Posted on 07/18/2008 8:05:56 AM PDT by marktwain
One of the unappreciated casualties of the War of 1861, erroneously called a Civil War, was its contribution to the erosion of constitutional guarantees of state sovereignty. It settled the issue of secession, making it possible for the federal government to increasingly run roughshod over Ninth and 10th Amendment guarantees. A civil war, by the way, is a struggle where two or more parties try to take over the central government. Confederate President Jefferson Davis no more wanted to take over Washington, D.C., than George Washington wanted to take over London. Both wars are more properly described as wars of independence.
Oklahomans are trying to recover some of their lost state sovereignty by House Joint Resolution 1089, introduced by State Rep. Charles Key.
The resolution's language, in part, reads: "Whereas, the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows: '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.'; and Whereas, the Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that specifically granted by the Constitution of the United States and no more; and whereas, the scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment means that the federal government was created by the states specifically to be an agent of the states; and Whereas, today, in 2008, the states are demonstrably treated as agents of the federal government. … Now, therefore, be it resolved by the House of Representatives and the Senate of the 2nd session of the 51st Oklahoma Legislature: that the State of Oklahoma hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States. That this serve as Notice and Demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers."
Key's resolution passed in the Oklahoma House of Representatives with a 92 to 3 vote, but it reached a bottleneck in the Senate where it languished until adjournment. However, Key plans to reintroduce the measure when the legislature reconvenes.
Federal usurpation goes beyond anything the Constitution's framers would have imagined. James Madison, explaining the constitution, in Federalist Paper 45, said, "The powers delegated … to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, [such] as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce. … The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people." Thomas Jefferson emphasized that the states are not "subordinate" to the national government, but rather the two are "coordinate departments of one simple and integral whole. … The one is the domestic, the other the foreign branch of the same government."
Both parties and all branches of the federal government have made a mockery of the checks and balances, separation of powers and the republican form of government envisioned by the founders. One of the more disgusting sights for me to is to watch a president, congressman or federal judge take an oath to uphold and defend the United States Constitution, when in reality they either hold constitutional principles in contempt or they are ignorant of those principles.
State efforts, such as Oklahoma's, create a glimmer of hope that one day Americans and their elected representatives will realize that the federal government is the creation of the states. A bit of rebellion by officials in other states will speed that process along.
Dixie Ping - 10th ammendment
Every dollar the Federal Government give to States comes with strings attached.
“Every dollar the Federal Government give to States comes with strings attached.”
I like it.
Ping for my home state. I like what he is doing here. But Charles Key is a maverick, to say the least. Some would call him kooky. But he knows no fear.
THIS JUST IN:
3 DIVISIONS OF MEXICAN TROOPS AND APPROXIMATELY 1,000 CHINESE AND RUSSIAN UN PEACEKEEPERS HAVE BEEN DISPATCHED TO THE OKLAHOMA STATE CAPITOL TO PUT DOWN A REBELLION BY SOME SILLY FOLKS WHO ACTUALLY BELIEVE WE STILL HAVE A CONSTITUTION.
FILM AT 11!
(Far-fetched? Give it a few more years.)
Here’s a follow-up news bulletin I’d LOVE to see on this topic:
After two days of heavy fighting, the heavily armed Oklahoma insurgents decimated the UN force sent in to quell the rebellion and the dozen or so surviving Mexican troops were last seen heading south wearing stolen civilian clothing in hijacked lawn care trucks.
Washington considering the use of tactical nukes on Oklahoma City and Tulsa, the centers of the uprising.
That post gives me hope for the future of this country. Let’s hope for Oklahoma’s Senate to approve it so it can move into the court system.
Walter Williams is indeed a national treasure. He is indispensable to the march for the restoration of freedom in the United States.
Agree. That would go a long way to curing one of the biggest ills today. Our House of Lords would finally have someone to answer to, their respective states.
Thanks for the ping SB.
When will President Abraham Obama roll the tanks to put down the rebellion?
Whose independence and Independence from what? There was no Constitutional rights being denied to any southern citizen. The secession was merely a power grab by a power mad gang who wanted to be able to take their human property anyplace they wished over the objections of the rest of the nation and in opposition to the old precedent of the Northwest Ordinance.
I'm all for our federal system and structure of limited and divided sovereignty, but the greedy would-be builders of a slave empire are not who I would hold up as the champions of limited government nor would I lay the guilt for today's overgrown government on the neck of the great Republican hero Lincoln.
"...distinct and separate...' per Federalist Papers #51. If you read the Constitution as a strict constructionist, as I do, the weight is tipped to the Congress, explicitly and further tipped to the States and the People by the Bill of Rights implicit to all other 'things' imaginable that the States or the People invented over time as something(s) to be legislated.
The Federal Government has grown far to large and has exceeding it's 'Carrying capacity' to govern. The the 16th Amendment needs to be repealed.
The 'Separate but equal' story is a very old 'Urban Legend' that just refuses to go away just like the 'wall of separation between church and state.'
Neither one is in the US Constitution.
"...In a single republic, all the power surrendered by the people is submitted to the administration of a single government; and the usurpations are guarded against by a division of the government into distinct and separate departments. In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself..."
PUBLIUS Federalist 51 - http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa51.htm
Katherine Jenerette
What's even worse: every one of those dollars came from the states to begin with.
It's like we send half of our money to Washington only to get (some of) it back with a laundry list of rules about what we can do with it.
And of course the 17th Amendment, in that order.
This is just as bad as the Feds takeover. Somehow they forgot about the part of the Tenth Amendment were it states "OR TO THE PEOPLE"
Kind of helps to be qualified. Having a law degree, for example.
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