Posted on 03/22/2016 9:21:14 AM PDT by Oldpuppymax
For some time now, many have voiced the notion that federal law always trumps state law. According to the 9th and 10th Amendments, this is false.
Numerous federal agencies have imposed unconstitutional regulations which carry the same impact and consequence as law. Many of these regulations limit our liberty and literally choke the life out of America’s small businesses.
As Article VI, clause 2, states, “This constitution, and the laws of the United States, which shall be made IN PURSUANCE thereof…shall be the supreme law of the land.” Additionally, according to Article I § 1, only Congress can make law. Therefore, many executive orders, judicial opinions, and federal regulations not enacted by Congress or made IN PURSUANCE of the Constitution are not legitimate law.
The “Father of the Constitution” James Madison described the doctrine of “anti-commandeering” in Federalist #46. “Anti-commandeering” simply means the federal government cannot force state or local governments to act against their will. States are responsible to maintain their sovereignty in order to keep our Republican form of government, guaranteed in Article IV, § 4.
Mike Maharrey of the Tenth Amendment Center points to the following four Supreme Court decisions from 1842 to 2012 which firmly established Madison’s “anti-commandeering” doctrine:
PRIGG v.PENNSYLVANIA (1842) Justice Joseph Story wrote the majority opinion concerning the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. He said that the federal government cannot coerce the states to enforce federal law.
Story wrote, “The fundamental principle applicable to all cases of this sort, would seem to be, that where the end is required, the means are given; and where the duty is enjoined, the ability to perform it is contemplated to exist on the part of the functionaries to whom it is entrusted. The clause is found in the national Constitution, and not in that of...
(Excerpt) Read more at thecoachsteam.com ...
The 10th Amendment has been dead for ages.
Fedzilla will never be forced back into its Constitutional cage.
The result of the US civil war effectively ended the notion that the states were superior or at least co-equal to the Fed.
Wrong. Written like someone with no understanding of the law. All of those things are authorized by, or interpretations of, laws. A court decides what the law means. That is its proper role. Its decisions determine the effect those laws have. An executive order is the president exercising his pre-existing authority, granted in either law or the Constitution. He has no ability to make executive orders that are otherwise. Agency regulations are made by explicit grants of authority in the law passed by Congress.
All of these things have the root of their authority in laws.
Now, now, you know you didn’t build anything.
Indeed. I also find it interesting that a great many so-called 'strict Constitutionalists' regard Lincoln as one of our greatest presidents. He was surely a smart guy who sacrificed a lot to preserve the Union. But he shredded our Constitution.
The Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary war in 1783, recognized each of the colonies as an independent sovereign entity. The states subsequently united under the Articles of Confederation and that confederation lasted for less than a decade. Then the states created the constitution of 1787 which we call the constitution of the United States. The individual states, therefore, preexisted the Constitution of the United States.
<> A court decides what the law means.<>
The legitimate responsibility and authority resides with the body that created the law.
It is subsequent cases where the court took on more than it is entitled to, and misconstrued the meaning of Marbury to justify the over-reach.
The Constitution was written by a convention that exceeded its authority (it was supposed to simply amend the Articles of Confederation). Furthermore it was not ratified by the state legislatures but by special ratifying conventions.
I know the federal government has become an un-G-dly monstrosity, but let's not start peddling propaganda.
Furthermore, while one may say that the first thirteen states created the federal government, one could just as easily say that the other 37 were actually created by the federal government.
Nonsense. Congress does not hold trials and hear cases (obviously with the exception of impeachment).
No institution other than the one that wrote the law can rightly determine its content.
The Confederation Congress didn’t have authority to limit the convention.
So the United States had to have been in existence 14 years before 1789 for George Washington (or anybody) to become president.
But the question isn't so much which came first as whether the states or the people of the country created the Constitution.
It's a tricky question, but it's clear that the federal government was intended to be more than a mere league of states or creature of the state governments.
Yoo hoo, one has to decide what the law means to adjudicate a dispute under it.
"No institution other than the one that wrote the law can rightly determine its content."
The courts rightly apply the law to actual cases. It's their job. To do that they have to decide what that content means. When they do that they aren't "making law" in the sense a legislature does, and their decisions are based on the law as written. Those decisions do not lack constitutional authority, as the topic article suggests. Apparently the author isn't the only person so confused. But at least most people aren't off writing articles about things they don't understand.
Article I Section 1 empowers congress to write law.
If the content is not clear to the judiciary, it is up to congress, the lawgiver, to clarify.
For now.
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