Well, the prospect of embarrassing myself has never been much of a deterrent. It's altogether possible I should consider a higher level of introspection, but be that as it may. After spending several hours reviewing writings, musings, and observations of something I had only a vague notion of brings me back to your post. That is, Article VI, more commonly known as the "Supremacy Clause". I'm sure you're familiar with it; I wasn't.
Your post #70 oddly enough came into better focus. In any case I feel I owe you an apology, so please accept mine.
Now, I had posted a piece HERE that I felt pretty good about because it tended to support my notion of powers vested in the states; in particular as they relate to the 10th Amendment. Would you be kind enough to take a look at it and share any observations you have?
Since posting that article I discovered the Supremacy Clause(save the commerce clause for another day) which led me to the conclusion that SOMEBODY had to be the more or less final arbiter of our Constitution, and that it was left in the more or less capable hands of the USSC. I suppose because there was just nowhere else to place that function. AND as near as I could determine Chief Justice John Marshall, a dreaded Federalist, probably did more via the Supremacy Clause to diminish the powers of the states than any man living or dead. So again, if you wouldn't mind, your thoughts on the Supremacy Clause.
BTW, I'm not an attorney so the king's English works best for me...
Most of the really significant fighters establishing the US had no illusions about the need to subordinate the states to a central government (they often called it the “General Government”. All the major Founders: Hamilton, Washington and Madison had no illusions about this. Madison even considered abolishing state governments all together during the period coming up to the Convention. Ironically enough it was Hamilton who convinced him that they could still serve important functions.
Marshall’s legal thinking when constitutional questions were brought before him started with the Federalist papers and his thinking rarely, if ever, deviated from them. Since Hamilton wrote two thirds of them we can safely conclude that Marshall was a Hamiltonian and he would not dispute that label. And judicial review started yrs before Marshall was on the Court with Hamilton defending the constitutionality of the Carriage Tax Act in 1792 so that wasn’t a Marshallian inovation. The biography John Marshall, Definer of a Nation, by J. Smith is an outstanding work of biography and legal explication. Reading decisions by Marshall shows a powerful logician and scholar of the law. Jefferson said that in argument with Marshall (his cousin btw) one could never concede one point or you were finished.
States conceded most of the important aspects of true sovereignty to the new Union and the Federalist discusses the consequences of not having a supreme head in a Union/federation/confederation with the examples from history of the Netherlands, ancient Greek leagues and others. The conclusion was that these inevitably dissolved and they wanted to prevent that. Hence, the constitution (or Foundation of Law) had to overrule any contrary law within this Union. And decisions about what laws were constitent with it could not be made politically (via public opinion) but via a Judiciary put outside politics by lifetime appointments and removal only through impeachment and conviction. There has never been a conviction and only one impeachment, Justice Chase in 1804.
My understanding of the 10th amendment is that it acknowledges that a state has full rights over laws which only affect citizens of that state. This generally is limited to police regulations, health regulations etc. And I believe most of the supporters of that amendment intended it to allow states full freedom over slaves. But they can never enact laws which run counter to federal law and the Supremacy clause.