Posted on 04/09/2002 10:21:11 PM PDT by KrisKrinkle
IOW, Williams is expressing a desire for the states to declare null and void those federal laws it considers to be unconstitutional. As I noted, this raises some real problems for Constitutional government, in that the states are specifically not empowered to decide what is constitutional. Rather, they are explicitly bound to uphold the Constitution as the supreme Law of the Land.
The states, as well as the people, do not derive their powers from the Constitution. That is the whole point of the 9th and 10th Amendments. The Constitution was written to enumerate the powers of the federal government, except in those instances where "state" or "states" is specifically mentioned.
The Constitution delegates certain to the United States, specifically denies certain powers to the states.
The Constitution defines proper channels. Article III is quite clear on the topic that the Supreme Court has authority to rule on the Constitutionality of laws. Once a law has passed muster with the USSC, the states are bound by Article VI to uphold (i.e., enforce) them. Prior to a USSC ruling, states or individuals may appeal any law with which they disagree.
Where exactly does it say that the Supreme Court shall have sole power in deciding what is or is not constitutional?
An amazing question, to be sure. One approach to answering this is by pointing to consistent practice: it's been done this way since we began operating under the Constitution.
Getting to Constitutional specifics, please see Article III, Section 2, which says in part: The judicial Power [of the Supreme Court] shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;-- between a State and Citizens of another State;--between Citizens of different States;--between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
(The 11th Amendment modifies the underlined portion, in that The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.)
Who originally constituted said government? If memory serves, "we the people.
True. And the Constitution explicitly provides methods by which we the people may re-constitute government. However, if the people are going to live under the Constitution, then the first requirement is that they respect what it says.
Your (and Williams's, and my) real complaint is not the words of the Constitution, but that "we the people" don't seem to be very interested in doing what the Constitution says.
I don't suppose it'd be to much trouble for you to reference such comments, and also perhaps to provide the context for this statement?
Without such information, I can only presume that you're cherry-picking useful sentences.
To put it in context, read Federalist Paper 28.
The nullification crisis (precipitated by South Carolina, and defended by Calhoun) did not actually include nullification. Rather, the issue was settled by the Clay Compromise of 1833.
On the topic, one historian wrote: [Hayne's] speech [in favor of nullification] was answered by Mr. Webster in a vigorous constitutional argument, concerning whose power and effect we may quote from Mr. Madison: "It crushes `nullification,' and must hasten an abandonment of `secession.'
The Hayne-Webster debate may be read here.
I am unfamiliar with the other resolutions.
Actually it did. It passed the state legislature in 1832 Found here
Putting it in context, Federalist 28 (by Hamilton, not Madison, BTW) starts off with this:
THAT there may happen cases in which the national government may be necessitated to resort to force, cannot be denied. Our own experience has corroborated the lessons taught by the examples of other nations; that emergencies of this sort will sometimes arise in all societies, however constituted; that seditions and insurrections are, unhappily, maladies as inseparable from the body politic as tumors and eruptions from the natural body; that the idea of governing at all times by the simple force of law (which we have been told is the only admissible principle of republican government), has no place but in the reveries of those political doctors whose sagacity disdains the admonitions of experimental instruction.
Hamilton notes that states will often have the resources to address small disturbances on their own. He then goes on to say, If, on the contrary, the insurrection should pervade a whole State, or a principal part of it, the employment of a different kind of force might become unavoidable. Which is to say, in some cases the Federal Government may take an active interest in insurrections.
Your quote comes much later, in this context:
Power being almost always the rival of power, the general government will at all times stand ready to check the usurpations of the state governments, and these will have the same disposition towards the general government. The people, by throwing themselves into either scale, will infallibly make it preponderate. If their rights are invaded by either, they can make use of the other as the instrument of redress. How wise will it be in them by cherishing the union to preserve to themselves an advantage which can never be too highly prized!
It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that the State governments will, in all possible contingencies, afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority. Projects of usurpation cannot be masked under pretenses so likely to escape the penetration of select bodies of men, as of the people at large. The legislatures will have better means of information. They can discover the danger at a distance; and possessing all the organs of civil power, and the confidence of the people, they can at once adopt a regular plan of opposition, in which they can combine all the resources of the community. They can readily communicate with each other in the different States, and unite their common forces for the protection of their common liberty.
Note that in this context, Federalist 28 addresses excesses by both the state and federal government, and that the rights of the people against either can be ensured by their siding with one against the other.
Hamilton's reasoning is not moral, it's eminently practical: he felt that the Federal Government would not have a large enough standing army to stand up to the greater military capabilities of the states.
Federalist 28 is not naive about the possibilities of despotism by the Federal Government: The apprehension may be considered as a disease, for which there can be found no cure in the resources of argument and reasoning.
Which gets back to John Adams's point: the Constitution has no force except in a country with a moral populace, and moral representatives.
The question was whether or not the national government would recognize it. In the event, the nullification act was never an issue, as it was mooted by the compromise.
They can readily communicate with each other in the different States, and unite their common forces for the protection of their common liberty.
You sidestepped the entire passage Williams is referring to. I don't follow your logic.
Hm. So you're saying that if the federal government passes a law, and some state decides to ignore it, that the federal government need not address the issue?
Sheer fantasy.
I suggest that you would be much better served by acting like an adult.
You sidestepped the entire passage Williams is referring to. I don't follow your logic.
I don't understand your comment.
It's one thing to discuss Marbury vs. Madison, and quite another to send folks off to a partisan discussion that does not address the decision in any detail.
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