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To: Who is John Galt?
None of those would affect anything I have said though they may have some bearing upon the pretenses you have made ABOUT what I have said.

What does the FACT that the Supreme Court ruled on constitutionality of federal laws in 1792 have to do with Marshall's date of swearing in? He was happily in Virginia at the time of the first ruling on a law's constitutionality.
165 posted on 02/04/2004 8:18:06 AM PST by justshutupandtakeit (America's Enemies foreign and domestic agree: Bush must be destroyed.)
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To: justshutupandtakeit
None of those would affect anything I have said though they may have some bearing upon the pretenses you have made ABOUT what I have said.

LOL! In Post #163 you declared that “[a]ll the other states let the "resolutions" die an embarrassing death” – that’s a quote, not one of your mythical “pretenses.” “All the other states,” you claimed; “an embarrassing death,” you said. Apparently your comic-book sources did not include this:

The people of the United States by the adoption of the federal constitution established a general government for special purposes, reserving to themselves respectively, the rights and authorities not delegated in that instrument. To the compact thereby created, each state acceded in its character as a state, and is a party. The act of union thus entered into being to all intents and purposes a treaty between sovereign states, the general government by this treaty was not constituted the exclusive or final judge of the powers it was to exercise; for if it were so to judge then its judgment and not the constitution would be the measure of its authority.

Should the general government in any of its departments violate the provisions of the constitution, it rests with the states, and with the people, to apply suitable remedies.

Resolutions of Pennsylvania against the Bank, January 11, 1811

And no doubt your comic-books failed to cite this:

...The sovereignty reserved to the States, was reserved to protect the Citizens from acts of violence by the United States, as well as for purposes of domestic regulation. We spurn the idea that the free, sovereign and independent State of Massachusetts is reduced to a mere municipal corporation, without power to protect its people, and to defend them from oppression, from whatever quarter it comes. Whenever the national compact is violated, and the citizens of this state are oppressed by cruel and unauthorized laws, this legislature is bound to interpose its power, and wrest from the oppressor his victim…

Resolved, That the Inhabitants of the State of Massachusetts, have enjoyed, from its earliest settlement, the right of navigating from Port to Port within its limits and of fishing on its coasts; that the free exercise and enjoyment of these Rights are essential to the comfort and subsistence of a numerous class of its citizens; that the power of prohibiting to its Citizens the exercise of these rights was never delegated to the general government, and that all Laws passed by that Government, intended to have such an effect, are therefore unconstitutional and void...

The General Court of Massachusetts on the Embargo, February 22, 1814

And of course you are blissfully ignorant of this:

The committee are aware of the doctrine, that the Federal Courts are exclusively vested with jurisdiction to declare, in the last resort, the true interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. To this doctrine, in the latitude contended for, they never can give their assent…

So early as the year 1798 the States and the people were called to declare their opinions upon the question involving the relative rights and powers of the government of the United States. [Here follow extracts from the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798.]

It cannot be forgotten that these resolves, and others connected with them, were occasioned by the acts of Congress, commonly called the alien and sedition laws, and by certain decisions in the Federal Circuit Courts, recognizing the obligatory force of the common law, as applicable to the federal jurisprudence.

The resolutions of Virginia were submitted to the Legislatures of the different States; Delaware, Rhode Island, Massachusetts; the Senate of New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont returned answers to them, strongly reprobating their principle, and all but Delaware and Connecticut, asserting that the federal judiciary were exclusively the expositors of the federal constitution. In the Virginia Legislature these answers were submitted to a committee, of which Mr. Madison was chairman, and in January, 1800, this committee made a report, which has ever since been considered the true text_book of republican principles. In that report the claim that the federal judiciary is the exclusive expositor of the federal constitution is taken up and examined. [Here follow extracts from the Virginia report.]

The resolutions of Kentucky and Virginia, and of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, the Senate of New York, New Hampshire and Vermont, in reply, and the answers to these replies by the Legislature of Virginia, were a direct and constitutional appeal to the States and the people upon the great question at issue. The appeal was decided by the presidential and other elections of 1800. The States and the people recognized and affirmed the doctrines of Kentucky and Virginia, by effecting a total change in the administration of the federal government. In the pardon of Callender, convicted under the sedition law, and in the remittance of his fines, the new administration unequivocally recognized the decision and the authority of the States and of the people. Thus has the question, whether the Federal Courts are the sole expositors of the Constitution of the United States in the last resort, or whether the States, "as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge," have an equal right to interpret that Constitution for themselves, where their sovereign rights are involved, been decided against the pretension of the federal judges, by the people themselves, the true source of all legitimate powers...

Resolved, by the Great Assembly of the State of Ohio, That in respect to the powers of the governments of the several States that compose the American Union and the powers of the federal government, this General Assembly do recognize and approve the doctrines asserted by the Legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia in their resolutions of November and December, 1798, and January, 1800, and do consider that their principles have been recognized and adopted by a majority of the American people...

