Thomas Jefferson’s defense of states' rights.

American Thinker ^ | 2/4/2009 | Bruce Campbell

[bcampbell07]

A MUST READ

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/02/the_shot_heard_round_new_hamps.html February 04, 2009 The Shot Heard Round New Hampshire Larrey Anderson

[bcampbell07]

Four New Hampshire state legislators have introduced a resolution affirming Thomas Jefferson’s defense of states' rights. House Concurrent Resolution 6 was recently introduced into the New Hampshire’s State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs Committee by Rep. Itse, Rep. Ingbretson, Rep. Comerford, and Sen. Denley.

Interestingly, the authors of the New Hampshire Resolution took most of the language from the document commonly known as “Jefferson and Madison’s Kentucky Resolutions of 1798.”*

Following in the footsteps of the Founding Fathers the New Hampshire Resolution declares:

That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, -- delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress….

The New Hampshire Resolution boldly defends the state’s (and its citizens') rights preserved under the 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

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.

[ChessExpert]

Imagine a turning of the intellectual tide. Imagine federalism as fashionable, in vogue. Imagine a Supreme Court that abided and supported the law, to include the Bill of Rights and the tenth amendment. All of this takes imagination because none of this holds true today.

How would this change things? Roe vs. Wade would be overturned and the abortion issue would revert to the states. I think the EPA would lose most, if not all, of its clout. Environmental claims would be addressed state by state. What else?

[o_zarkman44]

I see other states following the lead of NH in reaffirming their Constitutional Separation from federal tyranny.

It should get the feds attention.
I noticed in the stimuluswatch.com web site that there were NO projects listed in NH that the federal bailout funds would finance.
And I heard Missouri and several other states were going to lose some federal highway money if they didn’t enact primary seat belt laws. Everything coming from the FEDS is strings attached. Except the money isn’t the FEDS but the taxpayers.
I hope more states show a defiant face.