans still suffer from economic activity conducted with fiat currency, repeating what happened to Americans in the 1780s. The economic turmoil back then was one of the reasons that led to the constitutional convention in the summer of 1787, but today a new Constitution is not needed.

Going Forward

To go forward, America must undo the detrimental impact wrought on the American system of government by the Progressives. America must return to the principles of its Constitution and the order it established. The Supreme Court has taken the first step.

With its Dobbs decision in 2022, the Court plainly stated that abortion was a matter to be decided by the people of each state. It was not a matter for the federal government, nor is anything else – we can therefore conclude – that rests outside the scope of those limited and enumerated powers granted to it in the Constitution. Following this path will return America to its constitutional roots and right today’s imbalance of governmental power. It will return control to American citizens, including their common law right to contract between individuals or among groups freely and without government restrictions or impediments.

The Constitution makes the federal government responsible for protecting the general welfare of the Union that is achieved by completing the three specific tasks – defence, facilitating commerce, and coining gold and silver. Every other government activity or decision is left to each state.

To achieve this end and to put America back on the right path, there needs to be a ‘Great Unwinding’ of the federal government, returning it to the pre-Progressive era with gold and silver as money, circulating as coin or digitally with modern technology. As the federal government unwinds, all governmental matters other than defence, commerce, and coining money return to each state to decide and act according to the will of the people and their elected representatives to the state’s legislature.

Most federal government departments can be disbanded. The financial liability and responsibility for federal programs like Social Security – a Ponzi scheme as presently constructed – can be returned to each state pro-rata based on contributors to it living in the state. Once returned, the people in each state through their control of their elected representatives in the state government can decide the outcome of each and every program. They can be wound-up, or if continued, decisions can be made on how to fund them with constitutional money, creating competition among the resulting alternatives decided by each state. People are then free to choose whether to move or work in a state more compatible with their personal values.

Also of importance is reversing the 16th and 17th amendments and returning to basic constitutional principles. By repealing the latter, state legislatures will once again appoint two senators to Congress, re-establishing this check-and-balance of governmental power. Repealing the former will end direct taxation of incomes at the federal level. Present circumstances highlight the dilemma discussed in the constitutional convention that led to the requirement in Article I that direct taxes – like income taxes – be apportioned among the states on the basis of its population.

The underlying moral principle here relates directly to conscientious objectors who refuse to take someone’s life by fighting in a war. No one should be required through an income tax to send their money – earnings that is their private property – when the federal government spends it in ways they do not agree, including military action where Congress has not exercised its sole power to declare war. The moral dilemma is solved by enabling the objector to avoid purchases of items taxed indirectly. The necessities of defence, commerce, and coining incur reasonable expenses and can be funded constitutionally with excises, duties, imposts, or other indirect taxes.

Making America Great Again begins with a reliance upon the Constitution and returning to basic American principles as guidelines to unwind the federal government. Its unconstitutional policies and programs need to be ended or returned to the states, thereby freeing Americans from a burdensome, harmful, and distant unelected bureaucracy that impairs everyone’s liberty.

Imagine the improvement to standards of living made possible when the American entrepreneurial spirit once again becomes fully unleashed, unencumbered by an irrepressible federal bureaucracy that requires adherence to official rules, regardless of their merit. The promise of better times will be realised if President Trump does indeed Make America Great Again.