Extracts from the Report and Resolutions of Ohio Relative to the Bank and the Powers of the Federal Judiciary, January 3, 1821

And quite obviously, you are completely unaware of this:

This General Assembly having carefully reviewed the resolutions of the sessions of 1798, and the report in support of them of 1799, and deeming the compact, on which they are a commentary, as unchanged in the powers which it delegates to the General Government, and the rights which are reserved to the States, doth now again "most solemnly declare a warm attachment to the union of the States, to maintain which, it pledges all its powers; and that for this end, it is their duty to watch over and oppose every infraction of those principles, which constitute the only basis of that Union, because, a faithful observance of them, can alone secure its existence and the public happiness:" "And doth further explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the Federal Government, as resulting from the compact to which the States are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact; as no farther valid than they are authorised by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that, in case of a deliberate, palpable and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the States who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining, within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them."

In the opinion of this General Assembly, the principles here asserted, and the reasoning contained in the said report, apply with full force against the powers assumed by Congress, in the act imposing additional duties on foreign articles, for the promotion of American manufactures, and the acts directing surveys of routes for roads and canals, preparatory to a general system of internal improvement…

Resolutions of Virginia, March 4th, 1826

And you missed this as well:

Resolved, That the several acts of the Congress of the United States now of force, imposing duties upon imports, for the protection of domestic manufactures, have been and are, deliberate and highly dangerous and oppressive violations of the constitutional compact, and that whenever any State, which is suffering under this oppression, shall lose all reasonable hope of redress from the wisdom and justice of the Federal Government, it will be its right and duty to interpose, in its sovereign capacity, for the purpose of arresting the progress of the evil occasioned by the said unconstitutional acts.

[...(A) series of resolutions on federal relations, consisting of the first four paragraphs of the Virginia resolutions and the first paragraph of the Kentucky resolutions of 1798, prefixing the above resolve were reported.]

Extract from Resolutions of the Legislature [of South Carolina], December 17, 1830

And obviously you missed this:

...Resolved by the General Assembly, That they continue to regard the doctrines of State Sovereignty and State Rights, as set forth in the Resolutions of 1798, and sustained by the Report thereon of 1799, as a true interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, and of the powers therein given to the General Government…

Resolves of Virginia, January 26, 1833

And you are completely ignorant of this:

Resolved, That the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, faithful to the compact between the people of the United States, according to the plain meaning and intent in which it was understood and acceded to by them, is sincerely anxious for its preservation, but that it is determined, as it doubts not the other states are, to submit to undelegated powers in no body of men on earth*; That the project of the annexation of Texas, unless arrested on the threshold, may tend to drive these states into a dissolution of the union, and will furnish new calumnies against republican governments of exposing the gross contradiction of a people professing to be free, and yet seeking to extend and perpetuate the subjection of their slaves.

[* Quoted from the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798]

Massachusetts on the Annexation of Texas, March 15, 1844

And you missed this one, too:

1st. Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Georgia in General Assembly convened, That the Government of the United States is one of limited powers, and cannot rightfully exercise any authority not conferred by the Constitution...

3d. Resolved, That the several States of the Union acceded to the confederacy upon terms of perfect equality, and that the rights, privileges and immunities secured by the Constitution belong alike to the people of each State...

8th. Resolved, That in the event of the passage of the Wilmot Proviso by Congress, the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, the admission of California as a State in its present pretended organization, or the continued refusal of the non_slaveholding States to deliver up fugitive slaves as provided in the Constitution, it will become the immediate and imperative duty of the people of this State to meet in convention to take into consideration the mode and measure of redress...

Resolutions of Georgia, February 8, 1850

And you even missed this:

Resolved, That the government, formed by the Constitution of the United States was not the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; but that, as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.

Resolved, That the principle and construction contended for by the party which now rules in the councils of the nation, that the general government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism, since the discretion of those who administer the government, and not the Constitution, would be the measure of their powers; that the several states which formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and that a positive defiance of those sovereignties, of all Unauthorized acts done or attempted to be done under color of that instrument, is the rightful remedy.

General Laws of Wisconsin, March 19, 1859

So, in your ignorant opinion “[a]ll the other states let the "resolutions" die an embarrassing death.” But in fact, even a quick search turns up at least six other States that reaffirmed the Jeffersonian republican “resolutions,” over a period of at least 60 years. (Perhaps to you “all the other states” does not include Georgia, Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Wisconsin… ;>) And “an embarrassing death?” The “resolutions” were being reaffirmed by State governments long after the original critics had died…

;>)

What does the FACT that the Supreme Court ruled on constitutionality of federal laws in 1792 have to do with Marshall's date of swearing in? He was happily in Virginia at the time of the first ruling on a law's constitutionality.

LOL! So your short-term memory is disappearing as well? (Maybe tpaine was right: if you’re ‘wired or drunk,’ it would certainly explain your memory loss… ;>) In Post #160 you declared that “there was no real dispute about [the power to void laws contrary to the Constitution] until Marshall's rulings started to go against Jefferson's wishes” (another unsubstantiated, revisionist fantasy from queenhillaryscourtjester ;>). Quite obviously, the States claimed that power prior to 1800, as the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (and other documents) make crystal clear. The “dispute” pre-dated “Marshall’s rulings” by YEARS – proving once again that you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

;>)

166 posted on 02/04/2004 3:55:14 PM PST by Who is John Galt? ("[The militiaman] will assure himself... of his future tranquility." - Comte de Guibert, 1771)
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