Is Empire unconstitutional?

[anewvoice]

I've got someone on their last legs, neocon, playing antagonist and before I go full guns one last time I wanted to make sure I could quote properly. It is my understanding that empire is unconstitutional, but at the same time I cannot quote a line which specifically forbids it.

For example, I am opposed to pre-emptive war based on the just war principles, but from a Constitutional perspective it would be allowed assuming that Congress votes to authorize it (noting they have not which makes recent wars unconstitutional and illegal).

What about occupying nations and empire?

Also, going back a few hundred years, the country was founded on the acquisition of land, often by conquering the natives. Counter arguments?

[anewvoice]

Nobody? I'm aware of the intent of the founders here, Jefferson and Washington quotes. What I'm looking for is specifically a piece which is used to defend or deny empire. It's not a specifically allowed action, but I don't see it specifically restrained either.

[The Gold Standard]

I don't think it's unconstitutional to have an empire. It is blatantly unconstitutional to go to war and conquer these lands without a declaration of war from Congress.

[Okie RP fan]

Unconstitutional? Not my area to help in. Someone, help anewvoice.

However, it sure is dumb and irrational. We've seen what happens to empires: they fall. For a variety of reasons.

Also, the Founders advocated non-intervention for the facts that the country could not afford it at the time, and was foolish when trying to establish trade and diplomacy. Same reasons apply today.

[anewvoice]

I don't think it's unconstitutional to have an empire. It is blatantly unconstitutional to go to war and conquer these lands without a declaration of war from Congress.

That is very true, but if properly authorized there is no Constitutional argument against it?

[Okie RP fan]

That is very true, but if properly authorized there is no Constitutional argument against it?

Don't believe so.

It's more of a moral and common sense argument to be made.

[The Gold Standard]

That is very true, but if properly authorized there is no Constitutional argument against it?

Not that I know of. The federal government is granted the authority to wage war and make treaties with other nations.

[otherone]

It is my understanding that empire is unconstitutional, but at the same time I cannot quote a line which specifically forbids it.


Pay close attention, as this is a very important idea, and often misunderstood, or abused:
ANYTHING NOT MENTIONED IN THE CONSTITUTION IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
The entire purpose of the document was to wholly outline the powers of government. Where mischief occurs is in the 'interpretation' of the Constitution. "provide for the common defense/ promote the general welfare"....these vague statements have been interpreted in the last 200 years to justify every big government power grab that we are saddled with today. The FF knew that any new power given to the government came at the expense of the power of it's people. They never envisioned a standing army, for instance, KNOWING the danger it could pose to our Liberty. People today erroneously believe the Constitution grants us Rights. It's up to us to re-educate them. :cool:

[affa]

The Constitution isn't meant to be for or against 'empire' - that is, it's outside of it's scope. However, I'd say that if you combine the idea of Just War Theory and respecting the soverignty of other nations, both of which I think are founding principles of this nation, you've effectively prohibited 'empire'.

Empire requires aggressive war. Otherwise, you'd have to wait for every single country to attack you before you could invade and take it over.

[kylejack]

Empire is not unconstitutional...but it has to be voted on by the people's representatives. Only Congress can declare war.

[The Goat]

It truly is sad when even in this crowd you have to point that out.


Pay close attention, as this is a very important idea, and often misunderstood, or abused:
ANYTHING NOT MENTIONED IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
The entire purpose of the document was to wholly outline the powers of government. Where mischief occurs is in the 'interpretation' of the document. "provide for the common defense/ promote the general welfare"....these general statements have been interpreted in the last 200 years to justify every big government power grab that we are saddled with today. The FF knew that any new power given to the government came at the expense of the power of it's people. They never envisioned a standing army, KNOWING the danger it posed to our Liberty. People today erroneously believe the Constitution grants us Rights. It's up to us to re-educate them. :cool:

[Bonnieblue]

I've got someone on their last legs, neocon, playing antagonist and before I go full guns one last time I wanted to make sure I could quote properly. It is my understanding that empire is unconstitutional, but at the same time I cannot quote a line which specifically forbids it.

For example, I am opposed to pre-emptive war based on the just war principles, but from a Constitutional perspective it would be allowed assuming that Congress votes to authorize it (noting they have not which makes recent wars unconstitutional and illegal).


Also, going back a few hundred years, the country was founded on the acquisition of land, often by conquering the natives. Counter arguments?


Man is a migrating species. Across the centuries one people group has migrated into the territory held by another people group, igniting conflict which often results in a mix of genocide, ethnic cleansing and assimilation. For an instance among many, the Celtic peoples invaded the British Isles and supplanted the indigenous aborigines. It may well be that even those so-called indigenous aborigines had supplanted an even more primeval people. The Romans conquered Celtic Britain and ultimately Christianized it. Christian Roman Britain, at least the part which would later be called England, was overrun by the pagan Saxons and their allies, a done deal by the end of the 5th century. Within four hundred years, these pagan Saxons had become Christian Saxons and found themselves defending their Christian homeland against their pagan Danish/Viking cousins. Staving off the Danish/Vikings, quite successfully, for over two hundred years, Saxon England was overrun by the Norman French, who were actually Vikings who had over a generation been Franconized and Christianized. This story repeats itself across the Earth hundreds of times. Yet, there was no Saxon empire; there was no Norman empire, although the Normans had far flung holdings into the Middle East.

