Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article

To: lentulusgracchus
Don't trust Marshall on the Tenth Amendment. My own reading of that passage you cite is that he's cooking a waffle, on just such lines as Hamilton warned about in Federalist 84 just quoted.

Madison penned the same sentiment prior to tendering the [evenutual] Bill of Rights for debate. The federal Constitution is a DELEGATION [what can be delegated can be resumed] of certain enumerated powers respecting all members, not internal matters of each sate.

Marshall was a card-carrying Federalist and never saw a federal project he didn't like. The easy way to show that would be to attempt to disprove my statement by producing a Marshall opinion in which he actually found unconstitutional some federal scheme cooked up by his own party involving contested powers.

Lol! I won't even bother to try. Marshall had the tendency to write out of both sides of his mouth after he assumed position as Chief Justice.

And I really don't care what a justice, or the Supreme Court says about a case, the Constitution does not state that SCOTUS is the ultimate arbiter of such, Madison/Hamilton opine in the Federalust [sic] Papers about states being parties to the compact and empowered to decide such for themselves.

In the first place, there is not a syllable in the plan under consideration which DIRECTLY empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution, or which gives them any greater latitude in this respect than may be claimed by the courts of every State.

...It is inherent in the nature of sovereignty not to be amenable to the suit of an individual WITHOUT ITS CONSENT. This is the general sense, and the general practice of mankind; and the exemption, as one of the attributes of sovereignty, is now enjoyed by the government of every State in the Union. Unless, therefore, there is a surrender of this immunity in the plan of the convention, it will remain with the States, and the danger intimated must be merely ideal.
Aleander Hamiliton, "The Judiciary Continued, and the Distribution of the Judicial Authority", Federalist No. 81

And this in No 82: 'The principles established in a former paper [No. 31] teach us that the States will retain all PRE-EXISTING authorities which may not be exclusively delegated to the federal head.'

484 posted on 04/23/2005 10:17:02 AM PDT by 4CJ (Good-bye Henry LeeII. Rest well my FRiend. || Quoting Lincoln OR JimRob is a bannable offense.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 483 | View Replies ]


To: 4ConservativeJustices
[You, quoting Madison] In the first place, there is not a syllable in the plan under consideration which DIRECTLY empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution, or which gives them any greater latitude in this respect than may be claimed by the courts of every State."

This must be the germ of the Nullification idea, which fell afoul of the Supremacy Clause -- which in turn means that Madison's statement above was wrong.

[You, quoting Hamilton in Federalist 81] "...It is inherent in the nature of sovereignty not to be amenable to the suit of an individual WITHOUT ITS CONSENT. .....Unless, therefore, there is a surrender of this immunity in the plan of the convention, it will remain with the States, and the danger intimated must be merely ideal."

And yet federal judges hale States into court every day of the week now, most recently Alabama over the Bible issue, to purge the forum of Christianity, while scrupling to disturb a decision of the Florida courts that the federal judiciary found amenable since only one death was involved, whereas the entire Supreme Court had, as your username notices, busied itself with the bench decrees of a partisan Florida supreme court only four years earlier. There seems to be an element of......discretion, or dare I say wilfulness, about it.

And this in No 82: 'The principles established in a former paper [No. 31] teach us that the States will retain all PRE-EXISTING authorities which may not be exclusively delegated to the federal head.'

Well, I wish I'd seen that line a long time ago, it's pretty much a conversation-ender on the subject of sovereignty and the right of secession.

485 posted on 04/23/2005 1:13:51 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 484 | View Replies ]

To: 4ConservativeJustices
Lol! I won't even bother to try. Marshall had the tendency to write out of both sides of his mouth after he assumed position as Chief Justice.

I wonder if Marshall would have persisted in that line, if he had known he was creating a monster that would destroy his and Washington's (and Jefferson's, and Mason's, and Madison's) home state.

486 posted on 04/23/2005 1:18:20 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 484 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson