Posted on 08/22/2006 11:24:35 AM PDT by AZRepublican
"Look at it this way: The authority to regulate trade is identical among the States as with foreign countries, and what you cannot regulate among foreign countries is equally prohibited among the States. If Congress cannot prohibit citizens of Moscow from growing pot in their backyards, then they are equally prohibited from outlawing backyard pot growing within the jurisdiction of local governments in the United States. This is the purpose of the language of the clause in granting in one lump the authority to regulate commerce among the States, foreign countries and Indian Tribes."
Talk about flawed logic. The commerce clause does NOT allow Congress to regulate commerce among foreign nations as is does among the states. If it did, then Congress would be allowed to regulate the commerce between Russia and Italy, for example.
And if Congress WAS allowed to regulate marijuana commerce "among the European states", you can rest assured they wouldn't be allowing individual European states to be growing the stuff.
Since Congress does not have that reach, and since Congress knows that allowing the citizens of Moscow to grow pot in their backyards would have a substantial effect on their efforts to regulate marijuana, the President and Congress signed the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.
"The Single Convention codified all existing multilateral treaties on drug control and extended the existing control systems to include the cultivation of plants that were grown as the raw material of narcotic drugs. The principal objectives of the Convention are to limit the possession, use, trade in, distribution, import, export, manufacture and production of drugs exclusively to medical and scientific purposes and to address drug trafficking through international cooperation to deter and discourage drug traffickers. The Convention also established the International Narcotics Control Board, merging the Permanent Central Board and the Drug Supervisory Board."
The Congress was given sweeping rights but they were not meant to be exclusively lodged within Congress. Those aspects of commercial life which did not impact a state's neighbors were left to the state. Those which did impact neighbors were not.
The argument is over where that impact becomes measurable or important enough to become a federal interest. Certainly one state would not be allowed to poison the waters running into another.
Your late letter reminds me of our Conversation on the constitutionality of the power in Congs. to impose a tariff for the encouragmt. of Manufactures; and of my promise to sketch the grounds of the confident opinion I had expressed that it was among the powers vested in that Body.
So much for Mr. Story's concerns.
Do you believe that government can only legitimately exercise that authority which has been granted it?
Do you believe the People are the source of that authority?
But of course.
"Do you believe the People are the source of that authority?"
Nope. The source of government's authority is the U.S. Constitution. The People may not authorize the government to act contrary to the constitution.
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.
So you believe the People are the source of that authority?
Do you believe Roe v Wade is contrary to the US constitution?
You may want to answer my question first.
The Constitution is an enumeration of limited powers, not the source OF those powers. Those enumerated authorities existed before the federal/national government came into existence, they were just dispersed throughout the States.
The source of authority for the Constitution are the States, as they relinquished certain authority to create a 'centralized' government with certain enumerated powers.
Thus the States are superior to the federal government anywhere other than the areas relinquished.
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That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.
Thomas Jefferson, Rights of British America, 1774
When the government looks to coin money, it does not seek the power to do so from the People -- it gets that power from the U.S. Constitution.
"Thus the States are superior to the federal government anywhere other than the areas relinquished."
Fine. Have you got a point you're trying to make? All I'm getting from you is twenty questions and history lessons.
Make your point please.
ROFL!
So Madison's confidence negates Story's concerns?
Odd, since Madison expressed the same concerns regarding any illegitimate act of any branch of the federal/national government.
In January 1800, the entire House went to the state legislature of Virginia. Both Virginia and Kentucky had petitioned the new federal government that the recent Alien and Sedition Act was unconstitutional. Madison wrote the report:
James Madison, Report on the Virginia Resolutions
However true, therefore, it may be, that the judicial department is, in all questions submitted to it by the forms of the Constitution, to decide in the last resort, this resort must necessarily be deemed the last in relation to the authorities of the other departments of the government; not in relation to the rights of the parties to the constitutional compact, from which the judicial, as well as the other departments, hold their delegated trusts. On any other hypothesis, the delegation of judicial power would annul the authority delegating it; and the concurrence of this department with the others in usurped powers, might subvert forever, and beyond the possible reach of any rightful remedy, the very Constitution which all were instituted to preserve.
(Pssst- the 'parties to the constitutional compact' are the States)
Yes, but Mr. Story's concerns were judicially negated in United States v. The William, 28 Fed. Cas. 614, no. 16,700 D.Mass. (1808) where the court said:
"Further, the power to regulate commerce is not to be confined to the adoption of measures, exclusively beneficial to commerce itself, or tending to its advancement; but, in our national system, as in all modern sovereignties, it is also to be considered as an instrument for other purposes of general policy and interest."
I'm surprised that Mr. Story even brought it up 25 years later.
"Odd, since Madison expressed the same concerns regarding any illegitimate act of any branch of the federal/national government"
Nothing wrong withnexpressing concerns over illegitimate acts. You have yet to cite one, however.
LOLOLOL!
You just said the government was limited to the powers given to it by the States, then turn around a post a quote saying government can do what it wants as long as it can justify it under the auspices of 'general policy and interest'?
Quite a cognitive dysfunction you have there, fella.
Yes I did.
"then turn around a post a quote saying government can do what it wants as long as it can justify it under the auspices of 'general policy and interest'?"
