Posted on 04/21/2015 8:14:40 AM PDT by fredericbastiat1
We have to view the powers of Congress and the 10th Amendment as sort of two sides of the same coin. The 10th Amendment says in effect that any power that’s not given to Congress is retained by the states or by the people.
And so that begs the question: What powers are given to Congress?
And if any of those powers in isolation or all of those powers hooked together are open-ended — if they’re limitless – then the Tenth Amendment means nothing.
Now generally we don’t look at any provision of the Constitution with an eye toward saying that it means nothing. And certainly wouldn’t be the case with the Tenth Amendment, so what does it mean? There has to be some limit on the powers of Congress in order for the Tenth Amendment not to mean nothing.
There’s a big problem with that in that since 1937, as I explain in my book, the Supreme Court has interpreted one provision of the [Constitution] … Article One Section 8 Clause 3, also known as the Commerce Clause — the part that gives Congress the power to regulate commerce, or trade, between the states with foreign nations and with Indian tribes – the Supreme Court has interpreted the Commerce Clause since April 12, 1937 so broadly that it’s almost open-ended.
(Excerpt) Read more at theblaze.com ...
The much abused commerce clause is one part of the Constitution that must be addressed to reign in the power of the federal government. Another is limiting Congress predilection to create agencies and give them the power to create rules with the weight of laws.
It’s really been this way since the New Deal. Leftists deflect all 10th Amendment arguments by saying that the 10th is a “truism”, as if simply labeling as such makes it so, and without any other force or meaning. States will have to openly defy the feds, and people will have to support it, without fear of being called names.
Commerce clause and the necessary and proper clause have been misused in order to do 98 percent of the mischief that the Feds have gotten into since Wilson. Now they are looking to expand their reach through the “general welfare” clause, because people are so stupid they don’t know what that means. It took 100 years of government schooling and progressive incrementalism to get to this point.
Madison believed that the U.S. should be a national common market with no state assessing duties on export or import trade with other states.Hamilton believed that a national common market will prevent certain states from putting neighboring states under tribute.Hamilton also believed that a common market means an unrestrained intercourse between states.
"But the question is a very different one, whether, under pretence of an exercise of the power to regulate commerce, congress may in fact impose duties for objects wholly distinct from commerce. The question comes to this, whether a power, exclusively for the regulation of commerce, is a power for the regulation of manufactures? The statement of such a question would seem to involve its own answer. Can a power, granted for one purpose, be transferred to another? If it can, where is the limitation in the constitution? Are not commerce and manufactures as distinct, as commerce and agriculture? If they are, how can a power to regulate one arise from a power to regulate the other? It is true, that commerce and manufactures are, or may be, intimately connected with each other. A regulation of one may injuriously or beneficially affect the other. But that is not the point in controversy. It is, whether congress has a right to regulate that, which is not committed to it, under a power, which is committed to it, simply because there is, or may be an intimate connexion between the powers. If this were admitted, the enumeration of the powers of congress would be wholly unnecessary and nugatory. Agriculture, colonies, capital, machinery, the wages of labour, the profits of stock, the rents of land, the punctual performance of contracts, and the diffusion of knowledge would all be within the scope of the power; for all of them bear an intimate relation to commerce. The result would be, that the powers of congress would embrace the widest extent of legislative functions, to the utter demolition of all constitutional boundaries between the state and national governments.
We need a Con-Con to get us back to sanity....................
What case is that from?
CaaahhhMON, now .... waddaya’MEAN, using English ?
It is significant that both Madison and Hamilton felt that the ultimate protection against such depredations was not to be found within the Constitution, but in the hands of an armed, angry citizenry that wouldn't stand for it. "Prudence indeed will dictate..." restraint, and so it has, "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism..."
The essence of political & legal honor goes to recognizing both the legitimate functions of Government & the illegitimate functions of Government. No one in high office is too stupid to understand that Congress was not given the Commerce power to try to alter the American social fabric; it was not given the Commerce power to force changing cultural values, or to redistribute wealth, or create a National Socialist monolith over a once free people.
One of the motives for the Constitution--the other being Defense of the people in a hostile world--was to encourage commerce, encourage prosperity, etc.. The Commerce Clause is part of a package, including uniform weights & measures, uniform laws on bankruptcy, the original prohibition against graduated income taxes (the plain intent in Article I, Section 9, etc., and the limitations on the States' ability to debase the currency; all intended to guard against the sort of interference with commercial activities, that could interfere with the prosperity of the framers and their descendants.
Anyone looking at the complex of very specific functions, and the limitations on other functions, will clearly see a pattern which is totally inconsistent with the corruption of the Commerce Clause--which actually predated FDR, and the 1937 reference in the article.
Almost no one really believes that the allowed use of the Commerce Clause since early in the 1900s, was ever intended--was ever part of the sacred compact between the ratifying States. The misuse of the Commerce Clause, in fact, represents the same moral corruption--the same species of word games, as distinguished from actual functional understanding, as we have seen over and over again, in recent decades. It is cut from the same clothe as has since led to the oxymoron over "same sex marriage": the same clothe as has generously subsidized a Welfare system that deliberately undermines the family; the same clothe as deliberately destroys the savings of the frugal, by monetary manipulation.
William Flax
Thanks
!
It was translated from cursive.
sheesh !
A flaw in the US constitution is that there is no developed mechanism to methodically reduce the power of the federal government. While the senate could have taken that role at the demand of their individual states, the 17th amendment has now made senators “free agents”, so they in effect work only on behalf of the federal government.
A while back I proposed the idea of creating a “Second Court of the United States”, subordinate to the SCOTUS. Not a constitutional court, it would function as a jurisdictional court. This means it would decide if appealed court decisions should remain federal cases, or be returned to the individual states as “their business”.
Its other purpose would be original jurisdiction to hear lawsuits between the states and the federal government.
The Second Court would be of two judges from each state, appointed by their state legislature in a secret ballot, on concurrent terms with their two senators.
This would be a major power shift back to the states at the expense of the federal government. In many ways, it would act like a standing constitutional convention.
It may raise the question, but it is not an example of the rhetorical device know as "begging the question".
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