The Founders Who Opposed the Constitution
< < Go Back
The Anti-Federalists gave us the Bill of Rights. Judge Andrew Oldham says they can also give us insight on the modern administrative state.
Liberals and conservatives are deeply polarized on the administrative state. So were the Federalists and Anti-Federalists in the late 18th century, yet they had a common tradition. … they all supported republicanism and believed “the only legitimacy of the government” was that it acted on behalf of the people.
For all their disagreements, today’s left and right also believe this. But intense polarization, as the Anti-Federalists recognized, can create a fertile ground for tyranny. That makes fidelity to the Constitution all the more important, and reading the Anti-Federalists and the Federalists together can aid that project. Judge Oldham cites Sir Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s 1960 play, “A Man for All Seasons,” on the importance of always being faithful to the law, even when it doesn’t suit one’s immediate purposes: “If we cut down every law in England to get after the devil, then when the wind blows, and the devil turns round on you, where do you have to hide, with all of the laws of England being laid flat?”
In building the administrative state, progressives have aimed at vanquishing many devils—and in some cases succeeded. Yet they might have stretched the limits of the nation’s fundamental law in the process. The election of Donald Trump ought to bring home the risk that the devil may one day turn round on them.
More From The Wall Street Journal (subscription required):