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To: Conservative Goddess
Keep reading, the page you linked to dealt with the Federal Judiciary. The next couple of pages talk about the Amendment process and its proper scope and verbiage. There was some dissent as to even having an Amendment process to begin with and this is what they are discussing.

Keep reading.

As for the Federalist, the matching "Anti-Federalist" holds and equal and opposite view.

Further, if the Federal power didn't extend to be superior to the States powers in these regards, how could those Rights protected by the States been "endangered" in any meaningful way? In point of fact, they were fully cognizant that the Federal government in it's powers, duties, and protections for our Rights, were SUPERIOR to the members States. That is why they went to such lengths to ensure that those Federal powers were strictly defined and limited.

At least, they were. It is indefensible to say that our current form of government in any way conforms to the Constitution accept in the most superficial ways.

Click here... lower left hand column...

"This will certainly be attended with great inconvenience, as the several States are bound not to make laws contradictory thereto, and all officers are sworn to support it, without knowning precisely what it is." Refering to the various purposed Amendment process and the confusion that could be attendant with chosing the wrong one.

This isn't an isolated reference, but one that is brought up time and again.

408 posted on 01/17/2006 8:17:39 AM PST by Dead Corpse (Anyone who needs to be persuaded to be free, doesn't deserve to be. -El Neil)
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To: Dead Corpse
The link should lead you to page 734....where Madison, a FEDERALIST, argued that the BOR modified the Federal Constitution. The question presented, over and over in this thread, was whether the BOR applied to the states. Clearly, under the original intent, it was not so intended. As I read this work (Thanks for the link) it is readily apparent that the Framers were only concerned with securing the rights of the people against real or imagined encroachments of the FEDERAL government.

As a member of the Federalist Society, that the Anti-federalist papers took the opposing view with respect to a BOR is not meaningful to me. They made some good arguments, but history has shown the folly of their "injudicious indulgence and zeal for a BOR."

Many of the problems and misapprehensions of the electorate flow from the notion that only those rights that are enumerated are held by the people---precisely the misapprehension of which the Federalists warned. The Federalists were brilliant and prescient men....practically foreseeing the day the Supreme Court would resort to examining the emanations of the prenumbras of the BOR to "FIND" a right of privacy. Utter nonsense. And so-called conservatives think that in order to overturn Roe v. Wade, we have to reliquish our right of privacy. That level of ignorance is inexcusable. But is is precisely because the Supreme Court resorted to that contortion, that it has reinforced the belief that we are dependent on the BOR for our rights.

While you correctly state that the powers of the Federal Government were narrowly defined, You mis-apprehend the quote from the Congressional record.....It cannot mean that the Federal Government is superior in all realms. Because the federal powers were narrowly defined, it follows that the spheres of influence of the Feds and States were not necessarily overlapping. Federal law is only superior within those narrowly defined areas. States are sovereign in areas where the Fed has no authority to act. A blanket statement that Federal Law was to be superior, is therefore incorrect. The fear of the Federal government at the time of the Founding was palpable; some would say even unreasonable.

Further, Madison believed any overreaching by the Feds would quickly be quelled by the jealous attachment of the people to their local governments. Federalist 46 is directly on point: http://patriotpost.us/fedpapers/fed_46.html

"...The federal and State governments are in fact but different agents and trustees of the people, constituted with different powers, and designed for different purposes. The adversaries of the Constitution seem to have lost sight of the people altogether in their reasonings on this subject; and to have viewed these different establishments, not only as mutual rivals and enemies, but as uncontrolled by any common superior in their efforts to usurp the authorities of each other. These gentlemen must here be reminded of their error. They must be told that the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone, and that it will not depend merely on the comparative ambition or address of the different governments, whether either, or which of them, will be able to enlarge its sphere of jurisdiction at the expense of the other. Truth, no less than decency, requires that the event in every case should be supposed to depend on the sentiments and sanction of their common constituents. Many considerations, besides those suggested on a former occasion, seem to place it beyond doubt that the first and most natural attachment of the people will be to the governments of their respective States...."

In Federalist 46, Madison further observed: "...It has been already proved that the members of the federal will be more dependent on the members of the State governments, than the latter will be on the former. It has appeared also, that the prepossessions of the people, on whom both will depend, will be more on the side of the State governments, than of the federal government. So far as the disposition of each towards the other may be influenced by these causes, the State governments must clearly have the advantage...."

With the ratification of the 16th and 17th Amendments, the incorporation doctrine controversy borne of the 14th, etc......we have significantly expanded the influence of the Federal Government over that which the Founders originally envisioned. I would argue that it was a positively ludicrous acquiescence. That was our right, but it does not mean that it was wise and I do agree that our current Constitutional order bears little resemblance to that envisioned by the Founders.
416 posted on 01/17/2006 11:01:34 AM PST by Conservative Goddess (Politiae legibus, non leges politiis, adaptandae)
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