Posted on 03/31/2012 7:35:00 PM PDT by SaveOurRepublicFromTyranny
We are told that it is up to the Supreme Court to determine what laws are constitutional, but that is hardly in line with the limiting principles offered by the U.S. Constitution. That power the courts claim to have is called Judicial Review, and it is addressed nowhere in the Constitution. In fact, the federal courts seized that power for themselves through an opinion written by Justice John Marshall in the Marbury v. Madison case of 1803.
Yes, that’s right, the courts gave that power to themselves.
By deciding if laws are constitutional, and since the Supreme Court is a part of the federal government, what is happening is that the federal government is deciding for itself what its own Constitutional authorities are. That, my friends, is hardly in line with the original intent of the Founding Fathers.
(Excerpt) Read more at canadafreepress.com ...
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Now before the general election ask your county registrar for a list of addresses with five or more voters. Go in a group and get face to face with each listed voter. If there is no voter to get face to face with, file charges with your local sheriff. If the registrar refuses to help you you know they are crooked and act accordingly. >>
W.W., that is pretty good. Thanks. I bet TEA party folks would be up for that kind of activity.
If the registrar does not cooperate, what is a good strategy for tuning up a non-compliant registrar?
what is a good strategy for tuning up a non-compliant registrar?
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I don’t know but I am sure some one here will know. I would like fists but that would cost.
The effect of fifty states going their own way would be not liberty but insecurity and chaos.
Insecurity an chaos will yield a coming together into groups of like minded states. The new unions will be free of the trash in the north east and coastal west.
The population will migrate to comfort.
The cities will fall apart and die. Being obsolete, that doesn’t matter.
Robert Heinlein saw it all and described it well in his later books.
LOL!
What do you think we have NOW?
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Original Intent is about a confederation of States NOT a consolidation of one.
That's not only something the Founders warned about, but the generation that followed knew it as well.
"The federal government, then, appears to be the organ through which the united republics communicate with foreign nations, and with each other. Their submission to its operation is voluntary: its councils, its sovereignty is an emanation from theirs, not a flame by which they have been consumed, nor a vortex in which they are swallowed up. Each is still a perfect state, still sovereign, still independent, and still capable, should the occasion require, to resume the exercise of its functions, as such, in the most unlimited extent.
St. George Tucker View of the Constitution of the United States – 1803 [paragraph 337]
Do you seriously think they 'secured the blessing of Liberty to themselves and their posterity' by giving the federal government the authority to sit in absolute judgment over the States?
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BTW, it would be nice if you would point out exactly where in the Constitution OR in the Judiciary Act of 1789 the USSC was given the jurisdiction to sit in judgment of a single State and one of its own citizens.
THAT concept is negated by the 10thAmendment. If the Supreme Courts of the States don't have supreme authority IN the State, they're really not 'supreme', are they?
According to Mr. Gibbs, in 1803 the Supreme Court granted themselves the authority. The Constitution did not.
How about: the US of A is either a single country or fifty countries.
The USA is a limited government formed by the states and given only the limited powers granted it by the states. The purpose of this general government was to coordinate but not to issue laws that apply to the states except within the limited powers of the Constitution. The Supreme Court is part of the Federal government, just as are the legislative and executive branches. Therefore, if a state or states see that the central government has overstepped its bounds they are free simply to ignore, or nullify, those overreaches. That includes executive orders, legislation, and Supreme Court rulings. Each state is free to act on its own or in concert with other states in that respect.
What you are describing involves much suffering and bloodshed.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.
This is flatly incompatible with state nullification.
See my response at number 68, above.
See my response at number 68, above.
You do realize that the Supremacy clause can only operate concerning the foregoing powers previously granted don't you?
It's not the carte blanche everyone believes it to be.
That a law limited to such objects as may be authorised by the constitution, would, under the true construction of this clause, be the supreme law of the land; but a law not limited to those objects, or not made pursuant to the constitution, would not be the supreme law of the land, but an act of usurpation, and consequently void.
