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Who Killed the Constitution?: The Fate of American Liberty from World War I to George W. Bush

5 star:		(14)
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Messers Woods and Gutzman wrote a provocative book that should be read by Americans who actually care about law-and-order plus individual liberties. This reviewer has noticed that the number of Americans who do care is quite small. The book deals "The Dirty Dozen" cases and instances of abuse of government power, and the authors readily admit that this book could have been exponentially larger. This review will not cover all "The Dirty Dozen" examples which would make the review too tedious. However, the general scheme of the book will be examined.

The first example cited in this book dealt with the arbitrary laws that violated First Amendment rights of Free Speech and Free Press (1917-1918). U.S. authorities could make arrests and prosecutions for the most innocent remarks that could have been construed as critical of U.S. intervention into W.W. I. What was worse,the authors cited examples of official tattle tales who reported on neighbors'comments. As an aside, Messers Woods and Gutzman demolish the statement alleged by Pres. Woodrow Wilson who supposedly expressed regret for agreeing to the Declaraion of War. The authors clearly that the statement was fabricated by Wilson's sycophants who tried to cover Wilson's blunder. The basic constitutional point made my Messers Woods and Gutzman is that the First Amendment clearly states that Congress shall make no law abridging the rights of Free Speech and Free Press. Yet, power hungry political hacks and unthinking Americans accepted all of this with little protest. One should note that the American people are so poorly read and so ready to believe media accounts that such oppressive laws are no longer necessary. The American media folks have so censored themselves that censorship laws are unnecessary. Too many Americans are too immune to truth and reason to notice.

Messers Woods and Gutzman had a good examination of Pres. Truman's attempt to seize American steel mills because labor union leaders wanted more than steel executives were willing to give. Truman's threat was made to curry favor with steel workers and increase wages. The U.S. Supreme Court Justices ruled against the Truman Administration. However, as Messers Woods and Gutzman noted, the ruling was not strong enough. Also they alerted readers that if a President could seize steel mills, he could also seize steel mills or any industry to REDUCE wages.

The chapters dealing with the civil rights cases were carefully researched and clear. The authors show that in an attempt to end discrimination, they only made it worse. School authorities were scolded because of the changing demographics. Civil rights laws which forbade assigning students to schools by race were ignored by federal judges who ordered busing to schools based on race. The consistently flawed federal rulings that changed almost overnight resulted in such confusion that court orders for busing had to end.

The chapter titled The Great Gold Robbery showed an arbitrary U.S. Government whose authorities went after law abiding citizens whose only crime was that they owned gold. This "legal" basis for this decision was that the federal authorities could do this under W.W. I laws about trading with the enemy (Today U.S. defined enemies change as often as one changes shirts). In other words, U.S. citizens who happened to own gold were suddenly enemies. Such arbitrary power needs no further comment.

This reviewer thought the chapter on "The Wall of Separation" was the weakest, but this chapter was still well written. As an aside, this reviewer is not offended if someone has a menorah or a creche on their premises. If Christians wish me a Merry Christmas or Jews wish me Happy Hanukkah, this reviewer is not offended and accepts the statements in the spirit in which such comments are made. If Hindus or Moslems offter greetings, again, such statements are accepted as gestures of good will.
Messers Woods and Gutzman stated that the people in the states should determine public school or any public display of religious symbols. What should have been considered is that some state authorities can use their power to coerce of intimidate those of a different religion. In other words, state authorities can be as oppressive as federal authorities. Too often legal cases reach the courts because, for example, some school official or coach will demean or intimidate anyone who has different religious convictions. However, the chapter has merit because of "overkill" by those opposed to any religious symbols in public places.

The chapter on military conscription was very good. Messers Woods and Gutzman provided substantial research that the Founding Fathers and early National political leaders were opposed to a national military conscription which started in Europe. The quatation of Danial Webster on the floor of Congress rejecting a draft is worth noting. Readers should note that many who want military conscription want it for everyone else except themselves. Walter Lippman promoted military conscription until he realized he too could be conscripted. He managed to get cushy government while exhorting other Americans to risk their lives (a real hero here). The former U.S. House member Andy Jacobs called such cowards, who want wars but want others to do the killing and the dying, war wimps and chicken hawks. Mr. Jacobs was a decorated Marine during the Korean War.

