Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Mojave
And I think that it's pretty darn plain that the United States Constitution wasn't a replacement constitution for each of the fifty states.

Article VI's supremacy clause be damned, huh?

92 posted on 06/04/2009 7:48:53 AM PDT by savedbygrace (You are only leading if someone follows. Otherwise, you just wandered off... [Smokin' Joe])
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 74 | View Replies ]


To: savedbygrace
Article VI's supremacy clause be damned

The Framers universally understood that the "supremecy clause" did NOT impose the Bill of Rights' restrictions on the states, your "Framers be damned" attitude notwithstanding.

As the Supreme Court held in Barron in 1833:

Had the framers of these amendments intended them to be limitations on the powers of the State governments, they would have imitated the framers of the original Constitution, and have expressed that intention. Had Congress engaged in the extraordinary occupation of improving the Constitutions of the several States by affording the people additional protection from the exercise of power by their own governments in matters which concerned themselves alone, they would have declared this purpose in plain and intelligible language.

But it is universally understood, it is a part of the history of the day, that the great revolution which established the Constitution of the United States was not effected without immense opposition. Serious fears were extensively entertained that those powers which the patriot statesmen who then watched over the interests of our country deemed essential to union, and to the attainment of those invaluable objects for which union was sought, might be exercised in a manner dangerous to liberty. In almost every convention by which the Constitution was adopted, amendments to guard against the abuse of power were recommended. These amendments demanded security against the apprehended encroachments of the General Government -- not against those of the local governments.


95 posted on 06/04/2009 8:08:02 AM PDT by Mojave (Don't blame me. I voted for McClintock.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 92 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson