The 16th Amendment Poisons the Broth

       When Benjamin Franklin left Constitution Hall the day the work on the Constitution was completed, a woman asked him what kind of government he had given them. “A Republic,” he said, “if you can keep it.” The framers knew well the dangers of liberty. They understood the fragile character of the American experiment. Democracies of old inevitably fell into tyranny and anarchy. Thomas Hobbs had warned that human beings are not capable of self-government, that despotism was a necessary evil. However, the framers put their faith in Montesquieu and established a federation of small republics bonded together for the purpose of national defense. They established a national government wherein the departments of the federal government itself as well as the governments of the individual republics were all pitted against the others to prevent any government entity from satisfying its natural lust for power
      It might have worked if we had worked to keep it. But we have allowed the federal government to morph into a gigantic leviathan that deems itself lord and master, not just of the United States, but of the entire world. The root of the evil is complex, but most of the damage can be traced to the passage of the 16th Amendment.
       Article I, section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to “lay and collect taxes” to “provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare of the United States.” Promoting the “common welfare” to the founders meant to provide stuff from which everyone benefits, that improves the welfare of everyone.

       The progressives of the early 20th century managed to convince the public that that clause allowed them to plunder the property of some to provide for the welfare for others. They, of course, knew better. The founders feared nothing more than a powerful, intrusive national government.