The Founders supported health-care mandates, you know
The founding fathers, it turns out, passed several mandates of their own. In 1790, the very first Congress—which incidentally included 20 framers—passed a law that included a mandate: namely, a requirement that ship owners buy medical insurance for their seamen. This law was then signed by another framer: President George Washington. That’s right, the father of our country had no difficulty imposing a health insurance mandate.
That’s not all. In 1792, a Congress with 17 framers passed another statute that required all able-bodied men to buy firearms. Yes, we used to have not only a right to bear arms, but a federal duty to buy them. Four framers voted against this bill, but the others did not, and it was also signed by Washington. Some tried to repeal this gun purchase mandate on the grounds it was too onerous, but only one framer voted to repeal it.
Six years later, in 1798, Congress addressed the problem that the employer mandate to buy medical insurance for seamen covered drugs and physician services but not hospital stays. And you know what this Congress, with five framers serving in it, did? It enacted a federal law requiring the seamen to buy hospital insurance for themselves. That’s right, Congress enacted an individual mandate requiring the purchase of health insurance. And this act was signed by another founder, President John Adams.
Blowback
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Ha, in the short time this article’s been up the author had to correct it for wrongly putting John Adams at the constitutional convention. Whoops.
Chuckles3 on April 14, 2012 at 9:27 PM
John Adams also signed the Alien and Sedition Acts, I don’t see Democrats arguing to bring those back. The firearms one makes sense because firearms weren’t a private product, and didn’t have to be purchased per se, as it had to do with national defense, which is an enumerated power of the Congress. And the first requirement for ship owners to provide insurance is another example of Congress using their explicit power to regulate commerce on the waterways.
But why let that get in the way of a new liberal meme.
MFn G I M P on April 14, 2012 at 9:28 PM
Congress did not use the commerce clause to justify these
Instapundit says why this guy is wrong:
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/140806/
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/140867/
zmdavid on April 14, 2012 at 9:30 PM
Good grief.
Ugly on April 14, 2012 at 9:31 PM
Man…. The stupid is really serious strong with the Liberals Marxists………
SWalker on April 14, 2012 at 9:31 PM
They also supported slavery, opposed any rights for women or workers, and the extermination of Indians. Nothing to see here.
KillerKane on April 14, 2012 at 9:33 PM
Didn’t the author wonder why his version of history didn’t make it into any serious briefs before the court? One thing I learned in law school: If you think you are bringing up a really great argument that nobody else is making you are probably just really embarrassingly wrong. Volokh decimated these arguments quite a while ago.
chapman on April 14, 2012 at 9:33 PM
If Congress passed a law and the President signed a law mandating that everyone buy leeches, would that be constitutional?
zmdavid on April 14, 2012 at 9:34 PM
The insurance mandate for sailors is like car insurance, you don’t have to be a seaman..
cpaulus on April 14, 2012 at 9:34 PM
What were the health insurance companies back then?
Could it be possible that it was more of a “health assurance provision? i.e., if you’re on a ship and get sick, a doctor must be provided “free” of charge?
Don’t know…just wondering.
Mimzey on April 14, 2012 at 9:34 PM
I wrote on this last night but I am not going to post it until monday. No one looks at the net for such issues on Sat. or Sun.
Warner Todd Huston on April 14, 2012 at 9:34 PM
Sure the founders supported health care mandates: AT THE STATE LEVEL. There is no authority under the constitution for the federal government to do a thing about health care. If you want government health care, you can have it. Do it at your state capital.
crosspatch on April 14, 2012 at 9:38 PM
Randy Barnett painstakingly showed in “Restoring the Lost Constitution” that when the Framers used the word “commerce” they meant it in the very narrow sense of goods moving from one place to another.
radjah shelduck on April 14, 2012 at 9:40 PM
Sure, lobbyists buy congress members all the time. /
Thanks for the PJmedia links above @
good stuff.
Cloture on April 14, 2012 at 9:42 PM
They all had all of those viewpoints? Amazing history books you must be reading. Where can I find them?
strictnein on April 14, 2012 at 9:50 PM
OT: Mark Martin is currently running 2nd in TX… I really want that old boy to grab this one
Ugly on April 14, 2012 at 9:51 PM
Don’t forget child labor.
Dr Evil on April 14, 2012 at 9:55 PM
Ugh… I learned this the hard way. “Really embarrassingly wrong” is a good way of putting it.
