President
Obama is calling for more tax hikes for the “rich.” This is the same
president who took an oath to uphold the Constitution. While President
Obama might be envious of the rich and despise the rich, he has no
constitutional authority to rob the rich. If he wants to appeal to the
rich to donate money to help the less “fortunate,” then he is free to do
so. But to use the power of government to take money from one group of
citizens so it can be given to other citizens is a violation of his
constitutional oath as well as a violation of the Eighth Commandment:
“Thou shalt not steal,” even if it means trying to shore up a faltering
presidency. Here are some comments from our nation’s earliest founders
who know something about the nature of the Constitution and the
limitation of governmental powers:
“To take from one, because
it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too
much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not
exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first
principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of
his industry and the fruits acquired by it.” — Thomas Jefferson, Letter
to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816
“A wise and frugal
government… shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave
them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and
improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has
earned. This is the sum of good government.” — Thomas Jefferson, “First
Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1801
“Congress has not unlimited
powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically
enumerated.” — Thomas Jefferson
“The moment the idea is admitted
into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and
that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it,
anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt
not steal’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable
precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.” —
John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787
“With
respect to the two words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them
as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them
in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the
Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not
contemplated by its creators.” — James Madison in a letter to James
Robertson
In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 for relief
of French refugees who fled from insurrection in San Domingo to
Baltimore and Philadelphia, James Madison stood on the floor of the
House to object saying: “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that
article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of
expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” —
James Madison, Annals of Congress 4:179, 1794
“[T]he
government of the United States is a definite government, confined to
specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers
are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the
government.” — James Madison
President
Obama is calling for more tax hikes for the “rich.” This is the same
president who took an oath to uphold the Constitution. While President
Obama might be envious of the rich and despise the rich, he has no
constitutional authority to rob the rich. If he wants to appeal to the
rich to donate money to help the less “fortunate,” then he is free to do
so. But to use the power of government to take money from one group of
citizens so it can be given to other citizens is a violation of his
constitutional oath as well as a violation of the Eighth Commandment:
“Thou shalt not steal,” even if it means trying to shore up a faltering
presidency. Here are some comments from our nation’s earliest founders
who know something about the nature of the Constitution and the
limitation of governmental powers:
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