During the debates surrounding the adoption of the Constitution by the several states, one commentator observed that "the government should be so small that it doesn't matter who wins."

Well, the government is no longer small, and this year, in Virginia's Seventh Congressional District, it matters very much who wins.

Republicans are not the only people in this country who are dismayed at the collapse of conviction and principle in the party’s national establishment. Gone are the days when GOP leaders would defend valiantly the principles of limited government, the rule of law, and the rights and duties of individual citizens. Now the national party seems to quibble -- if at all -- only over how fast the budget should rise, and how far the government's intrusion into our daily lives should increase.

The only body in our constitutional structure that is led by Republicans today is the U.S. House of Representatives. So it is fair to ask, has this body and its leadership stood up to the vast tsunami of government growth, unconstitutional overreach, and just plain incompetence of the current administration?

Alas, the opposite is true: where the now defunct "Sequester" once supposedly limited the rate of growth of our national insolvency, the Republican leadership has caved once again, abdicating even the appearance of frugality and giving the green light to virtually unimpeded federal spending far into the future.

In addition to this betrayal of the rights of middle-class taxpayers, the House Republican leadership has bought into the worst strain of Crony Capitalism's cynical contempt for working Americans. Instead of combating the corrupt efforts of the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the White House unilaterally to "enact" amnesty for illegal aliens by executive fiat, senior Republicans have agreed to join the Democrats’ push for an endless supply of cheap foreign labor -- legal or illegal -- to please their corporate masters.

This collapse of respect for the rule of law has become an all-too-frequent characteristic of the national Republican establishment. All of the principles that Republicans traditionally hold dear have been trampled underfoot by the alliance of the Far Left, the Democrat National Committee, the Obama Administration, and the religious left to defy existing law as well as constitutional principle in order to serve the financial and business interests of America's Crony Class.

And the Republican leadership in the House has joined them.

Unfortunately for Virginia, the motivating intellectual force for this profound  and revolutionary transformation of American life comes from Representative Eric Cantor, who represents the Seventh District of Virginia in Congress and serves as the House Republican Majority Leader.

Anyone who has seen John Boehner, however briefly, try to defend conservative principles, will realize that Mr. Speaker is not the brains behind this bipartisan Putsch.

No, it has been orchestrated by Senate Democratic powerhouse Chuck Schumer and Boehner’s "man behind the curtain" -- “Republican” Eric Cantor.

Mr. Cantor rose quickly in Republican ranks, according to his colleagues, because he professed to be a conservative. At first he was a welcome partner: he was hard-working and intelligent, and he encouraged the younger, more conservative members striving to provide a principled foundation for the expansion of liberty and prosperity in our republic.

However, in the famous words of M. Stanton Evans, "the reason that ‘our people’ are not in high places is simple: when they get into high places, they aren’t ‘our people’ anymore."

Conservatives throughout America have come to realize that Eric Cantor, however high his place, is not "our people" anymore.

Cantor's betrayal of the conservatives who "brung ‘im” (in the words of the legendary House Speaker Sam Rayburn) is offensive in itself; however, his most pernicious -- and possibly most dangerous -- goal has been secretly to "keep immigration reform alive" until after the hotly contested Republican primaries are over.

Americans love their neighbors, but they don’t want amnesty. Eric Cantor wants it at all costs.

Throughout the country, freedom-loving Americans who are "Taxed Enough Already" are challenging the "Republicans In Name Only" -- the RINO’s -- in hotly contested primaries throughout the country. This past week, newly elected Congressman David Jolly was sworn in as the newest member of Congress. Mr. Jolly was elected in spite of the desperate and well-funded efforts of Mr. Cantor’s Republican Establishment to destroy the Jolly candidacy, and his victory has sent a shockwave through establishment ranks.

No one is more worried about Mr. Jolly's victory than is Eric Cantor.

Cantor's opponent, David Brat, actually understands economics, having taught it for years at Randolph-Macon College. But Mr. Brat is more than an economic realist. He is also a constitutional conservative, who quickly acknowledges that the federal government has overstepped the limits of law and countless areas across the depth and breadth of government -- invasions of liberty all too often encouraged, facilitated, and applauded by Eric Cantor.

Mr. Brat does not merely pay lip service to family and social issues, they are at the core of his devotion to his community and his family life. The Old Media pretend that candidates like Mr. Brat are "negative," but that cynical view misses altogether the positive, optimistic, and promising dimensions of their devotion to liberty, the rule of law, and American values, as well as their trust in the American people, as contrasted to Mr. Cantor’s prime mandate: his trust in government.

America's Founders would be aghast at the powers that the federal government has usurped from the "virtuous people" whose freedom was so highly prized, and so valiantly defended, when our new republic gained its independence.

Yes, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, and that's why vigilance and dedication will be indispensable in elections like the upcoming Republican primary in Virginia's Seventh Congressional District.

To invoke the words of that unknown patriot in 1787, this time around, it does matter who wins.

Christopher Manion writes from the Shenandoah Valley.