Posted by
Patrick "Sarge" Murray on Saturday, October 03, 2009 12:00:00 PM
Below is a copy of the speech addendum that I printed and passed out to all audience members who listened to my speeches on Sept. 17. Due to the constraints of time, I was unable to make this important point during the speech itself, but I wanted to make sure that the audience walked away aware of the fact that our Founding Fathers not only had no problem with the idea of the profit motive, but in fact were quite supportive of it!
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Given the time constraints for this speech, we were unable to cover another important point about the Constitution regarding commonly held myths/misunderstandings about the document. Many people are under the impression that the Constitution, as originally written (1787), is somehow all about protecting peoples’ rights: it isn't. Remember, we didn't add the Bill of Rights to this precious document until four years later (1791)!
Granted, Article I, Section 9, has a whole list of things Congress cannot do, such as pass Bills of Attainder or Ex Post Facto Laws, or grant titles of nobility: such constraints are all well and good. But those pale in comparison compared to our freedoms that the Bill of Rights guard. So, if the Constitution isn't all about protection our rights, what is it all about? You can find lots of clues to that answer in Article I, Section 8.
Article I, Section 8, is the first section that actually delegates enumerated powers to Congress. The first powers listed give us insight into the priorities of our Founding Fathers. It says:
"Congress shall have the power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties and Imposts and Excises....to borrow money on the credit of the United States: to regulate Commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states...to establish uniform laws on bankruptcy...to coin money and regulate the value thereof, to establish Post Offices and Post Roads...to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for a limited time to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
All of this points to one thing: the Framers wanted to create an orderly framework of national government to get all the states on the same page regarding economic policy so we, The People, could all go out and do that which is quintessentially American: TO MAKE MONEY! (Remember, these Framers were practical men!)
Practically all the Framers were self-made men who knew that the best way to secure the blessings of liberty was to create an orderly system of government so we could all go out and, through our own hard work and ambition, live out the American dream. Indeed, all the aforementioned enumerated powers found in Article I, Section 8 attest to this, and only after those powers that deal with creating a stable commercial system on a national scale are listed, THEN they get to more mundane matters such as punishing pirates, raising armies and navies and regulating the militia, and so forth.
This should serve as a reminder to us all that free enterprise and entrepreneurship are in our cultural DNA as Americans – a natural extension of our thirst for individual freedom and self-reliance -- that to continue the security of the blessings of liberty, government should not nationalize industries but instead allow for free people to come up with their own creative solutions to contemporary problems in the marketplace. GOD BLESS AMERICA!