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To: Idabilly
Madison was notoriously inconsistent throughout his career on the matter of state and federal relations. Despite his thorough note taking and intimacy with the decisions at the Philadelphia Convention, his authority on the Constitution from later in life is actually pretty suspect.

People tend to forget that the founders were not a monolithic voice of consistency behind a single ideal. They were politicians, and just like the politicians of today they were perfectly capable of reneging on their own word. Madison was pretty notorious for it in his day. Look up the 1794 supreme court case of Hylton v. United States if you want to see just how bad he could be. It was an open and shut ruling on the constitutionality of an excise tax (which is expressly granted as a power to Congress) and the court easily upheld the law on solid constitutional grounds. Well guess what - Madison was the one pushing the challenge of the case and claiming the tax was unconstitutional. And one of his lawyers making that same losing argument was none other than John Marshall.

567 posted on 08/13/2010 9:31:25 PM PDT by conimbricenses (Red means run son, numbers add up to nothing.)
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To: conimbricenses

Understood, and thanks..... From the day that the Constitution was formed - One party, the agent has been trying to reverse the rules that were intended....


577 posted on 08/14/2010 4:34:07 AM PDT by Idabilly ("When injustice becomes law....Resistance becomes DUTY !")
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