It has been 227 years since August 23, 1787, but the debates that occupied the 50 or so delegates present that day at the so-called Federal Convention in Philadelphia can still be heard in Congress today.
On that hot summer day, representatives confronted the delicate and divisive issue of state sovereignty.
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Despite their lucid reasoning and peerless prose, Jefferson and Madison’s Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions have been given short shrift in the pantheon of American documents. Yet the Resolves of 1798, as they were also known, proclaimed essential curbs against the abuse of federal power.
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St. George Tucker was the most widely cited legal scholar of the early American Republic. This article on the nature of the 10th Amendment is excerpted from his work, Blackstone’s Commentaries.
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March 3, 1817: As his last official act as President, Madison vetoes a bill that would provide federal funding for building roads and canals throughout the United States. The President finds no expressed congressional power to fund roads and canals in the Constitution, and he believes that the federal government should not encroach upon matters delegated to state governments.
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Despite any value you might find in legislation with arrest “teeth,” it becomes a liability when it guarantees failure.
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Today, as the federal government acts every day with “injustice and the minority on [its] side,” it is vain for states to sell their birthright of personal and political liberty for a mess of bipartisan pottage.
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Most modern historians have rated Pierce very poorly, pontificating that the President was a “do-nothing” that sat by and watched a divisive population grow even more divided. To the contrary, Pierce respected the Constitution as ratified and not as it was muddled by federal judges and legal precedents.
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A classic from Harry Browne: The America that’s celebrated no longer exists.
DetailsIn an important law review paper, Kurt T. Lash delved into the original meaning of the Tenth Amendment. The following is an overview of the paper, which is a must-read for anyone wanting to learn about the original meaning of the 10th Amendment.
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The northern abolitionists resisting the fugitive slave acts stood on solid constitutional ground. The American system was designed to ensure states would check on federal power.
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The next time you see a politician at the federal, state or local level make the case for unchecked federal supremacy, ask him why he’s willing to trade our revolution for France’s.
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The Constitution. Every issue, every time. No exceptions, no excuses.
