Which word don't you understand?

Wish I'd said that!

[Reprinted from Issues & Views September 3, 2001]

Congressmen, presidents and Supreme Court justices take an oath of office swearing to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution.

As if the Constitution itself isn't clear about what they must do, in Federalist Paper No. 45, James Madison, the acknowledged father of the Constitution, described the document thusly: "the powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce . . . . The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State."

Both Madison's statement and the Constitution leave no doubt about the "few and defined" powers delegated to the federal government and the "numerous and indefinite" powers retained by the people and the states. I'd like to ask our 535 congressmen, our president and our nine Supreme Court justices which word or phrase in Madison's statement they find beyond comprehension, and which phrase in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which outlines what Congress is permitted to do, they find beyond comprehension.

You might ask, "Why should we pay any attention to a 200-year-old document?" I'd say to escape Thomas Jefferson's prediction that "the natural progress of things is for government to gain ground and for liberty to yield." After all, if we ignore the constitutional protections found in Article 1, Section 8, why not ignore other constitutional protections and make them just as meaningless?

If we continue our current path, future generations will curse us for squandering unprecedented liberty.

-- Walter Williams, syndicated columnist and Professor of Economics at George Mason University (Fairfax, VA).

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