Most articles that seek to demonize the Tenth Amendment movement are so rife with logical and intellectual fallacies that even responding to them is a waste of time. However, in the case of Dan Casey, blogger for the Roanoke Times, an exception must be made.

For starters, Casey is writing in my (and Thomas Jefferson’s) home state of Virginia, and his piece, “The Whole Tenth Amendment Business is Dumb and Crazy” actually links to the Virginia Tenth Amendment Center, which I helped to found.

But, more importantly, in his article, Casey attempts to smear the brilliant men who wrote the U.S. Constitution by claiming the document doesn’t mean what they explicitly said it meant.

As James Madison might have said, there is a host of proofs that Dan Casey is dead wrong.

Like so many others before him, Casey leads his attack with a flaccid attempt to discredit the “Tenthers” (as he pejoratively calls them) by linking constitutionalism with support for slavery.

Of course, this completely obscures actions by Tenthers of an earlier era, who used the 10th Amendment as the prime justification for the “States Rights” argument that itself was a smokescreen for the real cause of the Civil War — the South’s insistence on preserving slavery.

Behold straw man number one: The Tenth Amendment is code for racism. Casey is either ignorant of the fact that many Northern states used the Tenth Amendment as a justification for undermining slavery long before 1861, through their refusal to enforce the Fugitive Slave Acts, or he has chosen to ignore that inconvenient part of history. 

Either way, it doesn’t matter. Historical accuracy is not Casey’s goal. He merely intends to color his readers’ perception of Tenthers by linking them, however spuriously, with Southern slaveholders. To acknowledge the truth about the history of states’ rights in the North might disrupt his narrative of unquestioning obsequiousness to centralized power.

Casey continues:

But apart from aligning themselves with slaveholders, there’s another more fundamental flaw in the whole modern Tenther argument. In a nutshell, it’s this: Their interpretation is based on a single sentence in the Constitution, rather than on the document as a whole.

In fact, the larger document directly contradicts the Tenthers’ argument.  That’s right — words the founding fathers quite deliberately wrote into the Constitution clearly and effectively rebut the Tenthers’ faulty reasoning.

It’s hard to imagine where Casey got this impression, considering that James Madison himself described the document he helped to write by saying

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.

Thomas Jefferson also knew the Tenth Amendment was more than just “a single sentence.” He called it the Constitution’s foundation: 

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: All powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.

It really cannot be any clearer than that. The self-serving opinions of Dan Casey and myriad federal judges notwithstanding, if the people and the states didn’t explicitly surrender a power in the Constitution, then they still retain it. Whether or not they choose to exercise it is another story.

But if federal power is limited to what is enumerated in the Constitution, Casey asks, why do we need a Bill of Rights at all?

The problem for the Tenthers here is that the First Amendment has nothing to do with what Congress can do. It’s all about what Congress can’t do.

And this is where the Tenthers’ entire argument falls apart. Because under Tenther-logic, unless the Constitution permitted the feds to establish religion, or abridge freedom of speech and so on, then the feds would automatically be prohibited from doing it.

Obviously, the founding fathers themselves did not believe that, or they never would have felt the need to write the First Amendment in the first place.

Here Casey has a point, although not the one he thinks. He is right, the feds are automatically prohibited from doing any of the things he lists, just as they are prohibited from requiring every American to buy health insurance, based on the fact that those powers are not delegated under Article 1 Section 8.  

But, more importantly, many of the founders themselves argued against the Bill of Rights for the same reason as Casey: It should not be necessary. 

Alexander Hamilton said

…bills of rights… are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. …For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? 

If there is any argument to be made against the Tenth Amendment, it is Hamilton, not Casey, who has made it.

The Bill of Rights should never have been needed. Every one of the first 10 Amendments is essentially legally redundant based on the text of the Constitution itself.

But, over time, activist judges and complicit politicians have turned the entire document on its head, until the only rights left to the people are those explicitly granted, while the only powers not yet claimed by government are those explicitly prohibited.

Yet Casey calls Tenthers, who only want the Constitution’s clear language enforced, ”intellectual boobs who can’t be bothered to think for themselves.” Apparently, thinking for oneself means ignoring the purpose of our founding documents, and gratefully acquiescing to federal tyranny.

