Five More States Invoke the 10th (AMENDMENT)

humanevents.com ^ | 03/04/2009 | A.W.R. Hawkins

[kellynla]

Last week, HUMAN EVENTS reported that eleven states, Washington, New Hampshire, Arizona, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas, had all “all introduced bills and resolutions” declaring their sovereignty over Obama’s actions in light of the 10th Amendment.

These actions are in response to the Obama administration’s faux-“stimulus” legislation which directly assaults the rights of states to reject the money coming from the federal government. So far, several Republican governors -- among them South Carolina’s Mark Sanford and Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal -- have said they would refuse all or part of the stimulus money because of the constitutional infringements and because of the additional unfunded liabilities they impose on the states.

This week, HUMAN EVENTS is happy to report that five more states have decided to invoke the 10th as well.

These five -- Tennessee, Kentucky, Kansas, Indiana, and West Virginia -- have all begun their action under the 10th Amendment in a bid to protect themselves from what they view as nothing less than an unconstitutional usurpation of power on the part of the Obama administration.

On February 23, HJR 108 was put forth in the Tennessee legislature, indicating that legislators in that state decided “it [was] time to affirm state sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and demand the federal government halt its practice of assuming powers and of imposing mandates upon the states for purposes not enumerated by the Constitution,” according to Truman Bean.

The very next day, February 24, Kentucky State Representative John Will Stacy (D), “introduced House Concurrent Resolution 168… serving notice to the federal government to cease mandates beyond its authority.”

In declaring their sovereignty these states have joined what has come to be known as “the 10th Amendment movement.” It is a grassroots, conservative movement that seeks to defend the separation of powers as originally set forth by our Founders in the Constitution.

Through this movement, conservatives are throwing down the gauntlet against tyranny and the abuse of power. They are invoking the 10th Amendment at the state level against abuses of power by the federal government, and doing so with appeals to the extra-constitutional writings of our Founding fathers.

For example, Indiana’s resolution calls attention to the words of Alexander Hamilton, a Federalist and Founder who “expressed his hope that ‘the people will always take care to preserve the constitutional equilibrium between the general and the state governments.’” Hamilton “believed that ‘this balance between the national and state governments forms a double security to the people. If one [government] encroaches on their rights, they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, they will both be prevented from over-passing their constitutional limits by [the] certain [rivalry] which will ever subsist between them.’”

Kansas’ Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 1609 delves even deeper into the mechanics of the matter by reminding the Obama administration, as well as the House and Senate, that “the scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment means that the federal government was created by the states specifically to be an agent of the state.” In other words, the federal government exists by and for the states, not the other way around.

The resolution headed to West Virginia’s 79th Legislature couples its action under the 10th Amendment with a reminder directed to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.): “[The] United States Supreme Court has ruled in New York v. United States, 112 S. Ct. 2408 (1992), that Congress may not simply commandeer the legislative and regulatory processes of the states.” This reminder is followed by a pronouncement that “a number of proposals from previous administrations and some now pending from the present administration and from Congress may further violate the Constitution of the United States.”

In light of these violations of the Constitution, the stated purpose of West Virginia’s resolution is, in part, to “serve as Notice and Demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers.”

Our rights as citizens are under assault by an administration of leftist ideologues with an insatiable appetite for power. There is little difference between them and the appeasement-drunken, government-expanding leftists in Lyndon Baines Johnson’s administration of whom Ronald Reagan said in 1964, “Inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government…and freedom is close to slipping from our grip.”

Every state assembly and legislature that has joined “the 10th Amendment movement” understands that Reagan’s words about freedom’s fragility in 1964 are no less true for our day when not only freedom, but also the America ideal, is “close to slipping from our grip.”

We must stand shoulder to shoulder with states like Tennessee, Kentucky, Kansas, Indiana, and West Virginia in demanding that the federal government immediately “cease and desist” its usurpation of our liberties.

[semantic]

I see another American Revolution in our future

Everyone knows it's coming. However, in order to win, conservatives must avoid the tendency of fighting current wars with the tools & tactics of prior conflicts; by which I mean both 1776 & 1861.

This battle will depend on finance & economics. It's all about the power of the central government's ability to tax & borrow. In fact, the importance of taxes is dwarfed by the ongoing flow of funds into Treasuries that enables the government to operate with huge deficits.

Cut off Hussein's ability to finance deficits, and you starve the beast of its life blood. Savings directed into Ts are funding the very tools of oppression.