The chapter titled "Do Americans have a Constitutional Duty to Suffer?" is a good example of judicial stupiidty and bureaucratic nonsense. This chapter cites federal attempts to stop people who are suffering from using medical marijuana. The unreasonable judicial rulings stated that home-grown marijuana could be eliminated by the power of the Interstate Commerece Clause of the Constitution. Since the plants were used for immediate medical use per physicians' prescriptions, the illogic of using the plants could affect interstate commerice is obvious.

The chapters dealing with excutive orders, war powers, and signing statements are ominous. Messers Woods and Gutzman carefully demonstrated that such powers are unconstitutional and lawful. Executive orders began with the administration of the Pres. Theodore Roosevelt when he granted diplomatic recognition to a country when the U.S. Senate refused to do so. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt simply used a different phrase via executive order. The chapter titled "The phony Case for Presidental War Power" offers a stinging rebuke of a law clerk and later government "Justice" Dept. offical name Yoo. Yoo wrote a poorly reasoned law review article which stated that the U.S. President can use his war powers to send combat forces anywhere any time he damned well pleases. The Constitution history and warnings of the Founding Fathers are well cited in this section. The chapter on signing statements would be amusing if not so dangerous. Messers Woods and Gutzman give precise ecamples of how signing statements, which only express a president's disapproval of a section of a bill, have been recently used to violate the law especially duirng the Clinton and Bush administrations. To use signing statements as pretext to violate the law is unconstitutional and illegal. An opinion is not a constitutional power to break the law.

The last chapter titled "Can Anything Be Done?" is not hopeful at all. When most Americans are concerned about what dress some celebrity is wearing, the abuses of the Constitution will never get corrected. As this reviewer has stated elsewhere, the American people have raised thoughtlessness to a virtue.

So, our bedrock creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Our rights are unalienable and originate from the creator and/or our status as human beings. The only reason we need a written constitution is to make some of these rights plain to the power-hungry idiots we put in charge of government affairs. The authors do a great job of describing what the original intent of several articles in the constitution were and how they have been corrupted through the years.

To say that current and future generations should feel free to reinterpret the constitution as seems best to them is fatuous. There is a perfectly sound constitutional method for amending same when the various articles go "out of date" or new interpretations are needed: constitutional amendments. For example, the fourth amendment has been (or should have been) much in the news lately: the right to be secure from unreasonable search. If the govt thought that the law is too restrictive for modern times, they could have proposed changes in the form of an amendment. But they did not and simply broke the law and, when discovered, had congress pass an ex-post facto law "legalising" what they had done. This is precisely what is indeed killing the constitution.

I sometimes think that in an era when "history" means who won last season's American Idol, one of the hardest things to get people to understand is that the assault on the American Constitution didn't begin with George W. Bush. The systematic attempt to expand and centralize State power at the expense of individual liberty goes much farther back in our past ... probably to the very adoption of the Constitution in place of the Articles of Confederation, but at least, as Thomas Woods and Kevin Gutzman argue, to the first world war. Indeed, as I saw someone express it recently, George W. Bush is a pro-bono attorney for the ACLU compared to that true monster, Woodrow Wilson.

So that's the first thing about "Who Killed the Constitution?": the authors' well-grounded historical viewpoint. The second is their research and documentation. It would be one thing to disregard them as ideologists if all they were doing was huffing and puffing like a Fox News pundit. But for them to marshal facts and citations and many, many quotations, as they do, makes this not pontificating but important investigative history. Discounting the seriousness of their argument would require ... well, exactly what has been happening for that last century or so ... the bald-faced denial of the evidence of our senses and reason. But if the rational reader can't see through that after a few hours in these pages, then I'm not sure what more we can do.

Of course, I'm not entirely sure what we can do anyway. I was all set to write that I wished I shared the authors' belief that Something Can Be Done, that the Republic is salvageable, and what's been lost can be regained. I had even prepared to title my review something like "A great book, heartbreakingly irrelevant."

I should have paid more attention to the title.

You see, the authors are not asking *whether* the Constitution is dead. They know it is. It was murdered by presidents, legislators, and jurists who sought Constitutional cover to create a veil of legitimacy around what they had already planned to do. Once they've come up with the arguments in which to clothe their intentions (the Constitution's "capacity for adaptation is indefinitely flexible," Justice George Sutherland wrote in 1919 [p. 162]), they lift the Constitution into the air like a shamanistic totem and the rest of us fall into line, hand over heart, like they knew we would.