Those of us who demand liberty are feared and ridiculed by weak minded men like Dan Casey who consider themselves intelligent, but are really nothing more than errand boys for the State.

As Samuel Adams once said

If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.

The celebration of our founders’ 1776 revolt against King George III and the English Parliament is over. Let’s reflect how the founders might judge today’s Americans and how today’s Americans might judge them.

In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist some French refugees, James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, stood on the floor of the House to object, saying, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” He later added, “(T)he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” Two hundred years later, at least two-thirds of a multi-trillion-dollar federal budget is spent on charity or “objects of benevolence.”

What would the founders think about our respect for democracy and majority rule? Here’s what Thomas Jefferson said: “The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.” John Adams advised, “Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” The founders envisioned a republican form of government, but as Benjamin Franklin warned, “When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”

What would the founders think about the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 Kelo v. City of New London decision where the court sanctioned the taking of private property of one American to hand over to another American? John Adams explained: “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of G0d, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.”

Thomas Jefferson counseled us not to worship the U.S. Supreme Court: “(T)he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.”

How might our founders have commented about last week’s U.S. Supreme Court’s decision upholding our rights to keep and bear arms? Justice Samuel Alito, in writing the majority opinion, said, “Individual self-defense is the central component of the Second Amendment.” The founders would have responded “Balderdash!” Jefferson said, “What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.”

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George Mason explained, “(T)o disarm the people (is) the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” Noah Webster elaborated: “Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed. … The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.”

Contrary to Alito’s assertion, the central component of the Second Amendment is to protect ourselves from U.S. Congress, not street thugs.

Today’s Americans have contempt for our founders’ vision. I’m sure our founders would have contempt for ours.

Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University, and a nationally syndicated columnist.

Copyright © 2010 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

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The Founding Fathers universally rejected democracy and hoped that posterity would never turn the United States into one. The word they used was “Republic,” which is not synonymous with “Democracy.” The word “Democracy” is not in the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights. Even the Pledge of Allegiance is “to the Republic for which it stands.”
Benjamin Franklin defined democracy as “two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.”

So why did they reject Democracy? Because it is inherently flawed with the “share the wealth” philosophy, which only works as long as there is someone else’s money to share. Those receiving are quite pleased with getting something for nothing. But those forced to give are denied the right to spend the benefits of their own labor in their own self-interest, which creates jobs no matter how the money is spent. They also lose a portion of their incentive to produce.

Fraser Tyler, author of The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic authored more than 200 years ago said it best. “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.”

Where does the money come from for all the “good” that government does? Answer, out of someone else’s pocket. If it is with his consent it is a form of charity. If forced, a form of tyranny. The more and the longer given, the more entitled the receiver becomes until he is quite willing to take to the streets and demand more of other people’s money, fully satisfied that he has every right to it. This works until those who have money are destroyed as a class and everyone is equally poor. The result is a diminished standard of living for everyone, as was the case under 20th Century communism.

A Democracy gives us the principles of majority rules and frequent elections with options, but little more. It does not protect us from the government’s redistribution of wealth philosophy, which entitles the less productive to get something for nothing.

A Republic includes frequent elections with options. It also gives place to majority rules, but only to a point, for as your mother told you growing up, the majority is not always right. A Republic is also based upon natural unalienable rights that come from a source higher than man (for example life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.)

Minority rights are protected from the majority in a Republic. A lynch mob is Democracy. Everyone voted but the man being lynched. A Republic rescues this man gives him a fair trial with a bona fide judge and witnesses for his defense. In a Republic there is an emphasis on individual differences rather than absolute equality. Such individual differences are seen as a strength in a Republic rather than as a flaw under Democracy, which equates sameness as equality.

Limited government is also a major aspect of a Republic. The government is handcuffed from dominating our lives. There is a list of functions and a clear process for obtaining additional power. Finally, there is a healthy fear of the emotion of the masses, destabilizing natural law upon which real freedom is based.

The Founders created a Republic, not a Democracy. The Constitution, as designed, is the mechanism to ensure we stay a Republic. We must demand from our leaders a strict adherence to that document in order to preserve our liberty, and that of future generations.

Dr. Harold Pease has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.

After my latest article, Our Dead Constitution, was released, I received much response, many from those who understood and agreed, and some by those who were opposed to my statement, “Our constitution is dead.” This leads me to reasonably believe that many of us need to be educated about what a constitution actually is before constitutional law and freedom can be restored throughout the states.

