Constitutional Questions Arise in Scramble for Federal Dollars

As North Carolina scrambles to compete with other states for federal Race To The Top education grant dollars, no one within the state’s Department of Public Instruction is asking publicly whether those grant dollars are constitutional.

But that’s the type of issue dozens of North Carolina taxpayers pondered during the John Locke Foundation and N.C. History Project’s recent Citizens’ Constitutional Workshop, “What the Founders and Ratification Conventions Can Teach Us Today.”

“Article I, Section 8 [of the U.S. Constitution], somebody read the part of it that authorizes the Department of Education,” said Dr. Michael Sanera, JLF director of research and local government studies. His statement generated scattered chuckles. “Why are you laughing? OK, what about the Department of Energy? That’s got to be there. It’s really important. We have to have a Department of Energy.”

“Agriculture — what is more important than food?” Sanera continued. “It’s got to be in Article I, Section 8, doesn’t it?”

When no one at the workshop could find any of those three existing federal departments listed in the Constitution, Sanera explained the basis of his question. “What’s the point?” he asked. “The point is that Article I, Section 8 gives certain limited powers to the national government. None of these [departments] are there.”

Sanera labeled Article I, Section 8 “the one thing that controls everything else” in the Constitution, setting out — or “enumerating” — the limited powers the Washington-based government is permitted to oversee. The Constitution’s prescription for a limited federal government marked a key point in Sanera’s lecture titled “Is the Constitution Dead and Buried?”

That lecture and three others represented the core of a nearly five-hour exploration of the history and political theory tied to the U.S. Constitution. In addition to his discussion of the document’s key points, Sanera asked in a separate lecture, “Who Destroyed the Constitution, and How Do We Re-establish It?”

Meanwhile, N.C. History Project Director Dr. Troy Kickler’s two lectures focused on North Carolina’s critical role in building safeguards into the Constitution.

North Carolinians at first refused to endorse the new governing document, Kickler reminded his audience. Voters at the state’s first constitutional convention had too many concerns about turning over more power to a new national government.

Distrust of power was nothing new for North Carolina, Kickler said. He detailed examples such as the colony’s history of tax protests, the Wilmington area’s negative response to the 1765 Stamp Act, and the 1774 Edenton Tea Party.

One North Carolinian also helped inspire one of the nation’s founding documents, Kickler explained. “James Iredell helped form the intellectual defense against English encroachment,” Kickler said. “In Principles of An American Whig, he related several points that you can see later that come up in the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson was also influenced by other people’s ideas, and Iredell was one of those influences. … Before the Declaration of Independence, [Iredell] writes this: ‘The purpose of government is the protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ ‘People may alter or abolish government if it becomes destructive to these ends.’”

You can view each of the four lectures in the Citizens’ Constitutional Workshop by following the links below.

Kickler on “North Carolina’s Role in a Limited Revolution”

Kickler on “Defenders of Liberty: The Ratification Debates and North Carolina’s Effort to Guarantee an Important Addendum”

Sanera on “Is the Constitution Dead and Buried?”

Sanera on “Who Destroyed the Constitution, and How Do We Re-establish It?”

Saturday’s workshop was the first of its kind for the John Locke Foundation and N.C. History Project. Kickler and Sanera plan to develop follow-up programs to address demand for information about the American founding and the Constitution.