The Department of Education, federal regulations on the size of toilet flushes, federal gun-free school zones, national drinking ages - where are these things defined in the US Constitution? In the more than 200 years since the Constitution was adopted, the size of the federal government has grown steadily, much to the detriment of individual rights. In The Constitution in Exile, Judge Andrew Napolitano starts at the infancy of our country and explains how the federal government has grown over time, citing key laws and Supreme Court decisions that were truly insulting to the original intent of many of our founding fathers.
Napolitano holds no punches in this book. He travels back in history to show that many of the controversial issues facing us today, like the current War on Terror, are nothing new, and that some of the presidents that history shows as great trampled on our civil liberties as much, if not more than, George W. Bush is accused of doing now. Even Abraham Lincoln is not spared, when the author refers to him as an emperor and shows that he never cared about freeing the slaves, only that it was just a convenient means to an end. The final chapters of The Constitution in Exile look at some key Supreme Court cases that were just decided or are currently pending, and also examine the US Patriot Act.
The Constitution in Exile covers several of the major abuses of the Constitution, and how these holes have been gradually expanded over time. From expanding the commerce clause to controlling the private growth of wheat in farms and weed in California, to using “general welfare” to bribe states to do what they don’t want to do, you’ll be surprised at the ways the federal government has been allowed to go where it was never intended.
Article comments
1 - kilgore forelle
I'm not sure that providing solutions is necessary to an expose. Learning of the errant missteps should be lesson enough.