[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 1 (Tuesday, January 27, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3-S5]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MRS. ALICE WYNNE GATSIS SPEAKS ON THE 10TH AMENDMENT
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, the North Carolina General Assembly
embarked in 1997 on a significant course--that of inviting some of our
State's best-known and best-qualified citizens
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to address joint sessions of the legislature's house and senate. Dr.
Billy Graham, for example, made a remarkable and unforgettable
appearance during the year.
Meanwhile, the North Carolina General Assembly's Select Committee on
Federal Education grants heard a splendid address by a prominent and
learned North Carolina lady, Mrs. Alice Wynne Gatsis, of Rocky Mount,
whose distinguished husband is a retired general of the U.S. Army,
Andrew J. Gatsis.
General and Mrs. Gatsis are stouthearted defenders of the U.S.
Constitution. They are exceedingly knowledgeable about the perils
confronting this Nation as a result of constant tampering with the
intent and the meaning of the Constitution. In short, Alice Wynne
Gatsis and her husband understand the miracle of America.
That, Mr. President, is why the North Carolina General Assembly's
Select Committee on Federal Education Grants invited Mrs. Gatsis to
address the committee on November 10 of last year.
Mr. President, I have in hand the text of Mrs. Gatsis' address and,
being enormously impressed with her remarks, I have decided to share
them with Senators and others who read the Congressional Record.
Therefore, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of
Mrs. Gatsis' address be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Alice Wynne Gatsis--November 10, 1997--Speech to the N.C. General
Assembly--House of Representatives--Select Committee on Federal
Education Grants
Note: For purposes of definition, and the benefit of any
egalitarians among us, I will be referring to man and men
generically in the sense of man being the human race--it is
not my intention to slight the ladies.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and gentlemen I have been invited to
speak this morning on the Tenth Amendment, that heart of the
U.S. Constitution which says, ``The powers not delegated by
the Constitution or prohibited by it to the States are
reserved to the states, respectively or to the people.
You may be asking yourselves, busy people that you are, an
important committee with an important mission, why this
subject at this time?
It seems to me that every now and then in a nation there
comes a time when there is a need for restoration, a
resetting of the pillars that are the foundation of all that
is great in America. It must be apparent to many in both
public and private life that the time has come.
It must be apparent, as well, that for some time an
evolutionary process of unconstitutional usurpation of power
has escalated to an alarming degree, and in spite of the law
of the government (the Constitution) which forbids it.
All aspects of the domestic affairs of the people have
become a federal concern to the point where we now have a
president and congressmen, and, yes, innumerable bureaucrats,
bureaucrats who appear to be accountable to nobody,
addressing daily the domestic affairs of the people from soup
to nuts.
It was not pleasing to hear Donna Shalala, Secretary of
Health and Human Services, say, at her confirmation hearings
in the first Clinton administration, that the President views
the states as ``laboratories'' for the federal government.
Her statement represents the apotheosis of many years of
usurpation and preemption which has taken place in all
administrations, not just the Clinton administration, for the
last fifty years. It has slipped into our great free system
on quiet little feet, taking a step forward and a step back
but steadily advancing in the path toward centralizing and
unifying the divided and enumerated powers which have made us
a free people. There are reasons innumerable that such
unlawful inroads have been made, perhaps federal money,
perhaps false philanthropy, perhaps expediency. It is not
necessary to engage in the ``politically correct'' subjective
analysis of ``why.'' Objective judgment reveals that the
problem exists and must be addressed, if the first great
republic in history is to be the inherited blessing of our
descendants.
Attention to the 10th amendment is growing as its
importance cannot be overestimated. What would the system be
like without it? Where would you be?
The founders were not ignorant men; they drew on their
knowledge of Greek and Roman law, the American colonial
experience, the English legacy of common law and checks upon
power, the Christian theories of natural law and then they
added that best and newest ingredient, government at the
local level. State legislators sit at the pinnacle close to
the people with their powers enumerated over all domestic
law. There is no finer elective position in the country. The
authority of state legislators, faithfully executed has power
in many ways to keep America stable.
Thankfully, it can be said that the 200 year old
Constitution stands, relatively unchanged, amended only 17
times since the Bill of Rights. Within it, the 10th
Amendment, in spite of assaults against it, stands unchanged
too, because when Con-cons and conferences of the States come
along, the people realize that their Constitution is
endangered and combine to preserve it.
One of the strongest reasons for defeating the Equal Rights
Amendment, once the emotional aspects of it were put in
perspective, was that it was a major 10th amendment issue,
the second part of this amendment transferred all authority
over the domestic affairs of the nation to the Federal level.
Not everyone realized that this was the true goal but
constitutionalists did.
Standing in the way of ratification of the United Nations
Treaty on the Political Rights of Women and the U.N. Treaty
on the Rights of the Child is the Tenth Amendment.
The discredited health plan of the first Clinton
administration ran into roadblocks as the bevy of lawyers
assigned to the health care commission were told, ``You can't
do that because of the 10th amendment.''
The recent Supreme Court ruling that the Religious Freedom
Restoration Act is unconstitutional, drove a dagger into the
heart of some conservatives who will bend the Constitution a
bit if their issue is at stake, but Religious Freedom
Restoration Act really is unconstitutional. The ruling of the
court made it clear that the enforcement power of the 14th
amendment does not override the broad powers of the 10th.