The classical notion of empire is the transformation of a republic or a set of republics into a confederation with a centralized center like Athens in the Athenian empire or in Alexander's empire or Roman in the Roman Empire which emerged from the Roman Republic. The most conservative members of a social order usually resist the morphing of a republic into an empire while the more progressive, often also the more power oriented, seek empire. From the Aristotelian perspective, an empire emerges when a republic grows beyond the economy of scale between land and population: the greater the population or the more land which is acquired, the greater the danger of a republic becoming or decaying into an empire.

Americans understood this. That is why the sovereignty of the colonial republics, which would remain republics after the successful secession from the crown, was so important. The negative aspects of empire - centralization of power and bureaucracy - could be counterbalanced by prudent men in a confederation of republics, with the republics themselves splitting if population grew too quickly. Jefferson modeled this perfectly. If the population of a given state got too big it would either subdivide into what Jefferson called "ward republics" - counties or parishes with a high degree of autonomy and subsidiarity - or it would cede vast portions of its territory to form new republics, which is precisely what Virginia did. It ceded its northwest territory to ultimately become the republics of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois and its western territory to become Kentucky. North Carolina ceded Tennessee. Thus the proper balance of population and land was roughly maintained.

Jefferson foresaw a new form of "empire" emerging as new lands like the Louisiana Purchase were added. He referred to it as an "empire of liberty." He noted that Americans shared common traditions, customs and habits from their European and British heritage and would remained boned by those commonalities; yet, it would be necessary for Americans as they moved west to form new republics, roughly resembling the old colonies/republics of the East and it would be necessary for them to form new confederations with different constitutions and general governments as administering agents of those confederations. Jefferson envisioned at least five such confederations on the territory now called the United States.

The new player on the block is actually not the empire but the Hobbesian state. The Hobbesian state is an artificial super corporation with a monopoly on coercion, with the ability to define the limits of its own power and driven by a powerful will, whether that will be one of a dictator, an oligarchy or even a majority democracy. Hobbes' state which he referred to as the Leviathan would be the concentration of power necessary to check the wills of the aggregate of so-called autonomous individuals which would make up the social order. For Hobbes there was no natural social order. Hobbes turned the relation of society to polity on its head. In the view of Antiquity and the Middle Ages, society which was an intricate mosaic of commonwealths with different subsidarities produced the polity or governance. From Hobbes perspective, the state was the force which produced societies from the mass of aggregated autonomous individuals.

Thus, in American, the tradition which we associate with "anti-federalist" represents the old order of society as the progenitor of polity; and the "federalist" tradition represents the emerging new order in which the polity, i.e. the centralized and consolidated state, creates society.

In the former tradition are Jefferson, Randolph, Henry, Taylor, Macon, Calhoun, and Davis. In the latter tradition are Hamilton, Marshall, Webster, Story, Clay and Lincoln.

The states sent delegates to amend the Articles of Confederation. To that point, the colonial republics had been a union of constitutionally federated republics under the Articles. Not debating all of the cabals of Hamilton and Madison, their being important, the document which evolved from that convention was a draft, utterly powerless, for the states to consider. That which we have come to call "The Constitution," with a capital C derived its authority from the states. In the process of ratifying the Constitution, again that process giving the Constitution its authority, they seceded as they had from the Crown in 1776, one by one from the old union under the Articles and acceded to a new union under the Constitution. In addition by that ratification, they created (states are the creators) an agent (agent is the creature) called the general government with very specifically delegated and enumerated powers. The quasi independent colonial republics seceded from the Crown; then they seceded from their own original union as constitutionally federated republics under the articles; and then acceded to a new union of constitutionally federated republics under the new Constitution.

All of that ended in 1865. Hamilton and his cronies did not get during the Philadelphia convention the consolidated Hobbesian state which they had intrigued for. The anti-federalist prevailed or so it seemed; however, tucked into the Constitution, stealthily concealed by the Hamiltonian Hobbesians were strongholds which would nurture the serpent until it could hatch as the cockatrice of Lincoln and his Republican Party. These strongholds were the general welfare clause, the commerce clause, the elastic cause, the myth of implied powers which Hamilton wrangled ex nihilo out of the Constitution and a poorly defined but dangerous judiciary. Hamilton, Marshall, Story and Webster nurtured the Hobbesian Leviathan in its embryo. When it hatched, it hatched aggressively as Lincoln and the Republicans successfully destroyed two unions of constitutionally federated republics: the United States of America and the Confederate States of America. He and the radical after him replaced them with a consolidated and centralized Hobbesian state in its nationalist guise. Today, the Hobbesian state is shedding its nationalist guise and is becoming a global state.

