Posted on 05/24/2010 7:56:22 AM PDT by Publius
I pretty much eat and breath rock and roll and the Iron Curtain.
Yes it does.
What exactly do you imagine those “implied” powers to be?
It doesn't matter what I imagine them to be, or what you imagine them to be, or what Madison or Jefferson or anyone else imagined them to be. What matters is that they do exist. Who gets to decide what is and isn't an implied power? The Congress. Ultimately, federal courts can have the last word on it if it gets that far.
In short, the implied powers are whatever the Congress and the federal court say they are. Just look at the amount of powers found to be implied through the commerce clause. This goes back a long way (the Adams administration?).
Where does the national gubmint get the power to create the FDA? It's implied. How about the ATF? Implied. How about the FBI? CIA? Implied. Implied. Foreigh aid programs? Implied. On and on.
It's been this way since pretty much the very beginning.
They intended, and said so, that the constitution be the chains that bound down the central government.
Nothing is implied but much has been usurped! That much I will grant you and it is US who are to blame.
It is for us, fellow citizens, to watch over the sacred legacy of our venerated Fathers, and, when necessary, ‘to provide other guards for the future security’ of ourselves and our posterity. To restore, when impaired, our free institutions to their original strength and purity, and to guard them in future against the open or covert assaults of their enemies. To preserve those institutions pure and uncontaminated, amidst the dangerous and corrupting influences of those who, guided not by the spirit of virtue and patriotism, seek only their own personal interests and personal aggrandizement is a sacred and solemn duty which we own to ourselves, and to those who are destined to walk after us.
Nathan Smith
"Liberty and security in government depend not on the limits, which the rulers may please to assign to the exercise of their own powers, but on the boundaries, within which their powers are circumscribed by the constitution. With us, the powers of magistrates, call them by whatever name you please, are the grants of the people . . . The supreme power is in them; and in them, even when a constitution is formed, and government is in operation, the supreme power still remains. A portion of their authority they, indeed, delegate; but they delegate that portion in whatever manner, in whatever measure, for whatever time, to whatever persons, and on whatever conditions they choose to fix."
U.S. Supreme Court Justice James Wilson (Lectures, 1790-1791)
Doubt has nothing to do with it. I'm surprised by you, Bigun. I wouldn't have expected you to be ignorant of the debates over the First Bank of the US. Alexander Hamilton, who had fought in the war, argued for the doctrine of implied powers. Jefferson, who did not fight, argued against it. President Washington, who had commanded the army, came down on Hamilton's side.
Are you also ignorant of McCulloch v. Maryland? I find that hard--nay, impossible!--to believe. Marshall spells it out plainly. He even refers to the fact that the Articles of Confederation contained only expressly delegated powers--not so the Constitution.
Then there are Brutus's antifederalist essays concerning implied powers. These essays demonstrate that implied powers were understood to exist even before the ratification. Madison himself defends implied powers in Federalist 44 (and he was wrong as usual.)
Methinks you're simply denying reality.
An opinion has gone forth, we find, that we are contemptible people: the time has been when we were thought otherwise. Under the same despised government, we commanded the respect of all Europe: wherefore are we now reckoned otherwise? The American spirit has fled from hence: it has gone to regions where it has never been expected; it has gone to the people of France, in search of a splendid government — a strong, energetic government. Shall we imitate the example of those nations who have gone from a simple to a splendid government? Are those nations more worthy of our imitation? What can make an adequate satisfaction to them for the loss they have suffered in attaining such a government — for the loss of their liberty? If we admit this consolidated government, it will be because we like a great, splendid one. Some way or other we must be a great and mighty empire; we must have an army, and a navy, and a number of things. When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: liberty, sir, was then the primary object. We are descended from a people whose government was founded on liberty: our glorious forefathers of Great Britain made liberty the foundation {54} of every thing. That country is become a great, mighty, and splendid nation; not because their government is strong and energetic, but, sir, because liberty is its direct end and foundation. We drew the spirit of liberty from our British ancestors: by that spirit we have triumphed over every difficulty. But now, sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation, is about to convert this country into a powerful and mighty empire. If you make the citizens of this country agree to become the subjects of one great consolidated empire of America, your government will not have sufficient energy to keep them together. Such a government is incompatible with the genius of republicanism. There will be no checks, no real balances, in this government. What can avail your specious, imaginary balances, your rope-dancing, chain-rattling, ridiculous ideal checks and contrivances?
Patrick Henry, June 5th, 1788
You may think anything you wish but I stand by what I said while denying nothing.
I KNOW what John Marshall said but Marshall is NOT the constitution! Marshall is just another player, along with Hamilton and others, who did not want the federal republic provided for in the constitution from the outset. They wanted a mercantile empire along the lines of the English model and they finally got it with Lincoln and his war.
As for Marshall, another Constitutional signer, he is not the Constitution, but Article 3 is, and his opinion re: implied powers carries the same force as any word in the Constitution. Unless you think his opinion on the matter will be overturned. But even if it were, someone could come along with your specious argument and protest that the overturners "are not the Constitution."
James Madison, Federalist 45, Independent Journal, Saturday, January 26, 1788
Do you suppose that the principal author of the Constitution does not know the meaning of the word defined?
Few and defined. LOL. That one always gives me a laugh.
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