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To: WhiskeyPapa
The 10th amendment never comes into play because Congress has the power to provide for the common defense and the general welfare.

This is such an ignorant statement that I don't know where to start.

And the federal government also guarantees a republican government to all the states. That is made null if a state can secede.

If you had any idea what republican, federal, and national mean in this context, you would realize how ridiculous that statement is.

There is no legal state secession in U.S. law.

You've already said that neither the Constitution nor Federal law prohibit a state from withdrawing.

This is new to you, but you will get used to it.

No, Wlat, I don't think I'll ever get over the sheer ridiculousness of what you say.

807 posted on 05/02/2003 1:52:54 PM PDT by HenryLeeII
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To: HenryLeeII
The 10th amendment never comes into play because Congress has the power to provide for the common defense and the general welfare.

This is such an ignorant statement that I don't know where to start.

Ask Jefferson Davis; he took the same position.

"The Confederate Constitution, he [Davis] pointed out to [Governor] Brown, gave Congress the power "to raise and support armies" and to "provide for the common defense." It also contained another clause (likewise copied from the U.S. Constitution) empowering Congress to make all laws "necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers." Brown had denied the constitutionality of conscription because the Constitution did not specifically authorize it. This was good Jeffersonian doctrine, sanctified by generations of southern strict constructionists.

But in Hamiltonian language, Davis insisted that the "necessary and proper" clause legitimized conscription. No one could doubt the necessity "when our very existance is threatened by armies vastly superior in numbers." Therefore "the true and only test is to enquire whether the law is intended and calculated to carry out the object...if the answer be in the affirmative, the law is constitutional."

--Battle Cry of Freedom, James McPherson P.433

Davis believed that the federal government could coerce the states. Was he wrong?

Walt

822 posted on 05/03/2003 4:49:21 AM PDT by WhiskeyPapa (Be copy now to men of grosser blood and teach them how to war!)
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