America at 250: We Need the Amendment of All Amendments

Let's protect individual rights once and for all by subordinating the Constitution to the moral vision of the Declaration of Independence.

I recently read America’s Constitution: A Biography by Akhil Reed Amar. The book provides interesting context of how both the Articles and Amendments were worded and came to pass. I was particularly struck by the story of the 19^th Amendment (women’s right to vote and hold political office) which came about because of a moral groundswell that first bore fruit in the respective states of the Union, many of which gave women the right to vote in statewide elections starting in the late 1800s. This led to congressional representatives from these states promoting the cause if for no other reason than to be reelected at home where women now were an important constituency. The moral groundswell slowly gained critical mass, and ratification was finalized in August 1920 when Tennessee became the 36th state to approve the amendment. By that time, some 70 years had passed since the birth of the women’s suffrage movement, illustrating how long it often takes to change the culture to recognize individual rights that we consider obvious today.

This got me thinking. Would pushing for an amendment to once and for all respect and protect all individual rights help prime the culture for change? An amendment that protects only individual rights, not alleged rights—right to healthcare, right to work, right to housing, right to an education, etc.—that violate individual rights of others in the process of being enforced? In other words, would the cause of freedom benefit from an amendment that limits the U.S. Constitution to the intent put to paper in the Declaration of Independence?

Almost from its inception, the United States has drifted from its foundational ideal. We have moved from a nation founded on the idea of individual rights being unalienable (with significant groups such as African Americans and women initially being excluded) to one increasingly ruled by the view that those rights have to take a backseat to the alleged rights of collectives or groups. The Declaration of Independence identifies the purpose of government as securing individual rights—specifically life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Yet, our current welfare statist republic operates on the premise that government must increasingly violate individual rights using taxation, redistribution and regulation to “respect” collective rights.

To help reverse this trajectory, what about promoting a singular, clarifying, constitutional corrective: an “Amendment of All Amendments.” This act would not merely add another rule to the books; it would redefine the moral horizon of our government, tethering it irrevocably to the principles of 1776 and initiating the phased, systematic dismantling of the welfare state.

As I’m not a constitutional scholar, I asked my legal assistant—Gemini—for a draft. This is what it suggested (with some subsequent editing of mine):

Section 1. The government of the United States and all subordinate jurisdictions shall exist solely to protect the unalienable individual rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness of all U.S. residents. Individual rights is the moral principle defining and sanctioning an individual’s freedom of action in a social context free from physical, including government, coercion.

Section 2. All government actions, including but not limited to taxation, redistribution, and regulation that infringe upon these individual rights are hereby declared unconstitutional.

Section 3. To ensure a peaceful and orderly transition, all existing programs, subsidies, and administrative mandates inconsistent with the purpose defined in Section 1 shall be phased out. The transition shall be completed no later than 25 years after the ratification of this amendment. The legislative branch shall submit a binding, incremental schedule for this transition within 2 years of ratification.

Not a bad start; the devil’s of course in the details, but let’s keep it simple. The power of this amendment lies in its philosophical precision. By defining individual rights as “the moral principle defining and sanctioning an individual’s freedom of action in a social context free from physical, including government, coercion”, it draws a bright line between the state and its residents.

Under this definition, rights are not grants from the government; they are the preconditions of human life. To live, one must produce; to produce, one must own the fruits of one’s labor. When the government taxes the productive to subsidize the non-productive, it is not merely practicing “social policy” or promoting “the common good”—it is violating individual rights. It is treating the resident as a means to the ends of others.

This amendment would render the entire apparatus of the welfare state unconstitutional because the welfare state is, by definition, a system of coercive redistribution. Whether through income tax, social insurance mandates, wealth transfers, or regulations, the current system relies on the initiation of physical force against individuals.

The 25-year timeline is not a delay; it is a mechanism for reconstruction. It acknowledges the complexity of our current entanglement while establishing a firm, non-negotiable exit date. A gradual, predictable phase-out allows for the adaptation of private markets, charities, and individual financial and other planning.

Here are some implementation examples:

• Retirement independence/Social Security phase-out

• Healthcare and Health Insurance independence

• Medicare and Medicaid phase-out

• Education independence

This amendment would not result in chaos; it would unleash the most potent force in human history: the individual mind in action. Economic growth would take off as we’ve never seen it, allowing for paying off the trillions of government debt and meet the trillions of unfunded entitlement obligations while gradually reducing taxes over the 25-year transition period. Government spending would be reduced to a trickle, limited to financing the military, law enforcement and the courts. Government money printing would end, and with it, inflation.

Admittedly, the “Amendment of All Amendments” is a moonshot. It most likely won’t get much traction by itself in the current moral/political climate. But perhaps it could be part of the toolbox championing the respect for and protection of individual rights and limited government? It took more than 70 years for women to get the right to vote. We’re probably at least as far away from celebrating the victory of individual rights over collective oppression. But we have to start somewhere, and the time is long overdue to finish the project our founders started.