Civic Tranquility or Civil War: How the Constitution, in the Preamble, Orders Us to “Promote the General Welfare”

The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America states:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Here’s how the tenets of the Preamble break down:

1. A more perfect Union.  This referred to the previous document that had established the United States, which document was considered inadequate for a number of reasons.

2. Establish Justice.  An efficient, honest, and fair system of civil and criminal law, with Judges appointed by the President and approved by Congress.

3. Insure domestic Tranquility.  This refers to the suppression of riots, insurrections and mobs, which required a National Guard.  This may have been the motivation for the Second Amendment.

4. Provide for the common defence.  Clearly this means repelling invaders, with an Army.  The President is Commander in Chief, although he/she is considered a civilian.

5. Promote the general Welfare.  This refers to everybody getting a roof over their heads, enough to eat, clothes to wear, even possibly medical care.

6. Secure the Blessings of Liberty.  This means freedom from the oppression of the British and leads directly to the Bill of Rights.

7. Ourselves and our Posterity.  The authors wanted the government they were establishing to last for a long time and hoped to make the document alterable to fit changing circumstances.  Thus the Amendments in general, particularly the Tenth Amendment, which reserves un-enumerated rights and powers to the States and the People.

Now, the Republicans are trying to deny or avoid enforcing one of the six or seven basic parts of the Constitution: promoting the general Welfare.  Someone has to point out to them that they are doing this, and that it is wrong.  Surely they can’t knowingly ignore such a basic part of the Constitution.  Even if they are conservatives and don’t believe in giving people welfare, they can’t deny that there is such an obligation clearly expressed in the Constitution that they have to accept unless they can amend it by a supermajority vote to remove the offending language.  Otherwise, they are bound by civility to follow the existing laws even if they don’t like them.

This is another basic aspect of Constitutional government that is ignored by the Republicans at their peril.   Surely they realize that wealth inequality, when stretched beyond a reasonable degree, will lead to civil unrest, and if stretched far enough, will lead to civil war.  The haves must be made to understand that the have-nots can be abused only so much.  Clearly, it is in the rich people’s own self-interest to provide for the welfare of the poor people.  There’s plenty enough to go around.