The Hobbesian state first emerged as the Republic of France during and after the French Revolution, its birth wherever it appears always being marked by war and violence. It then emerged, almost simultaneously in Germany, in Italy and in American. In Germany Bismark moved inexorably by war and intrigue to subsume the principalities, republics and free cities of Germany. In Italy Garibaldi and his allies moved inexorably by war and intrigue to subsume the principalities, republics and free cities of Italy. In America, Lincoln did the same. This process did not end with Bismark, Garibaldi and Lincoln. It began with them. In Germany it reached its high mark, or appeared to, with Hitler. In Italy, it reached its high mark, or appeared to, with Mussolini. In America, it reached its high mark, or appeared, to with FDR. American's Hobbesian state is, of course, different because it won WWII and the Cold War. It has become the preeminent global reaching, international, Hobbesian state.

Dr. Paul represents that other tradition, the Jeffersonian tradition, which was vanquished over 150 years ago. It remains to be seen whether or not that ancient tradition can be quickened.

Thus, if the states wrote the Constitution, which they did, to rearrange their relationship within a new union of constitutionally federated republics, then, since the union of constitutionally federated republics has been vanquished and replaced, the Constitution, although I am an apologist for it is dead and utterly meaningless.

That is why these nefarious types can carry on their evil schemes behind the facade of this rotted Constitution. Put another way, the Constitution is nothing more than the Queen of England: trotted out to start Parliament, otherwise, held as a tourist attraction at Windsor.

[YankeesJunkie]

Yeah, it seems logical that empire will soon collapse for a variety of reasons. The strongest US force should be the Navy in protecting US Sea Trade which I do believe protets our sovereignty with an effect of positive externalities for other countries that use the same routes. I say this only because that we are protect neutral waters and once a ship enters another country's water that they are at the whim of that country.

[roderik]

I've got someone on their last legs, neocon, playing antagonist and before I go full guns one last time I wanted to make sure I could quote properly. It is my understanding that empire is unconstitutional, but at the same time I cannot quote a line which specifically forbids it.

For example, I am opposed to pre-emptive war based on the just war principles, but from a Constitutional perspective it would be allowed assuming that Congress votes to authorize it (noting they have not which makes recent wars unconstitutional and illegal).

What about occupying nations and empire?

Also, going back a few hundred years, the country was founded on the acquisition of land, often by conquering the natives. Counter arguments?

I think it's safe to say that conquering the Americas, in an age of all-out imperialism, driven by the spanish, dutch and british, has made history as an act of extreme violence against the natives. I don't think you will find any historian today who will ratify this as morally good or, truth be told, worth repeating.

Yes, a pre-emptive war declared by congress would be constitutional, but would it be morally good? I highly doubt it.
So this cannot be a valid argument for anyone to justify his desire for pre-emptive war. Period.

The question is not wether it's legal or illegal. Just because it is legal does not mean it is morally good or desirable.
Whoever fails to understand this should not have a political opinion in the first place.

Let me give you one simple example:
Alcohol is legal. Is it desirable or morally good to be permanently drunk? Or drink at all? I rest my case.

[Aden]

This one is too easy, really.


Pay close attention, as this is a very important idea, and often misunderstood, or abused:
ANYTHING NOT MENTIONED IN THE CONSTITUTION IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL.


Exactly. States can do anything unless the Constitution (or their state constitutions) forbids them to. The feds can only perform actions that are granted under the Constitution. Where does the Constitution say that the feds can maintain an empire? It does not. The Constitution lays out specifically the manner in which new territories are to be acquired to become new states.

Also, you can't have an empire without a standing army. The Founders were against standing armies and they are still unconstitutional. Read Article 1 Section 8 and you will see that after Congress declares war, the feds can "raise" armies and muster militias to fight the war. Now the Constitution does allow the feds to "maintain a navy." However, even with our superior navy it would be impossible to maintain empire abroad.

If he gives you guff about not being able to have a standing army, inform him that the U.S. beat the world's greatest empire (Britain) twice without one, and literally raised armies overnight to fight and win WWI and WWII. The modern standing army we have has only been in place since WWII and is unconstitutional. No standing army = no empire.

As far as "Americans have always conquered land," IE settled the West, inform him Jefferson admitted it was wrong to do the Louisiana Purchase because it was not authorized by the Constitution. Also, just because Americans screwed the Indians does not mean it was right. Some colonies bought or traded with the Indians for land; there were always Christian Americans speaking out against stealing land from Indians; lots of companies and businesses bought land from Indians. So the proper (and Constitutional) way to conquer the West was for PRIVATE individuals to buy land from Indians, then follow the rules in the Constitution for making their property a state of the union.