Donald Conkey’s e-Newsletter - Volume 1 - No. 209 - November 2002

"Constitutional Observations"©

Answer: It is the Constitutionally defined "Separation of Powers" between the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches of our Government. The Founding Fathers (FF’s) worked hard to find this uniqueness. It did not come easy. Prior to World War II few nations in the world had written constitutions. Since World War II most nations have adopted written constitutions patterned after America’s model. However, unlike the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers, most nations follow a parliamentary form of democratic government — that is, the political party who elects the greatest number of seats to the legislature (law making branch) selects the executive branch from their ranks (Canada, England and Israel have this form of government). The Prime Minister and his cabinet are selected from the winning party to run the government. Note: Israel’s government fell this week. Note why! Under the original U.S. Constitution the people elected the members to the lower house, the House of Representatives, and the president, as they still do today. Members of the senate, however, were named by the various states to represent the state’s interests. This initial system provided strong checks and balances among the various branches of government. Initially the vice president was the person who received the second most votes in the electoral college voting for president. Today the party candidate for president selects his running mate, and when elected he selects his cabinet from non-elected leaders of known ability and integrity. Judges, then as now, were nominated to the various courts by the president but are sustained by the senate. When the 17^th amendment, electing senators by popular vote, was adopted in 1913 the states lost their power to check abusive federal power. There was great wisdom in the FF’s original constitution — there was a strong effective balance of power between the people, the states, and the federal government. More so then, than now.

Question # 2: What were the FF’s looking for when they were meeting in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787?

Answer: They were looking for a "Peoples Law" (a balanced center) form of "representative" government. Until the FF’s wrote the Constitution the two major forms of government practiced in the world were "Rulers Law," a monarch or dictator (tyranny), or "No Law," (anarchy), the law of the jungle. The FF’s believed that under ‘Peoples Law," or as Cicero called it, Natures Law, "the people are the source of a government’s power." They believed the government should answer to the people, and that the people should step up and accept that responsibility of self government.

Question # 3: Where did the FF’s get their ideas for this unique "Peoples Law" or "balanced center" form of government?

Answer: The FF’s were well read, especially with the Bible. Most FF’s had attended an university. The universities were all founded by various religions, and all required extensive Bible study. Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson were known to be strong admirers of Moses’ writings, especially his books of Exodus and Deuteronomy where they found "God’s Perfect Laws of Liberty." The FF’s drew 34 percent of their good government ideas from these two books. But the FF’s were also well read in all the classics of their time. The books most searched for guidance and ideas for "good government" included: 1. Polybius’ (205 - 125 B.C.) writings; 2. Cicero’s (106-43 B.C.) landmark books "The Republic" and "The Laws;" 3. Baron Charles De Montesquieu’s (1689-1755) 1748 book "The Spirit of the Laws;" 4. John Locke’s (1632-1704) "First and Second Essays on Civil Government," and his 1689 "Essay on Human Understanding;" 5. William Blackstone’s (1723-1780) 1769 "Commentaries on the Laws of England;" 6. John Calvin’s (1509-1564) 1536 "Institutes of the Christian Religion;" 7. Sharon Turner’s 3 volume study of the Anglo-Saxon government (traceable back to Moses’ writings) titled "History of England from the Earliest Times to the Norman Conquest;" 8. Adam Smith’s 1776 classic the "Wealth of Nations;" and 9. "English Common Law."

God’s impact on the U.S. Seal: So enamored was Jefferson with the Anglo-Saxon’s Common Law, and their ancestral heritage, that when the committee presented its first draft for the new Seal of the United States it included a drawing of the ancient Israelites’ in the desert on one side with the words "Israel led by God’s Pillar of Fire" over the image. On the opposite side was an image of Hengist and Horsa, Anglo-Saxon heros, with the words "Anglo-Saxon Common Law — Guardian of Freedom" circling this image. The seal finally adopted suggests a strong dependence on God. An Eagle is on one side, a 13 tiered pyramid representing the 13 new states on the opposite side. Watching over these 13 fledgling states is "God’s all seeing eye." The two Latin phrases on the seal state: "Annuit Coeptis" and "Novus Ordo Seclorum." In English this reads "He (God) hath favored our undertaking" and "New Order of the Ages, or the Beginning of a New Age." Powerful images and insightful words strongly linking God and America as inseparable. Our motto, "Under God,’ now takes on new meaning.