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I have a question about the Constitution
August 20, 2022 | Jonty30

Posted on 08/20/2022 5:09:22 PM PDT by Jonty30

As I understand the American Constitution, the Federal Government has 18 enumerated powers, where it can exercise supremacy of its laws over the states. However, in everything else, the state is supreme within its territory including the ability of the Federal government to function in a state.

This is the absolute arrangement. WHat happens to property the feds are using in a state, like military bases or the federal courthouse or Fort Knox if a state demands the feds get out?

How does that work?


TOPICS: Books/Literature; Education; History; Society
KEYWORDS: constitution; vanity
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To: Jonty30

They ‘interpret’ clauses like ‘general welfare, ‘commerce’ and others to create power where it shouldn’t exist, nor meant to. The USSC has been letting them get away with it. Until Roe v Wade. Hopefully more like that to come. THIS! is why they hate Trump so vehemently. IMO 90% of the federal agencies were created under these actions.


21 posted on 08/20/2022 5:56:57 PM PDT by Gaffer (Infidel, and proud of it!)
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To: Jonty30
how does that work?

it’s simple, in today’s USA, the fed makes an offer to a state, an offer that it can’t refuse and then the fed does what it wants in that state. You know, like in any other communist country ruled by tyranny.

22 posted on 08/20/2022 6:06:48 PM PDT by drypowder
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To: Gaffer

I get the Commerce Claus a lot from them. To them, the Commerce Clause is key to subjugation of the states.


23 posted on 08/20/2022 6:09:00 PM PDT by Jonty30 (Some men want tod watch the world burn. It is they that want you to buy an electric car.)
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To: Jonty30
The Constitution of the United States confers full power on the Federal Government to maintain and Perpetuate its existance [existence], and whensoever any portion of the States, or people thereof attempt to secede from the Federal Union, or forcibly resist the Execution of its laws, the Federal Government may, by warrant of the Constitution, employ armed force in compelling obedience to its Authority.

This is excerpted from the Nevada state constitution (sec 2). I think other states have supremacy clauses recognizing the Fed's superior power, as long as the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not violated.

24 posted on 08/20/2022 6:15:06 PM PDT by PerConPat (A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground. - Mencken)
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To: Jonty30
the state is supreme within its territory including the ability of the Federal government to function in a state

To get around this, the Feds created taxes upon citizens/ businesses, and then offered it back IF the state submits to Federal rules. This is how the unemployment benefit system was created, and many others. How the Feds claimed all the Federal lands is beyond me.

25 posted on 08/20/2022 6:19:51 PM PDT by aimhigh (THIS is His commandment . . . . 1 John 3:23)
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To: TexasGurl24

“supreme Law of the Land;”

Regardless of any law passed or treaty, agreement, or international consideration, our Constitution is the governing document.
Everything not listed for The Feds, is for the states, or the people.

Interesting enough, it used to be “these United States”, individual and sovereign. Only giving over a piece of power to the group.


26 posted on 08/20/2022 6:27:15 PM PDT by Macoozie (Handcuffs and Orange Jumpsuits)
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To: Jonty30

A civil war ensues. The Constitution also provides for federal supremacy, so trying to oust the federal government from a state is tantamount to secession, meaning a declaration that one is no longer a state under the Constitution.


27 posted on 08/20/2022 6:51:46 PM PDT by Rockingham
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To: Jonty30; All
"This is the absolute arrangement. WHat happens to property the feds are using in a state, like military bases or the federal courthouse or Fort Knox if a state demands the feds get out? ..."

Thanks for posting.

Just like any business, the federal government must either buy or rent a property which can also include local hiring, increasing local commerce.

In other words, since feds typically contribute to a local economy imo, why would a state want to get rid of feds in your opinion?

In fact, base closings have been known to hurt local economy.

Insights welcome.

28 posted on 08/20/2022 6:56:33 PM PDT by Amendment10 ( )
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To: Amendment10

It’s not a question of why.
Rights are unapproachable. If it is my right, I can do it just because I wanna.