St. George Tucker View of the Constitution
Such a power would allow the federal entity to define its own limits, and that I do not believe the Founders were foolish enough to do.
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This is flatly incompatible with state nullification.
Following Justice Joseph Story on Rules of Constitutional Interpretation :
Thus, it is often said, that in an instrument a specification of particulars is an exclusion of generals; or the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another.
This is called the Rule of Exclusion. Anything not included is therefore excluded.
Please show me the word 'nullification' in the Constitution.
That is the key phrase. Those laws which may be ignored by the states are those which were not made in pursuance of the Constitution but instead, dispite the Constitution.
There is no express or implied power of nullification reserved to the states.
That's true. In fact, there are NO expressed or implied powers reserved to the states....period.
That's because everything that is not included in the Constitution is therefore excluded. This concept is cemented by the 10th Amendment
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people
Is the power of nullification granted to the federal government? No.
Is the power of nullification expressly prohibited by the States? No.
Then it IS a retained power. It's as simple as that.
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Think about it another way - if the intent of the supremacy clause was to make the federal government an unquestionably supreme authority, all the enumerations in order to LIMIT that federal authority are pointless.
The Founders might have well just written that single clause and gone home!
Fundamentally, nullification makes no sense because it embeds in the Constitution the means of its negation by each state as it pleases. Of course, the supremacy clause means that the Constitution is supreme, not necessarily that the federal government is supreme.
Fundamentally, nullification makes no sense because it embeds in the Constitution the means of its negation by each state as it pleases. Of course, the supremacy clause means that the Constitution is supreme, not necessarily that the federal government is supreme.
It was the States that created the federal government in the first place. NOT allowing them the ability of nullification is like someone having a child and then letting the child run the parent.
It against the Laws of Nature. 'That which you create, you have a right to control' is a very old legal adage.
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Of course, the supremacy clause means that the Constitution is supreme, not necessarily that the federal government is supreme.
Which is also quite true.
The problem is that without nullification, the supremacy clause leads to the result of MAKING the federal government supreme, as the State cannot stop an unconstitutional act before it's implementation.
It is forced to drag the issue through the courts only to have it finally arbitrated by (you guessed it) the federal government itself.
In a nutshell, nullification is what was SUPPOSED to allow the States to keep the feds from rigging them system.
On the main point, the power of the Supreme Court to hold legislation unconstitutional, here is Hamilton, in Federalist No. 78:
" . . . Some perplexity respecting the rights of the courts to pronounce legislative acts void, because contrary to the Constitution, has arisen from an imagination that the doctrine would imply a superiority of the judiciary to the legislative power. It is urged that the authority which can declare the acts of another void, must necessarily be superior to the one whose acts may be declared void. As this doctrine is of great importance in all the American constitutions, a brief discussion of the ground on which it rests cannot be unacceptable. There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. . . .
“If it be said that the legislative body are themselves the constitutional judges of their own powers, and that the construction they put upon them is conclusive upon the other departments, it may be answered, that this cannot be the natural presumption, where it is not to be collected from any particular provisions in the Constitution. It is not otherwise to be supposed, that the Constitution could intend to enable the representatives of the people to substitute their will to that of their constituents. It is far more rational to suppose, that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority."
#78 does not uphold your contention that the federal government has the enumerated authority to hold STATE legislation unconstitutional.
As the discussion concerns the federal Constitution, it outlines the balance of power between the federal legislature and the federal judiciary. Its a basic illustration the 'separate but equal' concept of the 3 branches
After your quote, he continues:
Nor does this conclusion by any means suppose a superiority of the judicial to the legislative power. It only supposes that the power of the people is superior to both; and that where the will of the legislature, declared in its statutes, stands in opposition to that of the people, declared in the Constitution, the judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former.
Remember, this was a totally NEW type of government. Do you seriously think the States intentionally joined something they could not control if necessary or leave if they had too?
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BTW - if you like great resources here's Historical American Documents from us constitution.net.
This is also great - a massive database called The Avalon Project at Yale Law School.
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