Imperial ipsedixitism triumphs again.

So then what's left for the remnant? To their credit, the authors are more skilled than I at avoiding resignation. They write in their final paragraph that it's up to the American people to decide what to do with the information here presented. As I asked in my review of Woods' 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask, what if they're right? Whether this great book does in fact turn out to be heart-breakingly irrelevant is one, I suppose, that will only be answered in hindsight.

The Constitution has certainly been ignored by our elected officials. It can't be denied that the federal government is totally off the rails, doing whatever it wants to do despite the Constitution. It was probably human nature, the drive for more and more power, that killed it. Perhaps the document wasn't written and designed well enough to secure its main purpose: to bind the federal government to an assignment of expressly granted powers. Whatever happened, it certainly can be said that we are now living under a system which we never agreed to live under.

Here, Woods and Gutzman explore a series of constitutional subjects from WWI to the present. From presidents and congresses bound only by their own will, to federal judges legislating policy based only on personal preferences, the authors show just how much (dis)respect officials in Washington have for the Constitution. The chapter on gold was a new subject for me, and was truly scary.

From John Taylor of Caroline, to Raoul Berger, to Kevin Gutzman and Thomas Woods, there have always been true patriots exposing the total disjunct between what the federal government does and what the American people have actually agreed to let it do in the Constitution. The authors have revived the Constitution to a detectable pulse. Gutzman and Woods have given the American people the tools and knowledge to totally revive the Constitution, a revival that can bring back for ourselves self-government and the control of our own destiny.

Up front confession: I am a sympathetic reader, and should have loved this book. The constitution *is* dead; the authors are spot-on in that regard.

The book is a good overview of twelve events/processes that have helped make the US Constitution irrelevant to modern American politics. As the authors put it, everyone asks "Is it right?" and no one asks "Is it Constitutional?" before embarking on the next great legislative scheme to save America.

If you are a student of liberty, this book probably covers well-worn terrain. If you are new to the subject, come here for something to whet your appetite for more serious study. If you are either, you'll find the obligatory last chapter (on what can we do about all this?) lacking. The authors, as well-respected members of the libertarian community, had an excellent bully-pulpit from which to discuss the issues of interposition, nullification, and secession, or any other meaningful way(s) to oppose the encroachment of federal power. I think the book fell flat at this point.

Nevertheless, solid stuff throughout. The Constitution is dead; long live the Constitution!

Who Killed The Constitution?
Thomas Woods & Kevin Gutzman

In the 1989 screwball comedy "Weekend At Bernie's", Richard and Larry are invited to an all expenses paid wild weekend at the island resort home of Bernie Lomax. Unfortunately they arrive to find their host has been killed. Not wanting to let their opportunity for all expenses paid abandon escape, the party animal pair spend the weekend dragging Bernie's corpse around from one zany adventure to the next. Bernie is simultaneously their meal ticket and entry pass to the high life. It's better to babysit his corpse than to spoil an all expenses paid weekend, especially when it's at someone else's expense. As the two authors of "Who Killed The Constitution?" argue, the US constitution has become a Bernie with the rival candidates of the major parties playing the parts of Dick and Larry.

Economist Kenneth Boulding coined what he called Boulding's law, "Whatever exists is possible." He'd often point out it's amazing how many people don't believe it. Maybe we need a corollary, "Whatever has happened is possible." And it's truly amazing how many people don't believe it.

Authors Thomas Woods and Kevin Gutzman essentially take 'the Boulding's Law corollary' and apply it like a blow torch to 20th century American history. Rights? Forget it, you don't have any. That's the unpalatable lesson and the reality of the behaviour of America's Presidents, Congressmen and Supreme Court justices. And it doesn't matter if you vote red or blue. Woods and Gutzman illustrate how Presidents have imprisoned peaceful Americans for exercising free speech, how a "great" President nationalised a major industry and took the country to war without so much as a Congressional vote, how the great social reform of school integration was bused right over the constitution, it's advocates didn't even attempt to reform by amendment. The authors show how the federal government has become the judge in it's own court and (surprise, surprise) it, and the President's power, has just continued to expand. Presidents, thanks to "the Executive Order" and, now "Signing Statements", have now emerged as a one man legislative branch. Meanwhile over in the 'other legislative branch', the constitution's originally limited provision for internal improvements has become a massive spoils system.