This question is more of an academic question, because it is unlikely to actually happen unless relations between the federal government and states get really bad.

If Kentucky threw out the Federal government, what is the process to reclaiming any federal property for the state?


29 posted on 08/20/2022 7:00:52 PM PDT by Jonty30 (Some men want tod watch the world burn. It is they that want you to buy an electric car.)
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To: Jonty30
WHat happens to property the feds are using in a state, like military bases or the federal courthouse or Fort Knox if a state demands the feds get out?

Article I Section 8 Clause 17:

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;
The assumption is that the federal government purchased the land from the states for the buildings in your example. As such, those became the property of the federal government and the states cannot take them back or exercise control over them.

-PJ

30 posted on 08/20/2022 7:07:39 PM PDT by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
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To: Political Junkie Too

The question is becoming inevitable, with the risk of California and the West Coast declaring secession. That was apparently one of the options being explored, if Trump had won in 2020.


31 posted on 08/20/2022 7:12:54 PM PDT by Jonty30 (Some men want tod watch the world burn. It is they that want you to buy an electric car.)
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To: Jonty30; All
"If Kentucky threw out the Federal government, what is the process to reclaiming any federal property for the state? ..."

Depending on if an election year, if the feds properly bought the land under either Article I, Section 8, Clause 17, or the 5th Amendment, then the feds could sell its properties in my non-expert opinion.


32 posted on 08/20/2022 7:25:34 PM PDT by Amendment10 ( )
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To: Jonty30
The question is becoming inevitable...

As a property owner who spent considerable time until last year in Oregon and continues to own property in California, I am not aware of an inevitable question as to secession—whether or not Trump is president. There is some talk of northern CA, southern OR and Idaho forming another state. But this is nowhere near happening.

33 posted on 08/20/2022 7:40:12 PM PDT by PerConPat (A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground. - Mencken)
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To: Jonty30

Next time you see a cop in public take a picture of him/her and find out if your government gives a crap about the Constitution.

PS, make sure you have a friend who can make bail for you.


34 posted on 08/20/2022 7:50:01 PM PDT by MercyFlush (☭☭☭ Soviet Russia must be destroyed. ☭☭☭)
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To: Jonty30; PerConPat

After watching the way Russia has used secessionist movement’s in countries like Ukraine and Moldava, I’ve grown suspicious of all secessionist movements. I suspect they likely have foreign funding and influences.


35 posted on 08/20/2022 7:50:43 PM PDT by DannyTN
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To: DannyTN

Damn good point...


36 posted on 08/20/2022 7:57:44 PM PDT by PerConPat (A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground. - Mencken)
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To: Jonty30
The question is becoming inevitable, with the risk of California and the West Coast declaring secession. That was apparently one of the options being explored, if Trump had won in 2020.

I still believe that secession is unconstitutional, although I know of others who do not.

I'll restate my points again here:

  1. The Founders said that when a form of government becomes tyrannical, it is the right of the people to throw it off and institute another. The Declaration of Independence was the document that founded the nation; the Constitution created our federated form of government.

    The Declaration of Independence was an irrevocable mutual "pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor" to form a new nation. It took the Articles of Confederation, and throwing off the Articles of Confederation, before we arrived at the Constitution, our governing document.

    Throwing off the Articles of Confederation was not leaving the nation, it was only changing the form of government. Our Constitution has Article V as the mechanism to change the government; throwing off the Constitution is not seceding from the country.

    The only way to throw off a tyrannical government is to amend the Constitution to rein it in, eliminate the parts we don't like, and add new ones to it with the consent of the states. Individual states choosing to become "sanctuary states" vis-à-vis the Constitution is not permissible.

    Secession violates the mutual pledge between the states at its founding, and is not an option.

