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Earlier threads:
FReeper Book Club: The Debate over the Constitution
5 Oct 1787, Centinel #1
6 Oct 1787, James Wilson’s Speech at the State House
8 Oct 1787, Federal Farmer #1
Ping! The thread has been posted.
Earlier threads:
FReeper Book Club: The Debate over the Constitution
5 Oct 1787, Centinel #1
6 Oct 1787, James Wilson’s Speech at the State House
8 Oct 1787, Federal Farmer #1
Excellent post! Would you please put me on your ping list.
45 and 46.
I’d say the erosion of states rights started, oddly enough, with prohibition.
If I remember correctly, criminals could flee to another state and there was no way for law enforcement to pursue criminals across state lines.
Hence, the creation of federal crimes and the FBI to fight such criminal activities.
From there Herbert Hoover, progressives, FDR, The New Deal, etc.
An encroaching federal government could have been fought by the States at that time. They didn’t, so, here we are now, having States fight the federal government.
Hopefully, the States can win the battle.
(45) Thus will stand the state and the general governments, should the Constitution be adopted without any alterations in their organization, but as to powers, the general government will possess all essential ones, at least on paper, and those of the states a mere shadow of power.
(46) And therefore, unless the people shall make some great exertions to restore to the state governments their powers in matters of internal police, as the powers to lay and collect, exclusively, internal taxes, to govern the militia, and to hold the decisions of their own judicial courts upon their own laws final, the balance cannot possibly continue long, but the state governments must be annihilated or continue to exist for no purpose.
(49) The general government, organized as it is, may be adequate to many valuable objects and be able to carry its laws into execution on proper principles in several cases, but I think its wannest friends will not contend that it can carry all the powers proposed to be lodged in it into effect without calling to its aid a military force which must very soon destroy all elective governments in the country, produce anarchy, or establish despotism.
Perhaps "destroy" used in the above context should be interpreted to have meant "exist for no purpose".
If that is the case, a coup can be accomplished without a military force. The result is a state government that exists only to fill a void that would otherwise result from the 'general governments' usurpation of power and remain in existence for that single purpose. A coup can be identified and resisted, an insidious usurpation cannot. The states are left as ineffective hollow shells.
BTTT!
The erosion of “states rights” was largely self inflicted wound.
States failed to stand up to the ever increasing encroachment of federal power due to lingering effects from the Civil War.
The Civil War put an end to the notion that states voluntarily seceding from the Union was their right.
Bucking the federal power grab might just get federal troops sent in.
This passage sent me into contemplation: A full and equal representation is that which possesses the same interests, feelings, opinions and views the people themselves would were they all assembled.
The interests (etc) of today's politicians is far different than those of their constituents.
Interestingly, the concern about large/small states, and north/south states, should probably give way to an unconsidered grouping, the east/west states.
Instead of worryiing about the localization of power and wealth around the center of government, I think as the country expanded the localization occured on the eastern coastal states vs. the western states.
If you consider that we have four continental time zones, it only makes sense that the country wakes up on the east, and all power begins while the west is still asleep. The leading newspapers are the New York Times and Washington Post, all television is based on the Eastern time zone broadcasts (even live western events are timed for east coast consumers).
The major financial markets are in the east as well. The New York Stock Exchange closes at 1:00PM PST.
So, I'd say yes, centralization has come to pass, but it is east vs. west today.
-PJ
I think a couple of factors are at play here.
1. The Roman frontier was made up of conquered nations forced to pay tribute to Rome. The American frontier was settled by free people conditioned by the norms of the American center from which they (or their parents) came.
2. The American frontiersmen chose to enter the union voluntarily, and therefore didn't need coercion to comply with the union's wishes.
3. From reading works like The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine, European countries were created from a system of monarchies, based on the premise that their rulers were chosen by God. When one country is conquered by another country, they may be forced to comply with the political wishes of the conquerer, but the people would still have a fealty towards their God-given heritage, their lands, and their ancestors.
In a country created by the rule of law based on the consent of the governed, people who freely give their consent do not need force to compel them to comply. The question going forward is not how to keep the remote people in compliance, it is how to keep the central government from devaluing them in a way that leads to capricious lawmaking that favors the central population within immediate communication range.
I think that was the crucial issue of Farmer -- not that the remote people would need force to comply, but that they would use force to keep the central government honest and true to the principles of the Constitution.
-PJ
Re #25:
"A free and enlightened people, in forming this compact, will not resign all their rights to those who govern, and they will fix limits to their legislators and rulers which will soon be plainly seen by those who are governed, as well as by those who govern, and the latter will know they cannot be passed unperceived by the former and without giving a general alarm."
The key word the Farmer uses here which forms the basis for his premise seems to me to be "enlightened."
The founding generations, "enlightened" as they were to the ideas of liberty and knowledgeable of the opposing ideas of tyranny, structured their government by a written Constitution to fulfill the purposes outlined in its Preamble.
From "Our Ageless Constitution," are the following observations about "An Enlightened Citizenry . . . ."
"Although all men are born free, slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Ignorant - they have been cheated; asleep - they have been surprised; divided - the yoke has been forced upon them. But what is the lesson? ...the people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government they should watch over it.... It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently free."- James Madison
But now, by neglect, America's citizens have failed to "watch over" those in charge of their schools and their public places. By that neglect, they have allowed to occur an almost total censorship of the ideas of liberty, resulting in a citizenry of constitutionally illiterate individuals.
Again, from "Our Ageless Constitution":
"In the 1830's, Tocqueville observed that, in America:
". . . every citizen ... is taught. . . the doctrines and the evidences of his religion, the history of his country, and the leading features of its Constitution ... it is extremely rare to find a man imperfectly acquainted with all these things, and a person wholly ignorant of them is a sort of phenomenon."
"He continued, "It cannot be doubted that in the United States the instruction of the people powerfully contributes to the support of the democratic republic; and such must always be the case...where the instruction which enlightens the understanding is not separated from the moral education...."
"Possessing a clear understanding of the failure of previous civilizations to achieve and sustain freedom for individuals, our forefathers discovered some timeless truths about human nature, the struggle for individual liberty, the human tendency toward abuse of power, and the means for curbing that tendency through Constitutional self-government. Jefferson's Bill For The More General Diffusion Of Knowledge For Virginia declared:
"...experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government), those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate...the minds of the people...to give them knowledge of those facts, which history exhibiteth. History, by apprizing them of the past, will enable them to judge of the future...it will qualify them judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views.."
OUTSTANDING post, discussion! BTTT!