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To: MamaTexan

I really don't even know where to begin because you are so wrong.

Are you actually saying that the Federal Government has no power outside the District? You seem to say this. Are you seriously saying that? Are you saying, then, that Congress has no power to construct, say, post roads outside the District? Lay taxes outside the District? Impose duties outside the District?

If you are saying this, it's a pretty interesting theory of government that certainly wasn't theorized by any of the founders. Even under the Articles of Confederancy, which almost everyone (save maybe Patrick Henry) thought were too weak to sustain a federal government, the Congress had more power than what you claim it does.

I'm afraid you're just making an unsupportable argument. From the very beginning, Congress was exercising more power than what you claim it has--1791, for instance, Congress establishes the Bank of the United States; Congress passes a Whiskey Tax, which resulted in a rebellion that had to be put down by Washington. What about the Alien and Sedition Acts, passed by Congress? Certainly exercised jurisdiction outside the district. Attacked on constitutional grounds for certain, but free speech grounds, not jurisdictional grounds. Louisiana Purchase? Unconstitutional, you claim? What about the ban on slave importation outside the District? Unconstitutional? If you think that so, then why does Section 9 of the First Article imply that Congress has such power?

From the First Congress, the United States was regulating outside the district. Your argument just isn't supported by history, I'm afraid.


63 posted on 05/17/2005 10:09:13 AM PDT by Publius Valerius
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To: Publius Valerius
Your argument just isn't supported by history, I'm afraid.

(sigh)

"The constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests."
--Patrick Henry

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"When all government, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the Center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."
– Thomas Jefferson

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"The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of it's enactment, not merely from the date of the decision branding it?"No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it."
6 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177, late 2d, Sec 256.

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One of the sources frequently quoted by the Founders:

THE SPIRIT OF LAWS Book VI By Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu

Of the Simplicity of Criminal Laws in different Governments
In republican governments, men are all equal;
equal they are also in despotic governments:
in the former, because they are everything;
in the latter, because they are nothing.

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The only jurisdiction outside of Washington DC that the government has are those SPECIFICALLY enumerated in the Constitution concerning the states.

When the Constitution says 'the States', it MEANS the states.

NOT a geographical landmass OR the people....the artificial creation or 'political subdivision' known as a 'state'.

64 posted on 05/17/2005 1:25:09 PM PDT by MamaTexan (I am not a legal entity, nor am I a *person* as defined and/or created by 'law'!!)
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