  2. On March 15, 1833, James Madison wrote a letter to Daniel Webster:

    Madison's argument here is that when the states ratified the Constitution, that conferred United States citizenship on the citizens of the several states with all the rights and powers laid out in the Constitution.
    It is fortunate when disputed theories, can be decided by undisputed facts. And here the undisputed fact is, that the Constitution was made by the people, but as imbodied into the several states, who were parties to it and therefore made by the States in their highest authoritative capacity. They might, by the same authority & by the same process have converted the Confederacy into a mere league or treaty; or continued it with enlarged or abridged powers; or have imbodied the people of their respective States into one people, nation or sovereignty; or as they did by a mixed form make them one people, nation, or sovereignty, for certain purposes, and not so for others.
    Once given, a governor or legislature does not have the right to strip its state citizens of their citizenship in the United States.

    The only distinctive effect, between the two modes of forming a Constitution by the authority of the people, is that if formed by them as imbodied into separate communities, as in the case of the Constitution of the U.S. a dissolution of the Constitutional Compact would replace them in the condition of separate communities, that being the Condition in which they entered into the compact; whereas if formed by the people as one community, acting as such by a numerical majority, a dissolution of the compact would reduce them to a state of nature, as so many individual persons. But whilst the Constitutional compact remains undissolved, it must be executed according to the forms and provisions specified in the compact.
  3. James Madison wrote about secession in a letter on November 30, 1860: LETTER FROM MR. MADISON ON THE RIGHT OF SECESSION:

    Madison argues that the ratification of the Constitution was a compact between the states, and as such, each state has equal say in all matters. When one state declares itself to secede unilaterally, it says that its own decision is elevated above all the rest.

    The case of a claim in a State to secede from its union with the others, is a question among the States themselves as parties to a compact...

    It surely does not follow, from the fact of the States, or rather the people embodied in them, having as parties to the Constitutional compact no tribunal above them, that, in controverted meanings of the compact, a minority of the parties can rightfully decide against the majority; still less that a single party can decide against the rest; and as little that it can at will withdraw itself altogether from its compact with the rest.

    Madison then suggests that if a state declares its own desire supreme over the others, then that right extends to all the other states too. That means that if a state has a right to secede from the others, then the others have the right to secede from it. In other words, a body of states has the right to oust a state against its wishes, which is a dangerous precedent.

    The characteristic distinction between free Governments and Governments not free is, that the former are founded on compact, not between the Government and those for whom it acts, but among the parties creating the Government. Each of these being equal, neither can have more right to say that the compact has been violated and dissolved, than every other has to deny the fact, and to insist on the execution of the bargain. An inference from the doctrine that a single State has a right to secede at will from the rest, is that the rest would have an equal right to secede from it; in other words, to turn it, against its will, out of its union with them.
-PJ
37 posted on 08/20/2022 8:08:01 PM PDT by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
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To: Robert DeLong
Not addressed in Constitution. Last time it resulted in a Civil War.

Wrong. Enclave clause at Article I, Section 8 Clause 17.

38 posted on 08/20/2022 8:11:44 PM PDT by IndispensableDestiny
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To: Political Junkie Too

It is my understanding that a state could leave, as a final measure to protect itself against a tyrannical Federal government, because there are sometimes no other options and the Union was not meant to be a backdoor way to enslaving smaller states in favour of the large states.

However, although a state could option for secession along with whatever conditions they agree to upon leaving, the feds don’t have to let back in so freely. The feds can impose all the conditions it wants to admitting a state, but it can’t keep a state that wants out.

Before 1869, that was my understanding of the arrangement to joining the Union.


39 posted on 08/20/2022 8:22:35 PM PDT by Jonty30 (Some men want tod watch the world burn. It is they that want you to buy an electric car.)
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To: TexasGurl24

Nice copy and paste. So in your estimate does that mean FedGov can do what ever the hell they damn well please?


40 posted on 08/20/2022 8:24:40 PM PDT by MileHi ((Liberalism is an ideology of parasites, hypocrites, grievance mongers, victims, and control freaks.)
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