The political question animating America's founders was, therefore: How can a people self-govern without creating a hereditary class of governors? They sought to preserve both individual rights and public authority.
The founders devised an ingenious solution... That the rights of the individual, not those of the state, are fundamental for a free society.
Put more precisely, the people have the totality of enumerated and unenumerated rights, while the state has only those powers explicitly enumerated. Any actions taken by agents of the state outside of their enumerated powers are a usurpation of the people's rights.
This equation would have been profoundly disconcerting to the founders of the American republic, who called forth a new national project precisely to preclude the abuses of an entrenched and predatory overclass.
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