The first major blow that the cause of small government received in this country came in the civil war.  Most history books will mention in passing that the causes of the civil war were more than just slavery, but it is a fact that is never really stressed.  The rights of the states to govern themselves without interference from a massive federal government were central to the southern states motivations for leaving the union.  It could be very well argued that, had these states not stuck to their insistence on continuing the immoral institution of slavery, other issues involved might have eventually been worked out without resorting to conflict, but this is a different discussion altogether.  After the civil war, the shift of power from the states to the federal government began to gain its footing.

         This shift continued until the early 1900's, when it accelerated at a rate faster than in all of the previous years in this country combined.  The main causes of this rapid shift were what have turned out to be the biggest mistakes in the history of the United States Constitution: the 16th and 17th amendments (both ratified in 1913).  The 18th amendment was also a terrible mistake, ushering in the era we now call prohibition, which was an outright offense to the founding fathers' cause of individual freedom and liberty.  Luckily, prohibition did not last and was repealed by the 21st amendment in 1933.  The 16th amendment permitted the federal government to collect an income tax in virtually any way that it wished, which it was not permitted to do under the original text of the constitution.  This opened the floodgates of big government at the federal level by giving it a source of income that it could use to grow exponentially.  But this amendment, while horribly detrimental to the cause of small government, is not the worst of the three.  That "honor" goes to the 17th amendment.

         Before the 17th amendment, the two branches of Congress were elected in significantly different ways.  Members of the House of Representatives were elected directly by the people of their respective districts and members of the Senate were chosen by the legislatures of their respective states.  Most people would view this way of electing Senators as taking power out of the hands of the people and as being downright backwards, but it had a very distinct and important purpose that kept the federal government from infringing upon the rights of the states and of the individual.  This can explained with the founding fathers' reasons for creating a Congress with two houses, rather than one.  The House of the Representatives was to represent the people, which was necessary, but would also tend to put more power in the hands of a centralized government, allowing it to abuse the rights of the states and of the people.  That is where the Senate was meant to come in.  The Senate was meant to counter any shift towards centralization by being chosen from and answerable to the individual legislatures of the states.  This kept the majority of power and governance in the hands of the states and the individual, which was the original intent of the founding fathers.  The 17th amendment changed this dynamic drastically.  No longer did the states have any say in the laws that were passed by the Congress and it is in this moment that our government ceased being a federal government and became more of a national government.  There was no longer any way for the states to counter massive expansion and centralization of governance in this country.  The 17th amendment hurt the cause of small government more than any other action in the history of this country.

         Very few people understand the devastating effect that the 17th amendment has had, but even fewer understand one simple fact: The 17th amendment is not even a legal amendment to the constitution and is, therefore, unconstitutional.  To most, this statement sounds foolish.  They would argue that it went through the legal process, being passed by both houses of Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the states at the time.  While they would be right in their statement of the legal process, they miss one simple fact.  The power to amend the Constitution comes from Article V of the Constitution, which outlines the method by which an amendment can be ratified.  The first part of the Article V gives the method of amending the Constitution, but the second part states that there certain limitations to amending the Constitution.

                  "Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate."

         The first two of these limitations in amending the Constitution concerned the slave trade and taxation, but expired in the year 1808 and are, therefore, no longer in effect.  The other limitation is the one that makes the 17th amendment unconstitutional.  It states that, even by a constitutional amendment, no state can be deprived of its equal suffrage (representation) in the Senate without its consent.  Not only does the 17th amendment deny equal representation of the states in the Senate, but it also completely strips them of any representation.  The founding fathers were so concerned about this that they added that particular limitation into the amendment process.  The only way that this amendment could be constitutional would be if all states had ratified it, thereby giving their consent.  Out of the forty-eight states that were part of the union at the time and the two that have been added since, thirteen states have never ratified the amendment with one of those thirteen states (Utah) even rejecting it.  Therefore, since the beginning of 1915 when the first popularly elected Senators were seated, thirteen states have been unconstitutionally deprived their equal representation in the Senate of the United States.

         What can be done to solve this problem?  There are two paths that could be followed to rectify this.  The first is to repeal this amendment by means of another amendment in the same manner that the 21st amendment repealed the 18th amendment.  This method is unlikely to work since popular support would be against this due to the fact that most people don't actually understand the original intent of the founding fathers when they decided on the manner of choosing Senators.  The only other option is to take the matter to the Supreme Court of the United States and have them declare the 17th amendment as unconstitutional.  This is just as unlikely since the Court would be declaring, in effect, that any law passed since the first popularly elected Senate was seated was passed by an illegitimate body and therefore be rendered null and void.  It is hard to imagine that any Court would act on its responsibility in this case and reverse almost 100 years worth of federal law.  These problems create a roadblock to eliminating the 17th amendment and moving our country back towards small government cannot happen without its elimination.  It, simply, must be done if our country is to survive in the long term.

         But I fear that the incredible growth of the power of the federal government that was spurred by the 16th and 17th amendments might be putting us in a position that we cannot recover from.  Dependence on the federal government has grown to the point where people are willing to give up their basic rights so that they don't have to be responsible for their own lives.  Issues such as healthcare, individual welfare, and environmental policy were never intended by our founding fathers to be debated at the federal level.  If an individual believed that they had a right to healthcare or that a pollution problem needed to be addressed, they would petition their state or local governments.  The federal government was simply meant to provide for defense, international affairs, resolving disputes between states, and a small list of other things that the states could not reasonably provide for on their own.  Instead, we now have a federal government that, for the most part, completely ignores the very Constitution that it derives its power from by exercising power that it doesn’t even have a right to.  It spends more and more each year on programs that it has no business starting, creating debt at a pace that is completely unsustainable.  The amount of debt owed by the federal government has topped 12 trillion dollars in 2009, which is equivalent to almost $40,000 to every man, woman, and child in this country and it is increasing every day.  The federal government's appetite for power is limitless.  There is absolutely nothing that it doesn't wish to tax or regulate.  If the founding fathers were to view the government as it has become, they would not even recognize it.  Priority one should be the return of power to the state, local, and individual level as it was originally intended. The most effective ways to accomplish this are to, first, declare to our Representatives and Senators that, if they don't begin to uphold their oaths to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, then we will use our power of the ballot and vote them out of office, and to, second, repeal the 16th and 17th amendments.  Hopefully, with these steps, our country can be saved from bureaucrats and the prospect of overbearing, power hungry government and can once again return to the path of self-reliance and economic and personal freedom.