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To: WhiskeyPapa
No reasonable person could ignore the fact that both the majority and dissenting opinons in the Prize Cases cite the Militia Act. A reasonable person would have to conclude that the Militia Act is one of those laws made in pursuance to the Constitution.

James Madison, in your opinion was an "unreasonable person," but what would he know about the constitution anyway?

1,347 posted on 07/08/2003 4:39:26 AM PDT by Gianni
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To: Gianni
James Madison, in your opinion was an "unreasonable person," but what would he know about the constitution anyway?

"The nullifiers it appears, endeavor to shelter themselves under a distinction between a delegation and a surrender of powers. But if the powers be attributes of sovereignty & nationality & the grant of them be perpetual, as is necessarily implied, where not otherwise expressed, sovereignty & nationality are effectually transferred by it, and the dispute about the name, is but a battle of words. The practical result is not indeed left to argument or inference. The words of the Constitution are explicit that the Constitution & laws of the U. S. shall be supreme over the Constitution and laws of the several States; supreme in their exposition and execution as well as in their authority. Without a supremacy in those respects it would be like a scabbard in the hands of a soldier without a sword in it. The imagination itself is startled at the idea of twenty four independent expounders of a rule that cannot exist, but in a meaning and operation, the same for all."

- James Madison

I think Madison was -very-reasonable.

Walt

1,357 posted on 07/08/2003 7:03:16 PM PDT by WhiskeyPapa (Virtue is the uncontested prize.)
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