Constitutional Government

The Federal Government of the United States is out of control.  The Constitution is supposed to establish limits on the powers of the Federal government.  They have not been staying within those limits since the FDR regime in the 1930s.

Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution enumerates the powers delegated to the Federal Government.

Article 1, Section 10 enumerates the powers surrendered by the States when they ratified the Constitution (mostly related to interstate commerce, foreign policy and military affairs).

The Tenth Amendment addresses everything else not mentioned in either section nor anywhere else, it states that

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Having the Federal government sticking their dirty little fingers into health care, education or anything else not specifically mentioned by the Constitution is plainly unconstitutional.

Some claim that the Supremacy Clause gives them the right to do it. The Supremacy Clause is in Article 6, Clause 2 and states:

“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” (emphasis mine)

It seems that those who make that claim disregard the phrase “in pursuance thereof” in their interpretation.  If the laws are not “in pursuance” of the powers delegated to the Federal government, they are not Constitutional and therefore, not supreme.

Some rely on the Progressive decisions of the Supreme Court.  May I remind everyone that there is a difference between ‘case law’ and Constitutional law?  Case law is what at least 5 old lawyers with lifetime appointments say and is only strictly binding on the case it’s applied to.  Constitutional law is what is actually written in the Constitution and the properly ratified Amendments.

Giving the Supreme Court the power to judge disputes between the States and the Federal government would be like giving your mother-in-law the power to judge disputes between you and your spouse.  Your mother-in-law may be a lovely person, as mine was, but unbiased?  Hardly!

Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798:

“Resolved, That the several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes — delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force: that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral part, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.” (emphasis mine)

In any dispute between any State and the Federal government, the reader should remember that the Supreme Court is made up of lawyers with lifetime appointments who are Federal employees.  Being a party to one side of any dispute between the States and the Federal government makes the Supreme Court ineligible to impartially judge the dispute.

So what do we do? Thomas jefferson again gives us the answer in the 8th resolution of the Kentucky Resolutions:

“… where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact, (casus non fœderis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits: that without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them …” (8th resolution)

The Tenth Amendment Center has some ideas on how we can get the Federal government back inside the Constitutional box that the Founding Fathers designed.

First we pass a 10th Amendment Resolution to put the Federal government on notice that Unconstitutional acts will no longer be tolerated or recognized in this State.

Then we pass a 10th Amendment Bill to put teeth in the Resolution.  Ideally, these teeth should include heavy fines and/or prison time for Federal and State officials who attempt to enforce Unconstitutional acts of the Federal government.

When a number of States have reasserted their sovereignty in this manner, the Federal government will get the idea that if they don’t follow the Constitution as written, they’re going to be ignored by the States and the People.