So Chellie Pingree, Maine’s 1st District congressional representative, claims boldly that she is a proud progressive.

I think it is time to make an argument to return to a constitutional form of government.

The progressive era has its roots from the 19th century German state theorists like G.W.F. Hegel and Johann Bluntschli. Many American academics studied in Europe during the 19th century, where they earned their Ph.Ds.

No one was more important to the origins of the administrative state in America than Woodrow Wilson, Frank Goodnow and John Dewey.

Woodrow Wilson learned from his German education teacher, Richard T. Ely, the fundamental assumption behind the vast discretion that Progressives wanted to give to administration was a trust in or optimism about the selflessness, competence and objectivity of administrators, and this a belief that the separation-of-powers checks on government were no longer necessary or just.

Wilson wanted you to ignore the preface in the Declaration of Independence and think about the document just as an outdated list of grievances as a relic. The old document can not keep up with current state of economics and scientific advancements. It was just too complex for the Congress using the founding documents.

For the Progressives, there was something special about civil servants that somehow raised them above the ordinary self-interestedness of human nature. Such confidence came from a faith that the progressive power of history had elevated public servants to a level of objectivity.

They would, supposedly, be able to disregard their own private or particular inclinations in order to dedicate themselves to the objective good. No living things can have its organs offset each other, as checks, and live.

The living constitution term was born. A public debate resulted with little or zero intellectual response from the conservatives.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt installed the “administrative state,” and sometimes it is called the fourth branch of government that is shielded from the public with no checks and balances for the regulatory agencies.

Congress created this mess by delegating its duty and then is able to get a pass from the voters by blaming the bureaucrats. Then a constituent calls with a problem and the representative calls the agency for a favor, which the bureaucrat complies with because the representative has a power of the purse and then both appear to be the heroes.

The nanny welfare state is filled with self-interested bureaucrats with ad hoc law powers and most are not under the rule of law.

We now have a top-down central planning style Utopian state attempting to create a fantasy of the perfect society.

In Federalist 51, Madison wrote: “The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige in control itself.”

The American public will have to make a choice either to continue with the “administrative state” that has created a crisis with a debt of $16 trillion or a first principles limited representative constitutional state that has the consent of the governed.

Voters must not be sheep at this time and select a candidate willing to articulate and to start the process of restoration to our original government form.

It will take many elections to install legislatures to save our republican constitutional government.

The administrative state has been shielded from the consent of the governed and that must be changed. When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, that is tyranny.

Madison wrote in Federalist 47: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, many justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

The progressives and bureaucrats have led our nation toward despotism, which is soft tyranny where the government is the shepherd and the people are sheep.

We must look at ourselves and inform our neighbors and vote the correct representatives into office. We must use the education system to teach statesmanship and remind our young people to seek out original sources for inspiration and make an argument.

It took more than 100 years to get to where we are today, and so an argument and debate must be made to restore a republican constitutional government.

The founding two documents are the two greatest statements of freedom created by the man in world history.

Additional information is available from www.hillsdalecollege.edu. Refresh your knowledge of the US Constitution and principles from a free online class “Constitution 101: The Meaning and History of the Constitution.”

There is also an academic interactive website that features First Principles lectures that feature changes that could help solve the administrative state from www.thekirbycenter.org.

It is up to you and me.

Gordon Draper lives in Bowdoin.

letters@timesrecord.com