The Constitution
A constitution is a standing limitation upon the power of the government. So far you may go, but no farther. No matter what the excuse or provocation, you may not invade certain rights, or pass certain kinds of laws. The lives and property of the people are at you disposition, but only up to a plainly indicated point. If you go beyond it, you become a public criminal, and may be proceeded against, at least in theory, like any other criminal. The government thus ceases to be sovereign, and becomes a creature of sharply defined and delimited powers. There are things it may not do.
This device is probably the greatest invention that man has made since the dawn of civilization. it lies at the bottom of most of his progress. It was responsible for the rise of free government in the Greek city states, and it has been responsible for the growth of nearly all the great nations of modern times. Wherever it has passed out of use there has been decay and retrogression. Every right that anyone has today is based on the doctrine that government is a creature of limited powers, and that the men constituting it become criminals if they venture to exceed those powers.
Naturally enough, this makes life uncomfortable for politicians, and especially for the more impudent and unconscionable variety of them. Once they get into office they like to exercise their power, for power and its ketchup, glory, are the victuals they feed and fatten upon. Thus it always annoys them when they collide with a constitutional prohibition. It not only interferes with their practice of the nefarious trade—to wit the trade of hoodwinking and exploiting the people: it is also a gross affront to the high mightiness. Am I not Diego Valdez, Lord Admiral of Spain? Why, then, should I be bound by rules and regulations? Why should I be said nay when I am bursting with altruism, and have in mind only the safety and felicity of all you poor fish, my vassals and retainers?
But when politicians talk thus, or act thus without talking, it is precisely the time to watch them most carefully. Their usual plan is to invade the constitution stealthily, and then wait to see what happens. If nothing happens they go on more boldly; if there is a protest they reply hotly that the constitution is wornout and absurd, and that progress is impossible under the dead hand. This is the time to watch them especially. They are up to no good to anyone save themselves. They are trying to whittle away the common rights of the rest of us. Their one and only object, now and always, is to get more power into their hands that it may be used freely for their advantage, and to the damage of everyone else. Beware of all politicians at all times, but beware of them most sharply when they talk of reforming and improving the constitution.
from "The Constitution", The Impossible H. L. Mencken, ed. M. E. Rodgers. (Anchor Doubleday, 1991), p. 69-70.