One great ally of the Tenth Amendment is Supreme Court
Justice Clarence Thomas. He has enunciated hard nosed
positions limiting federal power. Writing about him, Joseph
Sobran said, ``In the 1995 Term Limits Case, he insisted on
the pertinence of the Tenth Amendment and added a brilliant
new twist to the debate. The Tenth not only limits the
federal government to its enumerated powers, he argued, it
reserves to the states and to the people all powers not
specifically denied to them.''
The clear purpose of the founders when they produced the
U.S. Constitution was to create a federal government with
strictly limited powers. It was the states who created the
federal government not the other way around. Their shared
attitude was best expressed by Thomas Jefferson when he said,
``In questions of power then, let no more be said of faith in
man, but bind him down with the chains of the Constitution.''
Also he said, after reading the new constitution, which he,
of course, had no part in writing, ``I assume that if the
federal government were to be involved in education, there
would have to be a constitutional amendment.'' There has been
no constitutional amendment in this area, because it is
understood that the American people do not want education
transferred to the federal level. They are the rightful
authorities over the education of their children; their
authority is protected by the 10th amendment and state
legislators are obligated to uphold that right--no where in
the Constitution is ``here-in granted'' for the federal
government to make laws about education and no where is there
authority for legislators to transfer voluntarily their
enumerated power to another branch of government.
There are those who would, if possible, scrap the
Constitution. They have openly said so; they are prominent
people, known public figures. One of their spokesmen,
Professor James McGregor Burns said it, during the observance
of the 200th anniversary of the ratification of the
Constitution. I thought it a strange way to celebrate this
occasion, but he said ``let's face reality, the framers have
simply been too shrewd for us. They have out witted us. They
designed separated institutions that cannot be unified by
mechanical linkages, frail bridges, tinkering. If we are to
turn the founders upside down, to put together what they put
asunder, we must directly confront the constitutional
structure which they erected.'' This quote comes from page
160 of Professor Burns book Reforming American Government.
Threads of this agenda from Reforming American Government
surface from time to time. For instance in Newt Gingrich's
new contract with America 2000. He wants that year's
Republican candidates for the House, Senate and Presidency to
run as a team committed to enacting a 10 point contract with
America. He foresees a parliamentary-like campaign in which
the entire national party runs on a unified platform. This
has the net effect of solidifying allegiance to the Party and
diluting allegiance to the Constitution and Congressional
constituents. The Contracts with America are 10th amendment
issues, because they generally address domestic affairs--but
never mind that--``conservative'' activists are already
trying to get their issues into the Contract.
Identifying the undermining of local state government,
several legislatures have passed 10th amendment resolutions,
and more of them will be as evidence mounts that the federal
government is out of control, and that ignoring the oath that
public servants take is dangerous to the liberty of all.
State legislators are so important. You are not only, by
decree, closest to the people, along with county and city
government, but you come from among us--the people. You are
our neighbors, our friends and part of the businesses and
activities that make up our various communities. Any
qualified citizen can sit in the halls of the legislatures if
fellow citizens so elect. Once that happens and the oath is
taken, you become a citizen-legislator who can represent the
rest of us only
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by strict adherence to the law of the Constitution. Since the
majority are not always right, that adherence to the
Constitution assures justice for all. The 10th amendment,
then, protects the law-makers and the people to whom they are
bound. This is an arrangement worth preserving.
Why then have state legislators been allowing their just
powers to slip away? Federal bureaucracies are doing more and
more unconstitutional runs around them.
It is time for a wake up call. As this committee prepares
to take up its duties, more end runs are occurring in
Washington. On Friday president Clinton traded off some of
his national education standards for a couple of years, and
the House voted overwhelmingly to fund charter schools by one
hundred million dollars, giving them a certain autonomy if
they teach performance-based education. The President, who
has no enumerated authority, any more than Congress does,
over education has highly endorsed charter schools as long as
they teach national standards. The net effect will be the
nationalizing, long term, of the school system, putting it
into the hands of special interest private boards, gradually
absorbing current public and private schools.
So much for elected local school boards, so much for local
legislators if they let it continue.
The more these federal intrusions into education create
massive failures in education, the more bent these federal
``nannies'' seem to be on more of the same.
Will state legislators seize the initiatives which are
rightfully and lawfully theirs? If they do not, as I have
said before, they will end up figure heads in a regional
satrapy run from somewhere on high.
Never before in recent times has the choice been so well
defined--On the one side is the Republic of the United States
of America a nation under God as defined by the Declaration
of Independence, a nation governed by God's law as
incorporated into the Constitution. It establishes limited
government, and divided powers. Most of all it leaves
citizens free to guide and direct their own lives. God given
rights are unalienable and may not be taken away; they are
eternal.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is the United Nations
Charter which enshrines the religion of man (generically
speaking) as the source of rights. Man through government can
give and take away rights from other men, women and children.
It is government farthest from the people run by councils of
``wise'' men. We will have to choose whom we will serve.
Knowing that where the spirit of God is, there is the spirit
of liberty. I trust that citizen and legislator alike will
not remove the ancient landmarks which our fathers have set.
In summary, this select committee has some very serious
matters to investigate, probably the tip of the iceberg--in
an ongoing chore. I wish you well and hope that you will ever
keep before you the basic truths of the 10th amendment base.
The law is on your side.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire is recognized.
Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield for a moment for a unanimous
consent request?
Mr. GREGG. Yes.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after the
Senator from Vermont takes his time, I be allowed to have 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from New Hampshire.
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