The stalwarts on the political right for years have been the ones to wave the U.S. Constitution in the faces of progressives, claiming that they have ventured beyond it and threaten its very existence.

Such assaults earnestly commenced during the era of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as he sought to implement New Deal programs.  The American Liberty League, consisting of the most conservative elements of the corporate community, railed against programs such as Social Security as socialistic and unconstitutional.

Presidential candidate Senator John F. Kennedy recognized that he was facing the same forces that had vigorously opposed Roosevelt on Social Security as he advocated Medicare during his successful 1960 presidential campaign.  Kennedy repeatedly noted that 90 percent of congressional Republicans in the mid-thirties opposed Roosevelt as he advocated Social Security and that same number opposed Medicare.

Opponents of these programs maintained that because measures such as those seeking to be implemented were not clearly spelled out in the U.S. Constitution either in its original form or through amendments that they were unconstitutional on their face.