Uh no, that's not what the quote said.
That 1808 court decision, written 25 years before it dawned on Mr. Story to question the power of the commerce clause, clarified the power to regulate commerce with foreign Nations. That Congress could use that power for the 'general policy and interest' of the citizens.
President Thomas Jefferson and his Secretary of State, James Madison, used that power to enact "Jefferson's Embargo", prohibiting trade with Europe.
Are you saying the commerce clause does not extend that power to Congress and the President? Hmmmmm. You'd think James Madison, who wrote the Commmerce Clause, would have said something at the time.
paulsen:
Nope. The source of government's authority is the U.S. Constitution. The People may not authorize the government to act contrary to the constitution.
paulsen contradicts himself, earlier:
Ready for the big one? California can ban all guns if they so chose. There's nothing in the state constitution (one of six states, I believe) about the right to keep and bear arms.
129 posted on 11/20/2003 1:30 PM PST by robertpaulsen
Do I agree with the doctrine of 'selective incorporation'? Well, I don't agree with the 14th amendment to begin with. But to answer your question, yes, I agree with the
doctrine of 'selective incorporation'. The 14th amendment didn't state that the BOR now applies to the states. Read the darn thing. The 14th amendment extends "due process" to the states, and it is under due process that some of the first ten amendments have been tested by the USSC. The second amendment has yet to be tested.
46 posted on 02/22/2004 11:10:03 AM PST by robertpaulsen
Obviously, paulsen will take most any position at any point in time, -- in order to advocate his main theme; -- that both Congress & the people of States can ignore the US Constitution by using majority rule.
That's right,'foreign nations'.
Nothing about interstate there.
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President Thomas Jefferson and his Secretary of State, James Madison, used that power to enact "Jefferson's Embargo", prohibiting trade with Europe.
That's right, Europe is a 'foreign nation'.
Nothing about interstate there, either.
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Are you saying the commerce clause does not extend that power to Congress and the President?
No, I'm saying the clause- To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.
Means the ability to tax goods both from foreign countries and TO foreign countries at the point of entry or exit. These entries/exits are located in the States, and is part of the reason the federal/national government was given exclusive jurisdiction over ports.
The commerce among the States was for business transactions (commerce) between the political entities of the States themselves...not the geophysical location of a State. For example, Virginia was to trade with New England for fish. The federal government would oversee the trade to ensure no State was cheated.
No. Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 (below) gives Congress the power to do that, not the Commerce Clause.
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States."
"The commerce among the States was for business transactions (commerce) between the political entities of the States themselves..."
Yes. And?
Please. What is your point. Are you saying that the power to regulate commerce among the several states is limited to sole function of preventing cheating?
I didn't say the commerce clause GAVE that power, I said it was one of the reasons it HAD that power.
Geez!
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What is your point.
I've noticed you've asked that repeatedly. Not only of me, but of other posters as well. Makes one wonder if you have a comprehension problem or just like to use it when you have no actual response. Particularly since you have yet to show anything that gives the Constitution the authority to affect the States in the manner you assert.
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Are you saying that the power to regulate commerce among the several states is limited to sole function of preventing cheating?
Yes. One of the main functions of the newly created federal government was that is was to act as an arbitrator between the States.
From your earlier post- James Madison to Joseph C. Cabell
A further evidence in support of the Cons, power to protect & foster manufactures by regulations of trade
PROTECT AND FOSTER. The Founders thought unnecessary taxation abhorrent. They were to 'protect and foster' domestic manufacturers by taxing (and regulating) foreign trade.
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A tax on imports would be a tax on its own consumption; and the nett proceeds going, according to the clause, not into its own treasury, but into the treasury of the U. S., the State would tax itself separately for the equal gain of all the other States; and as far as the manufactures so encouraged might succeed in ultimately increasing the Stock in Market, and lowering the price by competition, this advantage also, procured at the sole expence of the State, would be common to all the others.
Again, a tax on imports ENCOURAGES manufacture
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No one who recollects or recurs to the period when the power over Commerce was in the individual States, & separate attempts were made to tax or otherwise regulate it, needs be told that the attempts were not only abortive, but by demonstrating the necessity of general & uniform regulations gave the original impulse to the Constitutional reform which provided for such regulations.
When the States tried to tax imports, it created chaos because there were so many variations from State to State.
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Amazing how you don't bother reading the full text of what you post. I guess some people don't realize how foolish a 'skim, copy & paste' makes them look when the source does nothing to back up their assertions.
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BTW, Madison wrote more than one letter to Cabell. Here's the second one-
For a like reason, I made no reference to the "power to regulate commerce among the several States." I always foresaw that difficulties might be started in relation to that power which could not be fully explained without recurring to views of it, which, however just, might give birth to specious though unsound objections. Being in the same terms with the power over foreign commerce, the same extent, if taken literally, would belong to it. Yet it is very certain that it grew out of the abuse of the power by the importing States in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government, in which alone, however, the remedial power could be lodged.
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Do you honestly think the sovereign States would turn over absolute control of their manufacturing and commerce to a newly-created and unknown entity?
(snicker)
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Neither your posts or your wishful thinking has negated Story's concerns.
Either the Constitution exists as it was written and intended, or it doesn't exist at all.
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