Haven’t they?
4 I might instance a number of clauses in the Constitution which, if explained in an equitable manner, would extend the powers of the government to every case and reduce the state legislatures to nothing,The states are only allowed to do what the Feds haven’t taken over and must do what the Feds tell them to do. Right? If not "nothing" then they’ve become the next best thing.
14 It will therefore be no fiction for a citizen of one state to set forth in a suit that he is a citizen of another, for he that is entitled to all the privileges and immunities of a country is a citizen of that country.
15 And in truth, the citizen of one state will, under this Constitution, be a citizen of every state.Doesn’t the debate over gay marriage prove this true? If one state allows a gay marriage, all must honor it and prepare for gay divorces.
28 From these remarks it is easy to see that in proportion as the general government acquires power and jurisdiction by the liberal construction which the judges may give the Constitution, will those of the states lose its rights until they become so trifling and unimportant as not to be worth having
Truth? It seems so to me. States can barely keep the Feds from declaring "gun-free zones" around schools and only because the USSC said so.
Madison was justified in his pride at the action of checks and balances, but Brutus was more than justified at his dismay that this area of enormous importance was left to be worked out at all.
I think the dichotomy here is that Madison wanted to create a national government supreme to the state governments. Madison knew that over time it would assert its authority even over the constitutional amendments that tried to prevent it. He argued as such in the Constitutional Convention, I believe. Brutus sees the obvious fact that a USSC appointed by a nationally elected president would defer to the power of the national government. Before the 17th Amendment, the state governments could only stop justices being appointed through the Senate. The states would not appoint judges hence the judges would be, first, acceptable to the national government.
Peacefully? You’re such a stickler.
Well in the end, Madison gets his way. He was right. Either the state governments would be supreme, as in the Articles of Confederation, or the national government would, as in the Constitution. An amendment here or there doesn’t change this fact.
The only check I can see is to let the states appoint Supreme Court Justices. Only then would the filter be set such that "their people" would decide the issue. Of course, that makes no sense. A national government with justices appointed by the states? That would be dysfunctional.
In the early Sixties, when the Warren Court was out of control, a number of state legislatures requested Congress to call an Article V Convention for Proposing Amendments to propose an amendment establishing the Court of Union. The Court of Union would have consisted of all 50 state chief justices, and it would have constituted a new appeals court over the US Supreme Court. The movement ran out of steam by 1965, but the petitions from that era are still out there, although nowhere near the two-thrids threshold required to call a convention.
Actually, under the original design of the Constitution, the States had great input in the selection process of judges. The President nominated, the State-Appointed Senators confirmed.
Doesn’t the debate over gay marriage prove this true?
From what I understand, the federal government got involved in marriage after it became a national tax issue. It's a curse of the IRS.
What is interesting is that "JUSTICE" is the squirmy work that is hard to catch and hold. It was the first question in Plato's Republic, and remains elusive today.
That's it in a hutshell. As Madison explained in a letter to Washington:
"Conceiving that an individual independence of the States is utterly irreconcileable with their aggregate sovereignty; and that a consolidation of the whole into one simple republic would be as inexpedient as it is unattainable, I have sought for some middle ground, which may at once support a due supremacy of the national authority, and not exclude the local authorities wherever they can be subordinately useful."
Subordinately useful? Man, that's harsh.