It All Went Wrong in 1913

A Discussion of Oliver DeMille’s 1913 Chapter 1 “The Turning Point of Freedom”

Howard Chandler Christy’s Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States Wikimedia Commons

We know we have a much larger federal government than was originally designed by the framers of the U.S. Constitution, but how did that happen? Is it a natural result of growth in population or technology?

Oliver DeMille offers a reason, 1913, “the year that changed everything.” (p. 11)

Specifically, there were two Constitutional Amendments passed that year and one Act that fundamentally transformed the relationship of the federal government to the states.

• The Sixteenth Amendment (federal income tax)
• The Seventeenth Amendment (direct election of US Senators)
• The Federal Reserve Act

And there was one more, a fourth “world-shifting event” in 1936 with a Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Butler that cemented the transformation.

The Original Turning Points

DeMille asserts that prior to the above four events, the founding of the US was similarly due to four turning point events. (p. 20)

1. The Boston Tea Party leads to the American Revolution and its concern about taxation will help us understand how the sixteenth amendment undid much of what the founders originally intended.