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To: muawiyah

What was his address? You might want to send a letter and ask. Because his version of the census was a population count. Not a count of peoples races, banking accounts and so forth.

But its still not surprising you support BOs agenda.


33 posted on 05/22/2010 3:21:57 PM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: driftdiver
You are clearly unaware of what was understood to be a census.

Frankly, the American Revolution was held, in part, to redress the question of taxation without representation (in Parliament or any other representative body of governance).

TO WIT: "He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only."

Obviously you can't "represent" unless you previously "count the people".

By the time the Constitution comes into existence, the former rebels explicitly set forth as a power of their federal government the requirement that it conduct a decennial census. They didn't stop at "may hold a census", they required it. In Marbury V. Madison, a major SCOTUS decision from the early days, it was ruled that the Constitution grants to Congress implied powers for implementing the Constitution's express powers, in order to create a functional national government.

What that means to us today is that the Founders required the federal government to conduct censuses. Secondly, that the SCOTUS determined that to do that Congress had the powers to write the legislation, and create the regulatory framework such that a census could be performed.

NOTE: John Marshall, who'd served first as a Lieutenant in the Culpeper Minute Men from 1775 to 1776, then as a Lieutenant in the Eleventh Virginia Continental Regiment from 1776 to 1780, is the guy who came up with the idea that the Congress could write laws to implement powers granted to them in the Constitution.

If you disagree with the thought may I encourage you to go argue it out with Chief Justice Marshall ~ as soon as possible in fact.

Although Marshall was a Federalist, his close friend Thomas Jefferson (founder of the Democrat party) managed the first census in 1790.

The Revolutionaries supported taking a census, and in fact DEMANDED THAT IT BE DONE ~ END OF THAT CLAIM OF YOURS to the contrary.

Now, did Congress have a right to do more than "count heads" ~ for instance, could they inquire of the status of slaves? That is, could Congress demand someone tell the census taker how many slaves they had? Could Congress demand their ages? How about asking their sex?

Could Congress ask if they were "colored", or "Indians", or "white" (initially inferred from the fact no other answer was made).

Getting back to my earliest point, the idea that government was REQUIRED to take a census was truly revolutionary. The first census wasn't perfect, but by the time the second census came around Congress had the idea and began adding things.

BTW, "adding things", literally "things" was an ordinary adjunct of government at the LOWEST LEVELS in the pioneer period. As Townships/Counties/Towns were established and taxing authorities set up, it was the common practice for the tax collectors to enumerate YOUR STUFF.

Nothing more American than that. Property taxes paid for government, and schools, and you could pay your taxes in trade, work or cash ~ but pay them you would, and based on your "wealth". No one in America was left unaccounted for when it came to that, and the local trustees had a record of what you owned and developed your taxes based on those records.

George Washington himself participated in such things. In fact, he early on asked for claimants from the late war (the Revolution) to send in their claims regarding lost property. The Oneida Indians, who had abominable losses in that war allied to the United States, filed for burned cabins, stolen ploughs, damaged harness, slaughtered horses, and so forth.

They developed the same sorts of property records for their claims that were usually developed so that local governments could assess taxes.

To say the Founders had no intention of "counting things" is, to say the least, TOTALLY BIZARRE!

34 posted on 05/22/2010 4:05:23 PM PDT by muawiyah ("Git Out The Way")
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