Commentary urges new constitutional limits on federal power

Steve H. Hanke has argued that the United States should use its 250-year milestone to reconsider how much power the federal government has accumulated. In a Fortune commentary, Hanke said the Constitution was written to restrain public authority and protect liberty, and he called for a constitutional amendment to curb Washington’s growth.

Fortune identified Hanke as a senior contributing columnist, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University and a board member of the Federal Fiscal Sustainability Foundation. Fortune said the views in the commentary were his own.

Hanke said the word “democracy” appears in neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution. He argued that the framers were wary of unchecked majority power and designed federal institutions so voters would not be the only limit on government.

As Hanke described it, the original constitutional system gave citizens a direct vote only for the House of Representatives. The president, the judiciary and the Senate were not chosen by direct popular vote under the initial design, he said.

Hanke pointed to separation of powers as a central part of that design. The legislative, executive and judicial branches were set against one another, he wrote, because the framers wanted each branch to restrain the others.

His argument places individual rights at the center of the founding structure. Hanke said the Constitution favored limited government, property rights and contracts, and he described economic liberty as a condition for growth and prosperity.

Hanke also emphasized the document’s brevity and legal structure. He said the preamble contains 52 words, followed by seven articles and the first 10 amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, which were adopted in 1791.

According to Hanke, the Bill of Rights mainly shields citizens from the state. He said the jury-trial guarantee is the only affirmative claim on government in those amendments, while the rest operate as protections against government intrusion.

Hanke broke down the Constitution’s text by function. He wrote that about 20% lists actions governments may not take, about 10% grants powers and about 70% deals with placing the United States and its government under the rule of law.

For about a century after ratification, Hanke said, private property, contract rights and internal free trade were generally respected. He argued that federal power remained limited through much of that period.

Hanke said that on the eve of World War I, federal spending was under 2% of GNP, 99% of Americans paid no income tax and the top income tax rate was 7% on income above $500,000. He also said the federal workforce numbered about 400,000, less than 1% of the labor force, with about 165,000 troops on active duty.

He described World War I as a turning point. Hanke said the government nationalized rail, telephone and telegraph systems, as well as more than 100 manufacturing plants, instituted conscription, entered labor-management relations under the Adams Act of 1916 and passed the Espionage Act of 1917 and Sedition Act of 1918.

Hanke said Upton Sinclair was arrested for reading the Bill of Rights and Roger Baldwin was arrested for reading the Constitution. He attributed the wartime expansion to emergency powers Congress granted President Woodrow Wilson in 1916.

Although much of the wartime apparatus was later dismantled, Hanke argued that remnants survived and reappeared during later crises. He listed the Great Depression, World War II, the Vietnam War, the War on Terror and COVID lockdowns as emergencies that expanded laws, agencies, budgets and restrictions on civil liberties.

Hanke concluded that each emergency pushed the federal government’s reach higher. His proposed remedy is to amend the Constitution, a step he said the framers made possible.

This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.