States Move to Reclaim Power Over Intrastate Commerce

Bill: "Further, the major problem seems that we allow the Federal Government to collect too much money and we allow congressmen to stay too long."

First, noting that the Founders made the 10th A. to clarify that the Founders had reserved the lion's share of government powers to serve the people to the states, not the Oval Office and Congress, Chief Justice Marshall had established the following case precedent, now wrongly ignored by both federal and state lawmakers, which appropriately prohibits Congress from laying taxes in the name of state power issues.

"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." --Chief Justice Marshall, GIBBONS V. OGDEN, 1824. http://supreme.justia.com/us/22/1/case.html

When more state lawmakers like those in Georgia, Oklahoma and Washington grow some, and consider legislation to prohibit constitutionally unauthorized federal taxes from ever leaving a state, then the crooks in DC are going to lose interest in the tax-depleted US Treasury and leave DC regardless of term limits. In fact, seats could get hard to fill.

But let's go ahead and make those term limits anyway.

By the way, if you are not familiar with the anti-illegal federal tax policing legislation that Georgia, Oklahoma and Washington are working on, then here's an informative link.

ResistDC: The Federal Tax Funds Act

http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2010/01/18/re...

It's time to take our country back. It's time for the States to call for a Constitutional Convention and start limiting the Federal Government. It's time for more State Nullification of unconstitutional laws. More states are needed to follow Virginia and Idaho and tell the Federal Government it will not accept any National Health Care.

Further, the major problem seems that we allow the Federal Government to collect too much money and we allow congressmen to stay too long. So, we need an admendment replace all Federal taxes with a 10% flat tax. We need an admendment to limit all spending to 10% of GDP in non-war time and 15% in war time, such that war is limited to 6 years with one 4 year extension if 2/3 of the States allow it.

Then, to really get corruption out of congress, pass an admendment to make Congress part time.

We must limit the executive branch to not more than 2 dozen executive orders, and to require all Czars, cabinets, and any other branches to require Congressional approval.

Finally, we must pass an amendment to require that any judicial rulings of the Supreme Court to follow the Constitution and not case law.

The USSC's perversion of the Commerce Clause is a ultimately a consequence of the following, IMO. The people have forgotten about state sovereignty.

More specifically, as evidenced by Article I, Section 3, Clause 1, first consider that the Founders had established the federal Senate to be the voice of the constitutionally powerful state legislatures in the Constitutionally humbled federal government.

Next, the constitutionally powerful states are important where federal taxes versus state taxes are concerned. This is evidenced by the following case precedent established by Chief Justice Marshall, but now wrongly ignored by both federal and state lawmakers. Justice Marshall wrote that the federal government cannot lay taxes in the name of state power issues.

"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." --Chief Justice Marshall, GIBBONS V. OGDEN, 1824. http://supreme.justia.com/us/22/1/case.html

So ideally, when costitutionally clueless FDR cried for Congress to make constitutionally unauthorized tax and spending legislation in the 1930s and 40s, legislation which not only usurped state powers but also stole hard-earned citizen dollars that should never have left the states, federal Senators should have stood up and stopped Congress from giving FDR what he wanted.

So why didn't FDR-era federal Senators stop Congress from approving legislation which usurped state powers and stole associated taxes? After all, as previously mentioned, the Founders had established the federal Senate to protect state interests.

Sadly, mostly rural citizens seem to have forgotten about state sovereignty before 1913. This was the year that state legislatures unthinkingly ratified the ill-conceived, anti-state sovereignty 16th and 17th Amendments. And I surmise that the reason that state legislatures ratified these amendments is this. Not only had the people evidently forgotten about state sovereignty since the Civil War, but the lawmakers that they were electing to their state legislatures must have been as state sovereignty-impaired as the voters were.

As a side note, consider that the Pledge of Allegiance, written in 1892 by a Christian Socialist, is arguably pro-big federal government propaganda. This is evidenced by the words, “one Nation,” and “indivisible” in the Pledge. Indeed, given such wording, the Pledge has been arguably diluting the idea of state sovereignty in the minds of school children for many generations.

Getting back to the insane 16th and 17th Amendments, not only must voters have filled state legislatures with constitutionally inept lawmakers by 1913, but voters did an encore performance by using their new 17th A. power to likewise fill federal Senate seats with lawmakers who were as constitutionally-impaired as the clowns that they had been sending to the state legislatures.

So instead of FDR getting the resounding “hell no” that he deserved from a constitutionally-saavy Senate that understood that its job was to protect state sovereignty, constitutionally inept federal senators unthinkingly told FDR, “Anything you want FDR,” just as state legislators had unthinkingly ratified the 16th and 17th Amendments decades earlier.

And since FDR had been in office long enough to nominate eight pro-big federal government justices by the early 40s, all constitutional firewalls to protect state sovereignty from a corrupt, power-hungry federal government had ultimately failed.

Again, the consequence of the 16th and 17th Amendments is that state lawmakers stupidly made it difficult for themselves to fight constitutionally unauthorized federal taxes laid by corrupt Congress.