1. A constitution does not create freedom. A constitution is created only to protect and secure freedom which already exists, through forms, structure and limitations of government. This is what our founders said in the Declaration of Independence: “to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Therefore, if one’s perspective about the U.S. Constitution is that it statically creates freedom for all the people of the states, then I could understand how he would be shocked or angered at the suggestion that the U.S. Constitution is dead. To the contrary, we know that freedom exists in a state of nature, created by God, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” These natural laws and rights never die. They existed prior to 1787 and they will exist after we are gone. Thus, a distinction must be made between natural freedom (which never dies) and a constitution (which can die).

2. A constitution may be worthless to secure freedom. History proves this–even America’s history. A constitution rests upon a serious distrust of human nature, and simultaneously upon the skeptical and temporary trust placed in delegated power, which supposedly will “be disinclined to invade the rights of the individual States, or the prerogatives of their governments.” James Madison, Federalist Paper (FP) 46. These principles determine the constitution’s nature, character, form, and function. This necessarily means that a constitution itself is to be contrasted to the eternal principles that formed the constitution, and where government does not conform its actions and intentions to the principles of the constitution, the constitution itself is practically meaningless and dead. American jurist, William Rawle, expresses the same: “By a constitution we mean the principles on which a government is formed and conducted.” William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States of America, 2.

That our government must conform its actions and intentions to these principles is confirmed by the United States Supreme Court, by those who formed our constitutions, and by those who helped form the very fundamental thoughts of American jurisprudence: (1) “Let the nature and objects of our Union be considered; let the great fundamental principles on which the fabric stands be examined.” Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. 264, 423 (1821). (2) “[N]o free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but…by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.” Benjamin Kidd, Principles of Western Civilisation, citing Virginia Declaration of Rights, June 12, 1776, (London, The Macmillan Co., 1902), 511. (3) “Once the principles of government are corrupted, the very best laws become bad and turn against the [people of the] state.” Charles de Baron Montesquieu and Julian Hawthorne, ed., The Spirit of Laws: The World’s Great Classics, vol. 1 (London: The London Press), 116.

Thus, a maxim must be admitted: where the principles of freedom are abandoned, the constitution no longer serves its constituted purpose; that is, to limit the government as the consent of the governed demanded at its creation. And once the constituted purposes and principles are abandoned, how could it be argued that the constitution has life? Is the form (the constitution) greater than the substance (the principles)? Certainly not.

3. When a government breaches its limitations placed upon it by a constitution, (a) the government agent loses its trust to rule, (b) the powers delegated to it are reverted back to the creators of the constitution, and (c) the constitution becomes non-binding on those who created it. This is the natural law concept of “the consent of the government,” as expressed in our Declaration of Independence. It is further a concept regarding the rights of the parties who enter into a compact. As noted by our founders, we do not normally exercise this natural and compact right over “light and transient causes,” but in cases where a “long train of abuses” are evident. European forefather, Hugo Grotius, recognizes that when a government contradicts the principles that created its power, that creation (i.e. kingdom/constitution) dies and the people have the right to institute new government:

“[I]f the king act, with a really hostile mind, with a new to the destruction of the whole people…that the kingdom is forfeited; for the purpose of governing and the purpose of destroying cannot subsist together.” Hugo Grotius and William Whewell, trans., Hugo Grotius on the Rights of War and Peace, Book II, (Cambridge: University Press, 1853), 57–58.

A constitution that has been continually breached by the government is no longer a constitution at all, because the very purpose of a constitution is to limit the government by the will of the people who created it. Thus, a people who continually live under an abandoned constitution do not live under a constitution at all; but rather, they live in voluntary slavery, and the constitution is dead to those people and that government. It is literally time “to alter or to abolish” that constitution before the people’s lack of resistance is deemed to be “the consent of the governed.” (See, Thomas Jefferson and John P. Foley, ed., The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia, A Comprehensive Collection of the Views of Thomas Jefferson, (New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1900), 185. “[T]o conquer [the existing constitution’s] will, so as to rest the right on that, the only legitimate basis, requires long acquiescence and cessation of all opposition.”)

