Last Updated on July 11, 2022 by Constitutional Militia
TWO GREAT POWERS OF GOVERNMENT ALWAYS TO BE UNDER THE DIRECT LEGAL CONTROL AND INFLUENCE OF WE THE PEOPLE
“Power of the Purse” and “Power of the Sword”
Two principles of political science that have existed for centuries are fundamental powers in the founding documents: the power of the purse and the power of the sword. These are two fundamental principles for maintaining any government. Although our founding documents do not use these exact terms, the principles are self-evident.
• Power of the Purse – That is the power to command wealth and redistribute it through taxes to pay for public services.
• Power of the Sword – That is military coercion. The essence of government is coercion, to make people perform their duties or suffer some other consequence.
These two great powers of government are linked—without the “power of the purse” you cannot pay for the “sword” and without “the power of the sword” you cannot fill the “purse”.
The “Power of the Purse” is vested with Congress to perform their constitutionally mandated duties. Government officials cannot even contemplate spending what they cannot “create”. So WE THE PEOPLE removed the possibility of any monetary mischief by government officials by disabling States and Congress from using silver and gold only as “Money” in all governmental fiscal transactions and court decisions. The “standard” or “Money Unit” of the United States is constitutionally fixed as the “constitutional dollar”— 371-¼ grains of fine silver and nothing else, precisely so that Congress may not arbitrarily “define” and experiment with WE THE PEOPLE’S “Money”.
The “Power of the Sword” is vested with WE THE PEOPLE to perform their constitutionally mandated duties, properly organized as State government institutions “the Militia of the several States”. Militia are lawful community self-defense structures that empower the average American to govern themselves with full legal authority every day of the year. And in the extreme case, to enforce constitutional principles against rogue government officials who are no longer acting as government, but as criminals (see 18 USC Sec. 241 and 242) to provide themselves with “the security of a free State” (Second Amendment).
