Our present state of government meltdown is not the failure of The Constitution, but rather our failure to comply with it. The Founders put adequate checks and balances to keep all three branches of the Federal Government in their lane and from infringing on the rights of the states and the people, but they have been ignored. The answer to almost all of the crises we’re facing today is to go back and comply with “the supreme law of the land,” The Constitution.  

         All three branches of the Federal Government are responsible for this failure, but as Thomas Jefferson and other Founders foresaw what they called “judicial tyranny” being the biggest threat to the Republic, they have been proven right. For this reason, we are examining the Judicial Branch first. 

         We do this acknowledging that many of the Founding Fathers were brilliant judges and justices who gave us what is still the best judicial system in the world. Yet, it is now close to running the entire government off the rails if it is not quickly returned to its constitutional moorings. We must do this while understanding that overreactions can be just as devastating as the wrong actions that got us here in the first place. 

         This is not to find someone to blame, but rather to seek solutions. For every mistake made, there have likely been many decisions that our courts got right. There may not be a more difficult, challenging job than being a judge on any level. Most judges are deserving of more honor and respect than they get. Even so, we must seek to understand the mistakes or we will keep making them.

         Unconstitutional Supreme Court decisions—such as Dred Scott, which declared that slaves were not people but property—became a root cause of The Civil War. Unconstitutional court decisions are responsible for creating the most serious social fault-lines in our country today, and they are threatening to cause another civil war. 

         One extreme example of how far out of their lane some in the judiciary have gone, consider how it is now an accepted practice for a single federal judge to cancel a presidential Executive Order, as we have seen recently on immigration policy. Any judge that even attempted to do this should have been impeached and removed from the bench immediately for violating The Constitution. How does this violate The Constitution? 

         First, this is a basic violation of the Separation of Powers clause. Both The Constitution and federal law put immigration policy under foreign policy, which is under the Executive Branch, not Congress and not the judiciary. The Founders had the wisdom to see how much chaos would be created if all three branches started to impose their own foreign policy, which is what we’re witnessing today. 

         Consider that there are hundreds of federal judges. It has been accepted today that any one of them can be allowed to block a President’s Executive Orders without even citing how the Executive Order violates The Constitution or the law. These judges do this simply because they disagree with the President’s policies. It is not likely that any government could survive the whiplash caused by this kind of madness, and ours won’t either. 

         If a judge can get away with doing this to the Executive Branch, they can do it to Congress too—and they are. This has not only eroded executive and congressional authority, but The Constitution as well when it is so blatantly disregarded. This has now gone beyond judicial tyranny to become judicial anarchy. 

         The Federalist Papers were written by several of the Founders to convince the states to adopt The Constitution. In these papers they explained what was intended by everything in The Constitution. Therefore, we don’t have to speculate about their intentions as just about everyone in office does today. We also have the private and published writings of the Founders, which often go into great detail about what they intended in our founding documents. 

         One thing that the Founders made clear was that in implementing three branches of government, these would be checks and balances to each other. They never intended for them to be co-equal, which is a very prevalent fallacy believed today. Their clearly stated intention was for Congress to be the most powerful branch of the three, which is why they gave Congress alone the power of the purse and the power to impeach. They wanted Congress to have these powers because they considered that it would be the most accountable and responsive to the people.

         The Constitution established the Supreme Court, but all other courts had to be established by Congress. Congress was expected to impeach and remove from office any judges who sought to usurp Congress’ authority to make laws by trying to “legislate from the bench.” Congress alone has the power to make laws, not the President, nor the Judicial Branch. 

         Congress was also expected to defend the constitutional powers of the Executive Branch from judicial overreach. Because Congress was given the power of the purse, they could just defund a court that went awry. The main reason these powers that Congress alone has are not being used is due to a lack of leadership in Congress. By not taking their authority, the other two branches of government did, which resulted in the chaos we are now experiencing.

         It can be tempting to believe that things are now so far out of whack that we will never get them straight again. Not so. The greatest danger and biggest problem, judicial tyranny, could also be the easiest to fix. It will take extraordinary leadership, the likes of which we have not seen for a long time. Yet, it is always in the darkest of times that the greatest lights have arisen. 

         In all things we must look first to The One for which nothing is impossible. That’s what the Founders learned to do, and The Lord came to their aid every time. He will do this for us as well if we will keep Him first by always turning to Him first. Since He made it clear that He resists the proud but gives His grace to the humble, let us continue to humble ourselves before Him every way we can—acknowledging our need for Him and being teachable enough to receive it.

         In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understanding? – Benjamin Franklin at the Constitution Convention

         They (the Founders) foresaw that the machinery of government could become too large, that the military could become too weak, that the national debt could spiral out of control, that taxes could become too onerous, that laws could become too cumbersome, and that our efforts to help the poor and educate the young could become misdirected. —Gordon Leidner

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© 2020 by Rick Joyner. All rights reserved.