Are we having fun yet?

What a mess! :^(

The bottom line is that Constitution-defending patriots have a big mess to clean up in both the federal and state legislatues in this year’s midterm elections.

We win this battle the ground will be fertile for us to win the battle for liberty within our state utilizing the natural market advantages of freedom.

It is therefore structurally critical that we restore the sovereignty autonomy of our States for us to bring down the monopoly that is the Federal government, and allow liberty a place to grow and expand again.

We must to that end ironically support the oppressive policies of oppressive states so long as there are free states to compete with them. their oppressive policies will reveal themselves to be erroneous in the light of the competition with true liberty in other states, and thus lead to the death of such polices.

Education is absolutely critical! Because knowledge is power, and the power MUST be held by the people with the vested interest in individual liberty, the American people at large!

Our people MUST know the naturally oppressive evils of big government, and have with in them the fires of liberty to illuminate darkness of tyranny around them and with them.

Tyranny depends upon a monopoly, we break the monopoly and the tyranny will not be long behind.

Read Bob Greenslade's comment CAREFULLY. He quotes Pierce, who got it exactly correct when he said the clause gives Congress the power to establish forms (make regular) for commerce between the STATES. That's it.

Now re-read the so-called 'interstate commerce clause' (ICC) carefully and you'll see that the words 'interstate commerce' and the words 'people' or 'persons' does not appear. Thus, the argument from this article that:

“Among the several States” meant between persons of one state and another.

makes no sense. The idea that the so-called ICC applies as between PEOPLE is NOT found in the US Constitution anywhere. People are not States and States are not people. There's a big difference between States and people. The Founders knew exactly how to use those words and didn't just make a goof here.

People need to start reading the document itself carefully and stop adding words or meanings that are simply NOT there to get a result they want or prefer. It's not proper to add to the US Constitutional text so as to change the meaning by referring to outside sources such as notes of Founders, letters, debates, Federalist Papers, scholarly articles by law professors, etc.

The wild expansion of the ICC is one of the main problems with Constitutional Law. If people would start reading it exactly the way it was written, it would go a long way to reversing the Federal Monster and restoring State power.

As I have posted here before, this is why I'm not completely happy with the firearms acts that concede that Congress has the power to regulate transactions occurring between people from different states or so-called 'interstate commerce.'

Only transactions between 2 States or among 3 or more States can be "regulated" by Congress. That's it. Transactions among people from different States (or within one State) are not covered by the so-called ICC.

BTW, the use of the word 'among' is simply the grammatically correct way to refer to transactions involving more than 2 States. The word 'between' is proper for transactions involving only two entities. For transactions involving three or more entities, the word 'among' must be used to be grammatically correct. Since the US consists of more than 2 States, the easiest way to cover both possibilities and keep the text short and readable is to use the word 'among.' That's why the word 'among' is in the text in question. This answer is far superior to the solution of adding the entirely missing concept that the word is there to include transactions involving people from different states.

Federal Usurpation
By
Franklin Pierce
Of the New York Bar Association
New York
D. Appleton and Company
(1908)

He had this to say about the Commerce Clause:

"It was the desire for freedom of commerce among the states which inspired this provision as to interstate commerce in the Constitution, and all the early cases so indicate."

"In fact it will be found that, within the conception of the fathers, the control which they gave over interstate commerce was intended to cover only coastwise shipping from the port of one state to the port of another state."

"But there is an abundance of evidence found in the acts of the Constitutional convention, and in the construction of the Constitution by the early Presidents, to show that it was not the intent of the framers of the Constitution, under the power to regulate interstate commerce, to clothe Congress with the power to prohibit commerce, Edmund Randolph, who presented to the Constitutional Convention the Virginia plan, while Attorney-General under the administration of Washington, gave his opinion to Washington, February 12, 1791, on the extent of the power in Congress to regulate commerce, saying that its extent was "little more than to establish the forms of commercial intercourse between the states, and to keep the prohibitions which the Constitution imposed upon that intercourse undiminished in their operation; that is, to prevent taxes on imports or exports, preference to one port over another by any regulation of commerce or revenue, and duties upon the entering or clearing of the vessels of one state in the ports of another.'"

"But the times have changed and the customs have changed. To-day government goes roaming at will upon a boundless sea without chart or compass, seeking power wherever it can find it, with little reference to the limitations of the Constitution."

"In short, the national government, with few delegated powers, is going back to the old world views of the functions of government, and, through the interstate commerce act, is establishing a Federal police power which follows the footsteps of every citizen by licenses and restraining laws into every avenue of life, and practically supplants the police powers reserved to the states."

"The internal commerce of a state is just as much under its control as foreign and interstate commerce is under the control of the national government. The ordinary liabilities and duties of the citizens of a state are not affected in the slightest by the fact that they are persons engaged in foreign or interstate commerce."

Looks like they have been usurping power under this Clause for over 100 years!