4. Particular to the United States, the U.S. Constitution was voluntarily formed as a compact by existing sovereign states with existing state constitutions. See FP 39. Despite the deceptive proposition that the States were created by Congress, the States existed prior to and independent of any Congress, as confirmed by the Treaty of Paris in 1783 (which, by the way, was not overturned by any subsequent legal action of the states). “The State governments, by their original constitutions, are invested with complete sovereignty.” Alexander Hamilton, FP 31. And, “Each State, in ratifying the constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act.” James Madison, FP 39.

Today, there is a fraudulent notion in America which places the U.S. Constitution above the importance and relevance of the state constitutions and state sovereignty, despite the fact that we were told (in efforts to get us to ratify the U.S. Constitution) that “the State governments would clearly retain all rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, exclusively delegated to the United States.” Alexander Hamilton, FP 32. The authoritative advocates of the U.S. Constitution confirm that even with the U.S. Constitution ratified or with the U.S. Constitution dissolved, the states would have their own constitutions to protect freedom and secure the blessings of liberty within that state.

It was even proposed during the 1780s that instead of one confederacy being created through the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, several confederacies be ratified instead. See FP 2. So, it cannot be accurately stated that the U.S. Constitution was the sole form of convenience of the states. The U.S. Constitution was in fact an “experiment” of union, which admittedly may not work. James Madison, FP 14. Many notable American patriots, of course, (prophetically and correctly) believed the U.S. Constitution would in time, by constitutional construction, become destructive to the natural rights and sovereignty of the people of the states. Even pro-U.S. Constitution advocates warned us of the tyrannical tendency of central governments and implored the State governments to “afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority.” Alexander Hamilton, FP 28.

Therefore, it must be acknowledged that the U.S. Constitution no more creates freedom than any other government creates freedom; and that the U.S. Constitution was simply a union of states for very limited purposes, all of which were and can be handled by the states themselves without the existence of the U.S. Constitution or federal government.

5. Constitutions can be destructive to freedom where the document itself is used against the people. Montesquieu expounded upon this, as I cited in, Our Dead Constitution. If you disagree, pray tell, how is it that Congress can regulate virtually anything it desires under the Commerce Clause of the constitution? How can the United States Supreme Court “constitutionally” uphold those unconstitutional acts by its rulings, which are supposedly made impartially “according to the rules of the Constitution” (FP 39)? How can the bill of rights be used against the retained powers and sovereignty of the states, when the U.S. Constitution was never intended to limit the states whatsoever? How can a federation be turned into a nation without the consent of the people? How can the first amendment, designed to restrict the federal government in all regards (“Congress shall make no law…”), be used to not only make law through the federal courts but also restrict individuals and states from exercising their natural rights within their own jurisdictions?

How can the constitutional limitations of the federal courts to apply the Supreme Law of the Land be used to justify “federal supremacy” in un-enumerated powers over the states, contrary to the principles of the constitution? How can the constitution’s general welfare clause be a legal justification to the federal government socializing healthcare, economics, banks, manufacturing, and education, despite the clear intention of the ratifiers to the contrary? How can Congress create a fiat money system without any constitutional power whatsoever to do so? How can the President engage in an eight year war with no declaration from Congress? How can Obama supposedly not be eligible to be President while absolutely no one in the federal system cares? You call that a constitution alive and well!? I could go on and on, as many authors have already well documented for generations now. The long train of abuses is clear: the constitution has been and is being used every day against the freedoms and rights it is supposed to protect and against the principles and trust that created it.

6. Constitutions can be dissolved by those who created it. Our Declaration of Independence confirms this natural right, which is inherent in all sovereigns. The U.S. Constitution was ratified by the voluntary assent of the sovereigns of the states, in their capacity as states. FP 39. The states created the U.S. Constitution not to create freedom, not to create powers they did not already possess individually, and not to create union for union’s sake. They created it for certain benefits that union provided (at that time). If this union were ever destructive to these ends, the states would most certainly have the right to dissolve their part of the union to preserve freedom for that state. (James Madison, FP 39, “dissolution of the compact”; Alexander Hamilton, FP 28, “original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government”; Alexander Hamilton, FP 26, “people should resolve to recall all the powers they have heretofore parted with out of their own hands, and to divide themselves into as many states as there are counties, in order that they may be able to manage their own concerns in person.”)

