Happy Birthday to the Founder who Gave us the Tools to Fight Tyranny: Thomas Jefferson
In honor of Thomas Jefferson’s birth, let us recommit ourselves to the principles of the Founding. We honor Jefferson not because he was perfect, but because he gave us the tools to preserve the freedoms under attack today.
Jefferson could have merely named King George’s “long train of abuses” in the Declaration of Independence, but instead he enshrined first principles like inalienable rights, freedom, and the consent of the governed within our founding document. These principles made our nation the freest to ever exist. And it was with the hope of preserving these founding principles that the Constitution was written. Without the belief that rights come from God and not from government, there would have been no need for the Framers to set up a government of separated powers in the first place.
Jefferson fought for limited government to preserve the promise of freedom. He understood something that too many today have forgotten, men are no angels—especially politicians. Jefferson stated in his First Inaugural Address that the happiness and prosperity of the citizens of the United States relied upon a “wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”
Jefferson was thus skeptical of Alexander Hamilton’s national tendencies, believing they could lead to centralization and tyranny. Yet neither man could have anticipated the administrative state we have today. This Leviathan is trying to take enough power to control the lives of Americans from cradle to grave.
We must fight to protect the principles of our Founding Fathers if we hope to guard against centralized power. Signs that we are losing this battle are all over the place. Just look at President Biden’s proposed budget which would increase taxes by $4.7 trillion. This is on top of the massive amount our businesses and industries already pay in taxes, not to mention the burdens they face due to the added costs of regulations and predatory fines.
On top of this, consider the federal government’s tyrannical control over every aspect of our economy. If tyranny is all power in one man’s hands or one group of man’s hands, then the fact that federal agencies now have the power to legislate, enforce, and adjudicate laws is clearly tyrannical. That’s why I have been so vocal about President Biden’s Water Ways of the United States (WOTUS) rule. Allowing federal bureaucrats to determine that a pond on a Tennessee farmer’s land is considered a major waterway will give the federal government unprecedented control over private property.
This administration doesn’t even pretend to respect the lawmaking power of Congress. Take the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness rule. President Biden knows that blanket student loan forgiveness would never make it through Congress, so he is twisting the 2003 HEROES Act to bypass Congressional authority. This outright manipulation of the law is an abuse of executive power. Not only is this administration misusing existing laws, but it is also ignoring laws it doesn’t like. For example, President Biden has refused to enforce a myriad of immigration laws since taking office. As a result, our country is seeing one of the worst border crises in our history. President Biden’s unwillingness to enforce these laws threatens our national security, the safety and wellbeing of every community, and is straining local, state, and federal resources. Add all of this together, including President Biden’s use of executive orders to implement a progressive agenda, and Jefferson is surely turning in his grave.
If we hope to “keep our republic” we must stand against these attacks on federalism, the separation of powers, and our individual rights. It is time to reclaim the liberties enshrined in the Declaration and the Constitution. And for the ability to call upon these near sacred documents for our defense, we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Thomas Jefferson.
