Setting Boundary Conditions in Making a Federal Constitution

Nations and states considering federalism can learn from the problems and mistakes created in the formation and drift from loose boundary conditions of the U.S. Constitution.

The framers of a federal constitution for the states of America, in revolt against tyranny, saw just the barely perceptible shadow of hidden dangers lurking in the new government that could create a new form of tyranny. The boundary conditions in the articles of confederation presented strong firewalls of three separate branches of government to halt the rise of concentrated power. The constitution itself was not protected from change and subversion letting it morph into a tool for later elites to define social reality.

The constitution as it was created set a governing coordinator to act for the interests of the individual states in mutual concerns such as collective defense, trade, commerce and security. There was no concept that the power of the states and their individual identities would erode away over time. Mass communications did not exist such as in the 20th century and not even if Mary Shelly had been commissioned in 1820 to update the constitution with science fiction legal speculations could constitutionalists have imagined the rise of a leviathan central government created in a Frankenstein legal laboratory.

An original sin of the framers was to not exclude human slavery in the boundaries. Legal sophists would later argue that blacks were not human and equally absurdly for homosexual marriage.

The framers failure to clarify the boundary conditions of the constitutions at the time of conception allowed posterity to transmogrify it into whatsoever elites wished as state laws and rights for security were entirely co-opted by the power of the central government. The framers did not limit the constitution to a contract-like compact that could not later be altered. Instead they failed to recognize the need for specific boundary conditions limiting the ability of the central government to change the constitution after it was signed. Legalists have also found countless ways to interpret the constitution two and a half centuries after its composition in creative ways- applying it to innumerable applications that the founders never envisioned or intended.

The lesson for those nations and peoples considering possible federalism today would be to recognize how constitutional drift over time evolves concentrated power to the federal government erasing the individual charter states rights; only if the boundary conditions of a constitution are properly set to restrict and bind the expansion or alteration of the original contract can it be considered somewhat benign.

Human organizations evolve from innumerable sources and political directions yet they often produce the same effect of crushing individual rights in favor of collective rights. Elites then run the consolidated organization and unfairly proplit from power. The Communist Party of the former Soviet Union and Wall Street have little difference in that regard. Corporatism and communism have the same mark-of-the-beast power over the economy as Nero-the original beast of the Revelation, had over the citizens of Imperial Rome.