Just Sayin on April 14, 2012 at 10:03 PM
My point is: just because the Founders said it, doesn’t mean it’s perfect or above reproach.
KillerKane on April 14, 2012 at 10:06 PM
Whose reproach? Yours?
Ugly on April 14, 2012 at 10:07 PM
Because back then everybody needed a good bleeding and leeches every once in a while.
You should have see the Founders’ mandates on free cell phone plans for Welfare Queens ! Di-No-Mite !!!
viking01 on April 14, 2012 at 10:19 PM
I think I came up with the perfect Libbie theme song:
With apologies to Gemini:
ProfShadow on April 14, 2012 at 10:24 PM
Well Einer, if I may call you that, since you are now so hot on what the original congresses felt about things, then I would expect that you will be equally zealous in supporting us to dismantle the welfare state. After all, when you see what members of congress had to say about the government providing charity, you will agree that the whole notion of the federal government providing welfare is absolutely wrong:
Davy Crockett speech to congress
So, how about it Bubba? Gonna join the rest of us in recognizing that the Federal government is not a charity distribution organization?
/thought not, you are just hypocritically trying to score points with a fallacious argument from fallacious history.
AZfederalist on April 14, 2012 at 10:32 PM
Your point is nonsensical. It is not based in constitutional thinking, it is a political argument. When the Constitution was ratified slavery was constitutional, women had no enumerated right to vote (nor did any freeman who did not own property), and Indians (either kind) were not American citizens. In fact it is not unconstitutional today to exterminate all Canadians. Unethical and evil, but not unconstitutional.
NotCoach on April 14, 2012 at 10:39 PM
I’m sensing a complete crackup on the left.
BuckeyeSam on April 14, 2012 at 10:43 PM
Only the ones that were trying to exterminate Americans.
Texas Gal on April 14, 2012 at 10:48 PM
Yup. Don’t you love it how virtually everybody tosses out that stale bromide about the “natives”. Poor fellows, they sided with the wrong team during the revolution and various other conflicts, and now want to complain about the results (and use it for the bennies, of course).
Mr Galt on April 14, 2012 at 11:46 PM
I think that covers a law requiring the militia to provide their own arms.
As long as we’re going there, the above is another part of the militia act of 1792. If they were to put this into the health care act, I’d switch my side in an instant — for the exchange would be paying for healthcare in replacement for paying any taxes. This was the fig leaf held out by Congress when it created the militia — an exemption from taxes in return for paying the considerable costs of being part of the militia.
To understand the costs of being part of the militia, one must cost out modern military grade hardware equivalent to the following:
That would be 24 federal-quality 7.62 NATO rounds ($35+), a bayonet-lugged rifle capable of firing same ($1,200+), a bayonet ($65), a uniform including knapsack and ammunition belt ($300).
So, for under $2000, exempting one’s self and family from taxes is a no-brainer. Of course, the cost would be far greater than $2K if one counts in the time associated with mustering, etc.
unclesmrgol on April 15, 2012 at 1:08 AM
Congress is given that power over the Militia as the States cannot keep a standing army, and yet must support the Militia system. Thus, absent invasion or other danger to the State which the federal government can’t respond to, the State cannot provision citizens with such necessary equipment as that would be a standing army. Congress is given the power to make sure that citizens will be armed as part of the Militia power as it was local militias that contributed men to the Nation’s founding conflict and which were a necessary form of citizenry response in Common Law to protect hearth, home, city and county from piracy and bands of armed thieves.
Getting a tax from those sailing overseas is part of the Admiralty power and having the President then utilize those taxes in conjunction with private or charitable donations to create hospitals or otherwise care for the sick or wounded seaman is part of that power. It is the Congressional power to raise a Navy and the President’s power to be the head of the Armies and the Navies. It is not a mandate to purchase insurance, but to provide care to a specified class of people who go overseas in commerce over the high seas where their ship is sovereign territory of the United States. That Admiralty power goes far beyond just the Navy and has been an understood part of Common Law since William of Hastings and that was founded on Roman Law going back a couple of hundred years BC which, in turn, was guided by prior Greek Law and understood practices at that time.
Now what is the exact and enumerated power, with history behind it, that allows for Obamacare?
Oh, that’s right, there isn’t one.
ajacksonian on April 15, 2012 at 7:44 AM
Yes and no they would not support a national healthcare plan.
Great post and it isn’t there.
CW on April 15, 2012 at 9:37 AM