[Man50D]

Excellent Post! You've done your homework! Go to the head of the class!

One thing I find puzzling is that section eight in Article one list all the powers granted to Congress by the Constitution including entering into treaties with foreign powers, coining money, laying and collect taxes etc...

This means states do not have the above powers since they are listed in Article I Section 8. It would be unconstitutional for a state to coin its own money or enter into treaties with foreign nations , therefore it should also be unconstitutional for a state to lay and collect taxes and yet many states have multiple state taxes. Am I missing something?

[rwrcpa1]

Man, keep thinking like that and your head is going to explode. It's like thinking about time travel. LOL If I go back in time and tell myself to buy Microsoft stock, will I cause a rift in the space time continuum?

[ancient_geezer]

One thing I find puzzling is that section eight in Article one list all the powers granted to Congress by the Constitution including entering into treaties with foreign powers, coining money, laying and collect taxes etc...

Taxation is an original power to the states and they are only prohibited from levying interstate duties and international tariffs under the Constitution.

The prohibition of a thing implies remainder powers under common law construction of Constitutions and legislation used in the founder's era. This is especially true as the states had the plenary power to tax prior to the Constitution under the Articles of Confederation, only specific tax modes were expressly prohibited to them in the text of Constitution.

It is to be noted that the writings of the founders in the Federalist and debate during the constitutional convention, maintained the federal power to tax was a concurrent one with the states rather than a exclusive power prohibiting the states or the feds from taxing the same objects as the other.

That is why, for example states can lay excises as well as income taxes the same as the federal government does today.

Federalist #34:

• ``A CONCURRENT JURISDICTION in the article of taxation was the only admissible substitute for an entire subordination, in respect to this branch of power, of State authority to that of the Union.'' Any separation of the objects of revenue that could have been fallen upon, would have amounted to a sacrifice of the great INTERESTS of the Union to the POWER of the individual States. The convention thought the concurrent jurisdiction preferable to that subordination; and it is evident that it has at least the merit of reconciling an indefinite constitutional power of taxation in the Federal government with an adequate and independent power in the States to provide for their own necessities.

The Courts really do sometime pay attention to the intent of the founders, sometimes anyway.