Thus, a political maxim must be admitted: union, through the U.S. Constitution, does not equal freedom and can actually be destructive to freedom. Given the natural laws of sovereignty, self-defense, self-preservation and self-government, the States may in fact be better off not to be a part of a union that is causing their demise. More pointedly put, the States may in fact be better off to declare the compact (the U.S. Constitution) or at least, the federal laws creating their demise, null and void within their sovereign borders. Naturally, this sovereign power can come in different forms, through nullification, active resistance to federal usurpations, controlling the mechanisms used against the states, and secession.

Regardless of your agreement with these truths, the information provided is all based upon the natural law and political discussions of those who formed the foundation of our Republic. The fact that we do not understand them only causes tyranny to tighten its grip on us. Before freedom will ever be restored, government will be limited, and the people will govern themselves, the sovereigns of the states must recognize that the U.S. Constitution is not the answer to our political and societal plight. Rather, it is the principles of freedom that provide the answer. The time has come in America when to restore constitutional law and freedom in the STATES, the people of the states must begin looking internally to their own powers, sovereignty, self-defense, self-preservation, self-reliance and constitutions.

Tim Baldwin is an attorney who received his Juris Doctor degree from Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. He is a former felony prosecutor for the Florida State Attorney’s Office and now owns his own private law practice. He is author of a soon-to-be-published new book, entitled FREEDOM FOR A CHANGE. Tim is also one of America’s foremost defenders of State sovereignty. See his website.

Copyright (c) Timothy Baldwin, 2009.

Federalism and Tenth Amendment state’s rights have been under assault since the days of FDR.

The federal government was created to serve the states and, in the words of James Madison, “to be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce.”   Under the Tenth Amendment,

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.

The astute constitutional student will recognize that there is no authority whatsoever under Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution (the part of the Constitution which outlines the powers of the federal government) to create or administer a health care system.

In the past year, several states have moved to assert their rights under the Tenth Amendment. States such as South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Louisiana, North Dakota, Alaska, Idaho, Oklahoma and more have passed resolutions telling the federal government to keep its paws off areas that don’t belong to it.

Alabama has specifically moved to short-circuit the federal government’s plan to cripple the country under the cap and trade global warming tax.  Other states such as Arizona, Florida, and Texas are moving to specifically tell the federal government if they pass socialized health care, it isn’t going to fly in their states.

More states–and more work–may be needed, given what the socialists in congress and the White House have in mind.

The Heritage Foundation has an analysis of how Obamacare would hit federalism and state’s rights hard.

State flexibility regulations will be removed, making states merely administrative arms of the federal government’s bidding

If congress succeeds in raising eligibility to 133% of poverty in the final bill (if it passes, God forbid), 33 states could see their Medicare rolls increase 30%, with 10 states seeing an increase of 50%. And since–contrary to a popular conception–government can’t create money out of thin air, guess who gets to pay for that?  What will it look like if they raise it to 150% of poverty?  Got your wallet handy?

There are any number of real reform actions congress could take if only they wanted to; these involve real solutions like tort reform, promoting consumer involvement and choice, making insurance more portable, etc.

But they don’t want to improve the system and get it back within constitutional parameters and into the realm of common sense.

Their goal is to push socialized health care on America, and they’ll do it in a big step or several smaller ones.  We the people must not allow them to take even small steps in that direction.  We’re already too close to the lip of that socialist abyss.

Bob Ellis [send him email] is the founder and editor of Dakota Voice.

The following is excerpted from a speech given at a recent event sponsored by the King William Republican Committee

While I am an elected Republican, I want to try to address tonight’s subject from a bi-partisan position: as an American and a Virginian. I am also a constitutionalist and I believe in this great Union. My goal tonight is to help the residents of King William and surrounding counties, as an accountable elected official, educate and inform this community about those American doctrines of liberty and freedom rooted in Federalism and the nationwide efforts working to send a message to those who wish to retreat from America’s first and founding principles.

We are all familiar with the famous yellow Gasden Flag with the words DON’T TREAD ON ME. This flag in many generations has represented a patriotic anxiety about the direction of government. We are seeing more pop up every day. But we may not all know that The Gadsden flag is a historical American flag with a yellow field depicting a rattlesnake coiled and ready to strike. In 1775, the flag was designed by and is named after American general and statesman Christopher Gadsden.