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Yay, my FReeper name is relevant again!!

[Tennessee_Bob]

As noted, djsherin, you are welcome to move here to Tennessee....but bring In-And-Out!!!!

[cowboyway]

Just because I think the secessionists were foolish and illegal does not mean that I would condone a Stalinist tyranny here.

But what about those infamous WBTS threads where you and some others, whose names I cannot say, were adamant that all our problems could be worked out within the framework of our Union and the Union could never be dissolved, regardless of the reasons?

Hell, you guys even went so far as to scoff and make taunting remarks about tin foil hats when I and others would breach the issue of a socialist government being installed in DC.

[mojitojoe]

I see Florida has still not made the list.
_________
Start writing letters. Have everyone you know do the same.

[benjibrowder]

Florida kind of sorta already has.

http://www.criminalgovernment.com/docs/legal/florida1.html

[mojitojoe]

Of course their son will be named BHO III, but his nickname could be Fidel, or Che, or Hugo, or Yasser, or Mahmoud or Karl or Vladimir.
__________
I bet they name him Marshall.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

More good can be done via constitutional convention than via secession.

That was the problem in 1860- an abandonment of peaceful Constitutional remedies in favor of an artificial frenzy and manufactured conflict. The Constitution presupposes a measure of political maturity and it contains within peaceful and orderly remedies.

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

I have looked under the state topics for Florida and for Retired Navy Vet, nothing came up so far.

Here’s an ongoing thread on this topic that might interest you:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2193442/posts?page=67
Tenth Amendment/States Rights Update (an ongoing thread)

Stop on over and browse a while! If you find the link, you can post it there since it’s the “repository”

On that thread is this link:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2193144/posts
Petition for Florida Sovereignty

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Petition for Florida Sovereignty
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2193144/posts

Contact your legislators!

[Colonel Kangaroo]

But what about those infamous WBTS threads where you and some others, whose names I cannot say, were adamant that all our problems could be worked out within the framework of our Union and the Union could never be dissolved, regardless of the reasons?

There is no contradiction. As Lincoln said, the Constitution does not contain provision for its own dissolving. But as Lincoln also said, the the people retain a right of revolution outside the Constitution as a response to real tyranny.

[two23]

bump
thanks for posting

[Colonel Kangaroo]

you guys even went so far as to scoff and make taunting remarks about tin foil hats when I and others would breach the issue of a socialist government being installed in DC.

We've had a socialist government for a long time. It's long overdue that the public start vigorously promoting real adherence to the Constitution. But that does not mean we are facing a new Stalin or Mao. This guy is already proving and will prove even more in the the future to be a disaster, but that's who the foolish electorate picked under our Constitutional electoral process and that's who we're going to have to suffer under until the electorate wakes up and comes to their senses in 2012.

[ForGod'sSake]

Thank you djsherin, DirtyHarryY2K and MamaTexan.

For the record, it looks like many pingees have beat me to the thread. It's a good thang we have the topics and keywords features on FR so that anybody wanting to get ahead of a late ping can find articles. For the rest, this is not so much news for those of us who have been following along, but it is a good article(IMHO) that needs a read, so...

Click the 10th Amendment button for articles tagged with keyword "10thamendment". There is a "statesrights" link atop the forum page.

Please ~ping~ me to articles relating to the 10th Amendment/States Rights so I can employ the pinger.

I continue to add names to the ping list as I run across others participating on similar threads. If you want off the list just say so.

Additional Resources:

*New Page*Tenth Amendment Center
The Right Side of Life/State Initiatives
MRStep.com
Find Law(Brief history of 10th Amendment)

CLICK HERE TO FIND YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVES

[prismsinc]

Well, RNV said that we already filed it back in 1995. If that’s true, there’s no need to re-file it.

[stockpirate]

That’s 18 now even with NH backing down.

[djsherin]

Declaration of Independence... sounds like secession to me.

[Danae]

How many states have done this now?

[NonLinear]

I remember it being ten years ago, or more.

[KrisKrinkle]

“Now if they would just declare secession.”

Why do that at this point, if ever? Get enough States together and curb the Federal Government, then there’s no need for secession and all the trouble that would bring.

“Or some sort of vote of no confidence to start removal proceedings of the House and Senate.”

The resurfacing of State’s “rights” is a vote of no confidence on the part of those doing the resurfacing.