Of contemporary interest is how 'war powers' are now seen as a presidential reserve despite the plainly expressed views of the Founders. The authors make a fascinating side track into how the founders saw conscription and supported the militia as an alternative to the monarch's army. The original revolutionaries plainly were concerned at the incipient monarchism of the presidential branch and sought to keep it on a tight leash. That restraint has now been gnawed through. Instead of the limited government republic it's founders intended, the American polity has now evolved into an elective principality with rival princes, or more exactly their sponsors and marketers, competing for votes across a vast and increasingly atomized electorate.

Gutzman and Woods aren't cynics who see the constitution and it's traditional rights as meaningless. Just the opposite, but they are skeptics, at least when it comes to the power brokers of the three branches of government. They hope that an awareness of loss will galvanise Americans into action, or at least, thought. Can the past achievements be reclaimed? The authors offer no solutions here. And in a sense, just as well. Not everyone will agree on the solution but by focusing on the great abandonment, well meaning men and women from across the political spectrum might just reconsider their agenda.

In a sense, and the authors don't say this, democracy and empire have triumphed over the republic and federalism. Although often disappointing and over-hyped, democracy is of itself not a bad thing, but neither were the republic or federation. The fear that the same process that killed the later will almost certainly kill the former cannot be seen as unsound.

Well written, well argued and plainly and clearly argued. Provocative, and recommended.

This book has made me painfully aware of what's really happening to my country. To say the Supreme Court has practiced activist decision making is like calling Einstein someone who dabbled in math. I get so angry/annoyed reading some of their decisions detailed in this book I have to put it down and go for a walk. Specifically, Wickard VS Filburn, brings "inventive logic" to a new level. And, the decision that the government's action is automatically considered "constitutional" and if you want to prove it "unconstitutional" here are the 17 hoops you have to jump throught to prove it (sorry I can't quote the case).
"Who Killed The Constitution" is a great eye-opener providing some rarely discussed actions of government officials and entities(Truman, FDR, the Treasury Dept, The Federal Reserve System) which the government, I'm sure, would rather keep us ignorant of. After all, THEY know what's in OUR best interest, don't they?
5 Stars.

Let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. - Thomas Jefferson.

_Who Killed the Constitution: The Fate of American Liberty from World War I to George W. Bush_, published in 2008, by Thomas E. Woods Jr. and Kevin R. C. Gutzman is a fascinating and horrifying account of the assaults on the Constitution by the federal government which have ultimately led to the destruction of the ideals embodied in this document by America's Founding Fathers. This account reveals through twelve case studies how systematically the Constitution has been re-interpreted by the federal government so as to give it nearly unlimited power. The authors maintain that at the present time the Constitution is quite literally dead and is all too often simply ignored by government officials who have found ways to go around it. While the Constitution was originally intended by the Founding Fathers to limit the scope of government and to ensure the protection of the rights of the people, the authors maintain that it has ultimately failed in this purpose. Perhaps we can understand this simply by the fact that if it is the federal government doing the interpretation of the Constitution, then it only makes sense that over time it will allot more and more powers to itself. Such arguments were made by the individualist anarchist Lysander Spooner in the period following the Civil War. However, the authors do not deceive the reader with false hope for the restoration of the Constitution, noting that in many ways the project behind it has failed and that what remains to be done next ultimately will be the decision of the American people.

This book begins with an Introduction entitled "The Constitution is Dead" which explains how judicial activism has destroyed the Constitution. The authors maintain that while attacks on judicial activism from the political right against the left are well founded, the political right is equally guilty of the same sort of disregard for the Constitution. The authors note how under the presidency of George W. Bush, disregard for the Constitution by the executive branch has reached unprecedented levels. The authors thus maintain that the Constitution is dead and is freely disregarded by the federal government. By presenting twelve separate cases in which federal judges overrode the constraints of the Constitution, the authors will attempt to make their point. The authors also attempt to show why the Constitution matters in that it is an effort to constrain the federal government.

