https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2025/04/02/not-just-bad-policy-the-founders-called-it-treason-and-war/

Not Just Bad Policy: The Founders Called it Treason and War

By: Michael Boldin

Treason. Invasion. Conquest.

That’s how the Founders and old revolutionaries described usurpation – power stolen, not delegated.

And it wasn’t just rhetoric. It was a foundational, and now-forgotten principle at the very heart of the American Revolution.

When government repeatedly goes beyond the limits of the Constitution, it’s not just an innocent mistake – it’s a kind of war waged against the sovereignty, or final authority, of the people.

MORE THAN JUST “BAD POLICY”

To the Founders, this wasn’t theory – it was a warning. Few, if any, put that warning into sharper words than St. George Tucker, a patriot of the Revolutionary War and one of the most important constitutional scholars of the early republic.

“If in a limited government the public functionaries exceed the limits which the constitution prescribes to their powers, every such act is an act of usurpation in the government, and, as such, treason against the sovereignty of the people, which is thus endeavored to be subverted, and transferred to the usurpers.”

Tucker called it treason. ......