Posted on 08/22/2006 11:24:35 AM PDT by AZRepublican
As that you are probly right, good luck in fighting the federal goverment & the leagions of lawyers that they employ to enforce the so-called federal laws that they enforce down our throats everyday. There is no way we [the everyday folks] can fix this other than another civil war. And thanks to the fine folks in congress they now know where our fire arms are, and come get them on the grounds of public safty! Thus keeping themselves in power longer!
Everyone knows that the Commerce clause, the Necessary clause, and the General Welfare clause were put in so that Congress could wield power over anything it deems necessary. At least that's what one would gather by reading some Supreme Court decisions, this board, and the opinions of modern (and some past) Americans.
or another planet
-Ashcroft V Raich
The Federalist No. 51, p. 323 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (J. Madison). By limiting the states and Congress to their proper prerogatives, the People would enjoy greater freedom since the structure of federalism would prevent Congressional overreaching into local affairs. The people would have two servants, not two masters. Federalism is concerned with individual liberty, not "state sovereignty" or "power."
And not only by limiting Congress. If the states aren't forced to harmonize regulations, they in effect compete to be the most desirable in which to live or to do business. When there is a massive hand leveling the regulatory climate in all the states, the overall level is enabled to become far more tyrannical than it otherwise might be.
In fact if there were some practical way to do it, I would prevent the states from even knowing each others laws, except as necessary to honor marriages contracts, etc.
As it is, if one state gets some freedom abridging idea, it's not long before other states pick it up at conferences thus rendering the whole competition moot.
Unless that self-governance interferes with interstate commerce that Congress is regulating. A private pilot flying from one part of the state to another is regulated by the FAA when his flying interferes with the interstate airline traffic that Congress is constitutionally regulating.
Unless you can argue that the federal government has no business regulating purely intrastate activities.
I think the author of the Constitution knows the meaning of his own words.
Right, but I think you miss is what Madison means by "individual liberty," and what he always referred to "individual liberty" under republicanism is the right to self-governement, the right to make ones own laws and social compact. To Madison, the greatest constitutional liberty for individuals was not found in the Bill of Rights, but in the Tenth Amendment (first 8 amendments is the bill of rights and not first 10).
Nope. Read every word.
Perhaps you can tell me which word in there is applicable to my example and prevents Congress from passing laws to the extent necessary to regulate interstate commerce.
"If it is a matter of safty than every state can impose universal safty regulations within its limits like any other country."
It is a matter of safety, but it is also a matter of encouraging and facilitating interstate commerce. As for each state imposing safety regulations, they cannot divest Congress of its authority under the commerce clause.
"To impose on (Congress- rp) the necessity of resorting to means which it cannot control, which another government may furnish or withhold, would render its course precarious, the result of its measures uncertain, and create a dependence on other governments, which might disappoint its most important designs, and is incompatible with the language of the constitution."
-- Chief Justice (and Founding Father) John Marshall, McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)
President (and Founding Father) Thomas Jefferson and his Secretary of State, James Madison (who wrote the commerce clause) used it to prohibit foreign trade in 1808 -- so that can't be right.
They also used it to prohibit the sale of alcohol to the Indian tribes in 1802. So it appears that the definition of "to regulate" also includes "to prohibit".
"regulation of commerce among the states was only to remedy one state restricting navigation of another states commerce."
That certainly was how the commerce clause was used initially, yes. But I see nothing in the wording of the commerce clause that limits Congress to only the remedy you mentioned. As I pointed out, the commerce clause was used early on to prohibit commerce.
Known Space
paulsen spins:
"-- it appears that the definition of "to regulate" also includes "to prohibit".
--- I see nothing in the wording of the commerce clause that limits Congress to only the remedy you mentioned. As I pointed out, the commerce clause was used early on to prohibit commerce. --"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Paulsen is a prohibitionist, -- guns, drugs, 'sin', -- you name it, he wants any level of gov't to have the power to prohibit most anything.
The 10th says they have no such delegated powers:
The power to regulate v. the power to prohibit
Address:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1419654/posts?page=1
Barnett supports the clear constitutional position that; "--- the power of Congress to "well-regulate" commerce among the states does not include the power to forbid or prohibit commerce. --"
Oh, and check out post #3 of your link. It appears that Founding Father James Madison disagrees with your Mr. Barnett. As does Founding Father and Chief Justice John Marshall's court which said in Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. 1 (1824):
"The 'power to regulate commerce,' here meant to be granted, was that power to regulate commerce which previously existed in the States. But what was that power? The States were, unquestionably, supreme; and each possessed that power over commerce, which is acknowledged to reside in every sovereign State. The definition and limits of that power are to be sought among the features of international law; and, as it was not only admitted, but insisted on by both parties, in argument, that, 'unaffected by a state of war, by treaties, or by municipal regulations, all commerce among independent States was legitimate,' there is no necessity to appeal to the oracles of the jus commune for the correctness of that doctrine. The law of nations, regarding man as a social animal, pronounces all commerce legitimate in a state of peace, until prohibited by positive law. The power of a sovereign state over commerce, therefore, amounts to nothing more than a power to limit and restrain it at pleasure. And since the power to prescribe the limits to its freedom, necessarily implies the power to determine what shall remain unrestrained, it follows, that the power must be exclusive; it can reside but in one potentate; and hence, the grant of this power carries with it the whole subject, leaving nothing for the State to act upon."
"Of all the endless variety of branches of foreign commerce, now carried on to every quarter of the world, I know of no one that is permitted by act of Congress, any otherwise than by not being forbidden. No statute of the United States, that I know of, was ever passed to permit a commerce, unless in consequence of its having been prohibited by some previous statute."
bump
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