The authors present the following cases in chapters entitled:

Congress Shall Make No Law (Unless It Really Wants To): Woodrow Wilson and Freedom of Speech - showing the erosion of freedom of speech and civil liberties in time of war beginning with World War I and showing that by use of a false analogy ("yelling fire in a crowded theater" which actually would concern property rights and not "free speech") the rights to free speech were taken away.

Another "Great President" Versus the Constitution: Harry Truman Seizes the Steel Mills - showing how Harry Truman seized the steel mills to fund his war efforts in Korea contrary to the Constitution and thus greatly increased the power of the executive branch which was feared by the Founders.

The Third Rail of American Jurisprudence: Brown v. Board of Education - dares to challenge the constitutionality of this landmark decision showing how just because a decision may seem right it may not be constitutional and showing some of the problems that ensued because of this decision.

Discriminating to End . . . Discrimination: The Forced Busing Fiascos - shows how efforts by liberal social engineers to eliminate racial discrimination in fact resulted in more discrimination and great harm for racial relations generally as well as a lowering of educational standards.

Roads to Nowhere - challenges Congressional pork barrel projects and ultimately uses this to challenge the constitutionality of Eisenhower's Interstate Highway System which was sold to the people as being necessary for "national defense".

The Great Gold Robbery of 1933 - shows how FDR seized the gold of the American people in an effort to supposedly "fight the depression" and never returned it and further challenges the constitutionality of the Federal Reserve system and the loss of the gold standard.

The Court's "Wall of Separation": Banning Prayer From Public Schools - refutes the myth of "separation of church and state" and shows how this myth arose from Protestant nativism and anti-Catholicism and the Ku Klux Klan arguing that this myth was used to crush the rights of states.

The Power to Draft - shows how the Founders were against the draft as an implement of tyranny, arguing that the draft violates the Thirteenth Amendment.

Do Americans Have a Constitutional Duty to Suffer? The Case of Medical Marijuana - shows how the case of medical marijuana further undermines the rights of states and that through interpretations of the commerce clause the federal government has given itself near unlimited power.

From Chief Executive to Prince: The Presidency and Foreign Policy - argues that the executive branch has increased enormously in power and that the Founders' distrust of a central executive has been disregarded. Further shows how the presidency originally was not intended to set American foreign policy to such a degree as is now done.

The Phony Case for Presidential War Power - shows how the president has seized the power to declare war from the Congress and that this is blatantly un-constitutional; in particular, shows that Bush's activities in fighting the supposed War on Terror (including illegal wire-tapping and torture) are in blatant disregard to the Constitution and shows the failure of the modern day conservative movement in opposing such things.

The President Enforces the Law . . . Right? - shows how the president has abused his veto power by picking and choosing which parts of a bill he will enforce through the addition of signing statements (abused to an extraordinary degree by President Bush) and maintains that if conservatives are not "conserving" the Constitution then in fact they are conserving nothing at all.

The book ends with a Conclusion entitled "Can Anything Be Done?" which maintains again that the Constitution is dead and is freely disregarded by the federal government. The authors also cast aspersion on the infamous Roe v. Wade decision which they argue was decided wrongly. The authors note that restoration of the Constitution is really a non-partisan issue in that both left and right wings have abused their powers. However, ultimately the problem may be deeper than this in that if the federal government is interpreting the Constitution it only makes sense that over time it will give itself more and more powers. The authors note that as the Virginian John Taylor of Caroline noted "the problem is not the character of members of one party or the other, one section of the country or the other, but the effect of power on the human ego, regardless of party or section". The authors conclude that despite this fact, the Constitution may still serve as a "useful bludgeon to employ against government power grabs", but what ultimately becomes of the republic will be up to the American people.

The book ends with an Appendix which provides the full text of the "Constitution of the United States" complete with all the Amendments.

This book offers a disturbing picture of what has happened to the American republic and is a useful remedy against those who argue for a "living Constitution". Indeed, if the Constitution is "living", then it is already dead because it has no power to restrain the federal government. As can be seen, over time the federal government has given itself more and more powers and thus the ideals of the Founders have been long since forgotten. What remains to be done is difficult to say.

This will be short...still reading this book.

Every American must read this book AND the actual Constitution. Our government has gone so far beyond the powers granted by the Constitution! Be an informed citizen so you can demand the Constitution be upheld.

This book will show us 12 assaults on the constitution from our presidents using war powers not granted by the constitution to the federal government discriminating to end discrimination.