Walt, there you go again. You sound like Clinton when he said "If the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution inhibit the government's ability to govern the people, we should look to limit those guarantees."
However, the way things were set up was with the idea of LIMITED Governmental powers, contrary to what you are professing. You need to go back and study the Founder's intent at the time of the Framing of the Constitution.
James Madison: "It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much ... to forget it."
"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." - Thomas Jefferson
U.S. Supreme Court: Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (1816):
The Federal Government "can claim no powers which are not granted to it by the constitution, and the powers actually granted must be such as are expressly given, or given by necessary implication."
And NO I WILL NOT stop using that flag, it is my heritage, my right and my freedom of expression. The ignorance comes from those who would try to infringe upon my right of self expression telling me to stop flying it! That's what liberty is all about ... if it offends you grow a thicker skin.
You need to go back and study the Founder's intent at the time of the Framing of the Constitution. Founders? Intent?
"In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily to our view, that which appears to the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existance. This important consideration, seriously and deeply impressed on our minds, led each state in the Convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude, than might have been otherwise expected; and thus the Constitution we present is the result of a spirit of amity, and that mutual deference and concession which the peculularity of our political situation rendered indispensible....
-- George Washington, September 17, 1787.
You may know that this date is considered the birthday of the Constiution.
The intent of at least -one- founder was pretty plain, don't you think?
Walt
U.S. Supreme Court: Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (1816): The Federal Government "can claim no powers which are not granted to it by the constitution, and the powers actually granted must be such as are expressly given, or given by necessary implication."Oh, you'll have to do better than "Martin".
Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheaton 304; 4 L. Ed. 97 (1816).
Before proceeding to the principal questions, it may not be unfit to dispose of some preliminary considerations which have grown out of the arguments at the bar.
"The constitution of the United States was ordained and established, not by the states in their sovereign capacities, but emphatically, as the preamble of the constitution declares, by "the people of the United States.
There can be no doubt that it was competent to the people to invest the general government with all the powers which they might deem proper and necessary; to extend or restrain these powers according to their own good pleasure, and to give them a paramount and supreme authority. As little doubt can there be that the people had a right to prohibit to the states the exercise of any powers which were, in their judgment, incompatible with the objects of the general compact; to make the powers of the state governments, in given cases, subordinate to those of the nation, or to reserve to themselves those sovereign authorities which they might not choose to delegate to either.
The constitution was not, therefore, necessarily carved out of existing state sovereignties, nor a surrender of powers already existing in state institutions, for the powers of the states depend upon their own constitutions; and the people of every state had the right to modify and restrain them, according to their own views of policy or principle. On the other hand, it is perfectly clear that the sovereign powers vested in the state governments, by their respective constitutions, remained unaltered and unimpaired, except so far as they were granted to the government of the United States."
It is hard to imagine an honest person posting excerpts from Martin when it is one of the main cases on which the federalist position rests.
Some comentary:
"The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Story, held against the grant of the state of Virginia. Normally this would have ended the litigation, as the state supreme court would be expected to issue court process to carry out the decision.
But the Supreme Court of Virginia openly defied the decision and refused to issue the proper legal process upholding it! Remember, this was Virginia, the home of the Jeffersonians and the seat of the opposition to Marshall and the Court.
Back the case went to Washington. Story again delivered the opinion of the Court--an opinion which surely reached the ultimate in the doctrine of federal supremacy over the states. Story held that the Virginia court must follow the mandate of the Supreme Court, and indirectly hinted that if this were not clone the Supreme Court would issue legal process against the Virginia justices personally, compelling their acquiescence upon threat of contempt. The possible spectacle of a judge of the highest court of a state being called to account before the United States Supreme Court under pain of possible fine or jail sentence is certainly the acme of federal supremacy over the states. The spectacle never took place. The Supreme Court of Virginia acquiesced."
.--Professor Jerre S. Williams, University of Texas, author of Constitutional Analysis in a Nutshell
I say again that no honest person would cite Martin in trying to support secession and treason.
Walt