In Our Lost Constitution, author Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) uses Founding Father flashbacks to show how and why six of the Constitution’s most vital provisions were created – and how they’ve been marginalized and threatened by neglect and political maneuvering.
Lee explains how this neglect of these provisions is having real-life consequences today – such as Obamacare, NSA snooping, and excessive executive power:
• The Origination Clause says that all bills to raise taxes must originate in the House of Representatives, but contempt for the clause ensured the passage of Obamacare.
• The Fourth Amendment protects us against unreasonable searches and seizures, but the NSA now collects our private data without a warrant.
• The Legislative Powers Clause means that only Congress can pass laws, but unelected agencies now produce ninety-nine out of every one hundred pages of legal rules imposed on the American people.
A “Duck-and-Dodge strategy” is one ploy utilized by today’s politicians to circumvent our laws, Lee explains:
“Using a classic duck-and-dodge strategy, Congress routinely enacts legislation that purports to solve a genuine problem but provides no specific solutions. Congress then delegates to executive-branch bureaucrats the power to make legally binding rules or ‘regulations,’ which will themselves determine the law’s real-world impact. It’s a brilliant plan; Congress gets all the credit for the popular goal and none of the blame for the controversial particulars of regulation.”
But, it’s not too late for Americans to restore and defend our fundamental liberties, Lee writes, giving examples of times Americans have fought to protect our Constitution – and won. In 2008, for example, a couple of unlikely challengers persuaded the Supreme Court to rediscover the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms.
In Part II of his book, Sen. Lee provides a blueprint for “Reclaiming the Constitution” through a multi-pronged approach:
- The Courts,
- Legislation,
- Power of the Purse,
- Citizen action
Part I of Lee’s book reads much like a historical novel telling the stories of the battles, thought, negotiations, and compromises that led the Founding Fathers to create crucial provisions of the Constitution, and the efforts in more recent years to derail them.
Lee’s cast of characters includes:
- A former Ku Klux Klansman, who hijacked the Establishment Clause to strangle Catholic schools;
- The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who called the Second Amendment a fraud; and
- The revered president who began his first of four terms by threating to shatter the balance of power between Congress and the president, and who began his second term by vowing to do the same to the Supreme Court.
- Andrew Jackson, noted for his courage in duels and politics, who stood firm against the unconstitutional expansion of federal powers.
- Ben Franklin, who brilliantly negotiated compromise at a deeply divided constitutional convention.
Ultimately, though, Lee says “Lost Constitution” isn’t just “a book about heroes and villains” – it’s also a message of hope to those who will heed it:
“I wrote this book for people who share my lifelong love of the Constitution and my growing frustration with legislators, judges, and presidents who ignore and distort it. In one sense, this is a book about heroes and villains— those who inspired, crafted, and respected liberty’s safeguards and those who have tried to tear those safeguards down.
“But in another sense, this is a book with a message: The ‘Lost Constitution’ should be restored, and it can be, but only if we remember the people and the stories behind it.”
Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America's Founding Document by Sen. Mike Lee is available here on Amazon.com.