You should read Madison in Federalist #46 for the expectation of states being the dominant power:
I don't think is the case anymore. Federal handouts have made people more beholden to the federal government. In fact, liberals are at war with state governments. Take Gay Marriage as an example. They pit one state against another, taking an advantageous result in one state to the federal level to force it upon the rest.
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. Into the administration of these a greater number of individuals will expect to rise. From the gift of these a greater number of offices and emoluments will flow.
People have become more partial to the federal government, but not because of better administration. They're being bought by taxpayer monies approved by a Congress that no longer feels beholden to their respective states. The states have much to fear, because of federal encroachment of federal power.
If, therefore, as has been elsewhere remarked, the people should in future become more partial to the federal than to the State governments, the change can only result from such manifest and irresistible proofs of a better administration, as will overcome all their antecedent propensities. And in that case, the people ought not surely to be precluded from giving most of their confidence where they may discover it to be most due; but even in that case the State governments could have little to apprehend, because it is only within a certain sphere that the federal power can, in the nature of things, be advantageously administered.
The 17th amendment has upended this assumption. The roles have been reversed.
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. But in a distinct and very important point of view, the advantage will lie on the same side. The prepossessions, which the members themselves will carry into the federal government, will generally be favorable to the States; whilst it will rarely happen, that the members of the State governments will carry into the public councils a bias in favor of the general government. A local spirit will infallibly prevail much more in the members of Congress, than a national spirit will prevail in the legislatures of the particular States.
And if they do not sufficiently enlarge their policy to embrace the collective welfare of their particular State, how can it be imagined that they will make the aggregate prosperity of the Union, and the dignity and respectability of its government, the objects of their affections and consultations?
Because of the 17th amendment and the need for raising campaign funds, Senators are now more interested in the "collective welfare of their particular" party, not their state, because it is the party that drives much of their campaign financing. All of the liberal agenda in Washington was driven by party and national special interest, not state issues. States are pawns, a means to a national agenda end.
Were it admitted, however, that the Federal government may feel an equal disposition with the State governments to extend its power beyond the due limits, the latter would still have the advantage in the means of defeating such encroachments. If an act of a particular State, though unfriendly to the national government, be generally popular in that State and should not too grossly violate the oaths of the State officers, it is executed immediately and, of course, by means on the spot and depending on the State alone. The opposition of the federal government, or the interposition of federal officers, would but inflame the zeal of all parties on the side of the State, and the evil could not be prevented or repaired, if at all, without the employment of means which must always be resorted to with reluctance and difficulty.
We saw this play out in Arizona over their immigration policy. Holder sued Arizona to prevent them from enforcing state immigration laws that the federal laws already permitted them to do. We saw it again in Nevada with the BLM trying to shut down private cattle grazing, and later in Oregon. They were successful in California closing down a 100 year old oyster farm on the Point Reyes National Seashore.
We saw the call for nationalizing local policing after the Ferguson and Baltimore riots.
On the other hand, should an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular States, which would seldom fail to be the case, or even a warrantable measure be so, which may sometimes be the case, the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised; would form, in a large State, very serious impediments; and where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter.
We saw this play out with the federal government shutdown and retaliation of closing national parks in all the states. The militarization of civil police are becoming much more intimidating to the average citizen of a state who is considering civil unrest.
The federal government secretly resettled wave after wave of foreign children in the states, many bringing diseases that one eradicated decades ago. Now states are being threatened to accept Syrian "refugees" who are wreaking havoc across Europe.
Recently, Mitch McConnell's "embarrassments created by legislative devices," such as those regarding Senate votes regarding treaty powers and confirmation votes, have angered many. The actions of John Boehner's retaliations were not far behind.
But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause. A correspondence would be opened. Plans of resistance would be concerted. One spirit would animate and conduct the whole.
This is exactly what the Article V movement is trying to accomplish. Rally the states around the idea of taking back control of the federal government through exercising their Article V power to propose the amendments of change that Congress is unwilling to.
But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity. In the contest with Great Britain, one part of the empire was employed against the other. The more numerous part invaded the rights of the less numerous part. The attempt was unjust and unwise; but it was not in speculation absolutely chimerical. But what would be the contest in the case we are supposing? Who would be the parties? A few representatives of the people would be opposed to the people themselves; or rather one set of representatives would be contending against thirteen sets of representatives, with the whole body of their common constituents on the side of the latter.
We would have to see if this plays out. Would the whole of the people align with the states in support of an Article V convention, or would they align with the Congress and the President to maintain the status quo? There's the rub.
The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. The reasonings contained in these papers must have been employed to little purpose indeed, if it could be necessary now to disprove the reality of this danger. That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism.
This reads like a Nostradamus prophecy. It is exactly what has happened over the last decade, most recently accelerated.
This is why Trump is so popular.
-PJ
“This is exactly what the Article V movement is trying to accomplish. Rally the states around the idea of taking back control of the federal government through exercising their Article V power to propose the amendments of change that Congress is unwilling to.”
...IMO, which does nothing to re-start the current process by the ‘true’ enablers: the Courts.
It doesn’t throw out LIBRARIES of ‘law’, rules/regs, precedent or the like. It doesn’t stop, let alone restore the bastardization the Constitution and the clear, plain reading of the English therein. It doesn’t ‘clear the benches’ and ensures that judges will be re-seated that ONLY read/understand/follow the Constitution?
Great idea, but I haven’t seen any law made SIMPLER to understand and follow by adding *more* legalize.