Bruce Pardy: How Americans gave up their own republic

A tattered American flag lies in mud in the backyard of a destroyed house December 26, 2005 in St. Bernard Parish, Meraux, Louisiana. Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images

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It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The United States was the land of the free. Limited government. Checks and balances. Separation of powers. The Bill of Rights. But America has instead become a managed society. Its government dominates the lives of its people. How did it go wrong? Lots of bad steps helped to transform the American republic into a managerial state. Here are nine of the moments that sent the ship off course.

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Residual powers: The “necessary and proper” clause, 1787

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The U.S. Constitution was revolutionary. But there is wiggle room in its Article 1. Congress, it says, may make all laws “necessary and proper” for executing its mandate. That was enough for Alexander Hamilton to slip through. He wanted to create a national bank to deal with Revolutionary War debt. The Constitution lists no such power. But he persuaded George Washington to sign the bank bill in 1791. The precedent was set.

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The 10th Amendment, passed soon after, could have put the genie back in the bottle. Powers not delegated to the federal government, it says, are reserved to the states or “to the people.” That could have meant the federal government had no residual or implied powers. But the section omitted a key word: “expressly.” Had it said, “not expressly delegated,” the path of history might have been different. But Hamilton’s blank cheque remained.

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Untouchable bureaucrats: The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, 1883

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Almost a hundred years later, in 1881, President James A. Garfield was assassinated by one of his own campaign workers. The assassin was upset that Garfield had not rewarded him with a government job. Patronage made presidents vulnerable. In 1883, Congress passed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act to curb the system of political patronage in federal employment. Certain federal civil servants would no longer serve at the pleasure of the president. The Pendleton Act initially applied to only about 10 per cent of the positions in the federal government, but its coverage grew rapidly. Today the president cannot appoint or dismiss most federal civil servants.

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In a republic, the power belongs to the people, if not directly, then at least through their elected representatives. The Pendleton Act legislated the opposite idea: administrative officers are not subject to the approval of the people’s president. If the president does not have the power to appoint and dismiss, how do the people? The answer is that they do not. The Pendleton Act and its successors did not end cronyism in the federal service. Instead, it shifted appointment powers from the president to the heads of departments and agencies. Congress had given life to what would become “the deep state.”

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Professional expert class: Woodrow Wilson and the Federal Reserve, 1913

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Woodrow Wilson, the first “progressive” president, went further. Wilson said that government administrators should be regarded as a professional class operating above the political fray. They should have discretion to apply their expertise in pursuit of the common good without oversight. Through legislation and executive orders, he created federal agencies with the power to act independently. The most significant was the Federal Reserve. In 1913, Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act. With the power to set interest rates, regulate banks and act as lender of last resort, the Federal Reserve acquired the discretion to manage the economy without presidential or congressional direction.