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To: wideawake

I’m just curious: do you agree that the function of the Constitution is to tell the federal government what it is permitted to do and not to tell what the states and the people what they are permitted to do? Do you also agree that any power not explicitly delegated to the federal government is reserved to the states or the people?


292 posted on 11/20/2007 12:49:46 PM PST by JamesP81 ("I am against "zero tolerance" policies. It is a crutch for idiots." --FReeper Tenacious 1)
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To: JamesP81
I’m just curious: do you agree that the function of the Constitution is to tell the federal government what it is permitted to do and not to tell what the states and the people what they are permitted to do?

The function of the Constitution - as it states - is to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty.

The Anti-Federalists - the opponents of the Constitution who did everything they could to prevent it from being ratified - were the ones who resorted to jurisdictional game-playing that the Confederates enjoyed so much and the segregationists took up as their hobby.

The Constitution was designed to create a more powerful and effective federal government than the inadequate and ineffectual one that existed under the Articles - a more perfect union.

294 posted on 11/20/2007 12:57:12 PM PST by wideawake (Why is it that so many self-proclaimed "Constitutionalists" know so little about the Constitution?)
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To: JamesP81
do you agree that the function of the Constitution is to tell the federal government what it is permitted to do and not to tell what the states and the people what they are permitted to do?

Having read Article I, Section 10 as well as Article IV I would have to disagree with your statement.

Do you also agree that any power not explicitly delegated to the federal government is reserved to the states or the people?

No. The 10th Amendment says that 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. The word 'explicitly' appears nowhere in the amendment, or anywhere else in the Constitution.

295 posted on 11/20/2007 12:59:31 PM PST by Non-Sequitur (Save Fredericksburg. Support CVBT.)
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