CONSTITUTIONAL CONVERSATIONS
Coronavirus and the United States Constitution
by
M. E. Boyd, Esq., “Miss Constitution”
Thomas Paine, the pamphleteer of the American Revolution, wrote this about human beings:
“Here is the origin of government. . . rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world.”
Paine is right – the origin of our national Constitution is the necessity to direct human behavior with appropriate authority as human beings struggle to do the right thing at the right time to the right degree.
The three issues addressed at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were:
- How to create enough national strength to prevent attack by predatory powers
- How to create enough national loyalty among the very independent states
- How to create moral virtue in each citizen enough to lessen the need for tyranny
Talk about a challenging agenda! The Founders would be asking and answering the hardest questions about social organization – how to protect first; how to promote cooperation second; and how to foster virtue third. Their answer to these timeless questions was to create unique Constitutional structures. Part of those structures is called Federalism – dividing governmental authority into layers. The most important layer relative to moral virtue is local; the most important layer relative to cooperation is state/county/township/community; and the most important layer relative to protection is national. Their view was that moral virtue rises from the bottom up – through parenting, through school and community expectations, and begins early enough in a person’s life that virtuous habits are created. These habits include personal responsibility, humility, generosity, and honesty. Protection, on the other hand, starts at the top and flows down – a strong military nationally, a vigorous public safety presence in each state/county/township/community, and an obedient and responsible public.
How has this ingenious structure held up in our present crisis with the Coronavirus?
The national government, in its protective role, closed some of the nation’s air traffic. The national government brought together various executive bureaucracies and created a working coalition of scientific and practical point persons and task forces. The national government reached down to state and local authorities to assist with state needs leaving leadership for those needs in state hands. The national government reached down to individual citizens with guidelines and behavioral requests. The executive branch of the national government reached over to Congress for specific, temporary crisis funding. Each citizen can judge for him or herself how each Governor has carried out his or her duty, how mayors and county executives have responded, and how specific Congresspersons have behaved. Accountability comes through elections.
And what about each citizen? Have we seen moral virtue in our people? Was the Founder’s trust in the ordinary American justified? Mostly the answer is YES, but there is still work to do with those persons who:
- When asked to stay home, drive or fly to other states possibly infecting new communities – what do you not understand about SHELTER IN PLACE?
- Mock authority, mock whole generations of their fellow citizens, possibly infecting others without knowing and without care. What do you not understand about NO BEACH PARTIES, NO PARK PARTIES, NO PARTIES PERIOD?
- Use information, not yet public, to profit financially during a national crisis. What do you not understand about ETHICS, ILLEGAL INSIDER TRADING, PUBLIC LEADERSHIP BY EXAMPLE, PUBLIC TRUST?
Miss Constitution thinks one of the Founders’ answers to social organization that brings out the best and discourages the worst in human behavior, Federalism, has held up pretty well. That is because people tend to agree to obey at the lowest layer of authority, so power retained locally tends to work better than national coercion. People tend to feel closer to their own mayor, their own Congressperson, their own Governor, even though they may oppose a current President. Outside the parameters of government actors, people tend to agree to obey their ministers or spiritual guides, their teachers if they respect them, and their parents if they love them.
The United States Constitution is about structure and process. Its attempt to address what Thomas Paine identified as the “inability of moral virtue to govern the world” is visionary and practical and stunning in its genius, if only we could inspire those in whose hands the Founders left it to the humility required to honor it.
Copyright©2020 by M. E. Boyd, Esq., “Miss Constitution”
APPLES OF GOLD – Voices from the Past that Speak to us Now by M. E. Boyd is available at www.amazon.com