Similarly, many Americans are uninformed of other noteworthy or seminal events which fashioned together our great nation from several and similarly great states.

An understanding, much less a working knowledge of the principle of Federalism, also interpreted as State Sovereignty under the 10th Amendment, eludes our general population as well as those who are elected to seats of government and political authority. Over the past 8 months and some could argue over the past year or even twenty years, the American people witnessed and unfortunately condoned an enormous consolidation of power and authority in the federal government.

This amassing of power was done in the name of national defense or economic security. Remember that Ben Franklin said “Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither.”

But I believe that there is a movement which will save us from a 21st tyranny. Let me briefly review just the recent actions of the current Administration:

• President and Congress passed $787 billion stimulus plan.
• An Air Force One New York City Flyover Photo Op Cost Over $328,000.
• The Obama Administration is accruing recording breaking debt. May raised its deficit estimate for the year to $1.84 trillion
• The Budget Will Spend $3.4 Trillion Next Year.
• Estimates Place Cost Of President’s Health Care Plan At Over $1 Trillion Over The Next Decade with further deficit spending.
• A White House Official Said Congress’s Energy Tax Could Raise Two Or Three Times More Than The Original $646 Billion; Cap And Trade Could wind up being a $1.3 To $1.9 Trillion Energy Tax.

This amassing of debt will be visited on all of us and lead to even greater dependence on – and control in Washington without regard to how states wish to manage themselves. The “Stringy legs” concept employed frequently by Congress shows a disdain for how states and their people hope to self-determine in a free market.

But in many ways we get what we have asked for or at least let happen. A people’s apathy and the government’s self-indulgence have combined to eat away at the concepts expressed in the Tenth Amendment laid out by the Founders. Economist Walter Williams wrote that

The Founders petitioned and pleaded with King George to get his boot off  their throats. He ignored their petition and rightfully they declared a unilateral declaration of independence and went to war.

Today it’s the same story but it’s Congressional usurpations against the rights of the  people and the states that make King George’s actions look like child’s  play. Our constitutional ignorance, coupled with the fact that we’ve  become a nation of wimps, sissies and supplicants, has made us easy prey for Washington’s tyrannical forces. But that might be changing. There is a long overdue re-emergence of American’s characteristic spirit of rebellion.

This type of patriotic spirit begins with a desire to learn more about the origins of our republic. People are beginning to understand that much like the Second Amendment is designed to protect the citizen from the encroachments of the federal government, the Tenth Amendment stands in the gap for states (and their citizens) by saying 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.

Joseph Story, a Supreme Court Justice and a son of a member of the Sons of Liberty, in his Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833, said “… the state governments are, by the very theory of the constitution, essential constituent parts of the general government. They can exist without the latter, but the latter cannot exist without them.”

In Virginia’s American Revolution:  From Dominion to Republic, 1776-1840, the author‘s primary purpose traces Federalism from the mid-1760s inception of disputation between Virginia and the Mother Country down through the death of the last Virginia Founding Fathers in the late 1830s. He asserts that Virginia ratified the US Constitution under the express understanding that the powers of Congress would extend only to those that were, as Governor Edmund Randolph explained in the 1788 Richmond Ratification Convention, “expressly delegated.”

This idea of Virginia as primary and the central government (first the British, then the Continental Congress, then the Confederation, and finally the Federal Government) as secondary underlay the Revolution in Virginia and are reflected in the Federalist Farmer essays of the Anti Federalist papers attributed to Richard Henry Lee. Echoes of our current trend to serfdom – Federal Farmer, Antifederalist Letter, October 10, 1787

Besides, to lay and collect internal taxes in this extensive country must require a great number of congressional ordinances, immediately operation upon the body of the people; these must continually interfere with the state laws and thereby produce disorder and general dissatisfaction till the one system of laws or the other, operating upon the same subjects, shall be abolished.

Even the most ardent proponents of a federal government at that time, those who penned The Federalist Papers, advocated for the preservation of state sovereignty as necessary to the success of the nation.

“But as the plan of the convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, EXCLUSIVELY delegated to the United States.”
–Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 32

“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.”
–James Madison, Federalist No. 45

Case law later expounded upon this fundamental principle of Federalism with respect to state sovereignty. Printz v. United States held that the federal system limits the ability of the federal government to use state governments as an instrument of the national government. But this traditional notion of federalism has devolved into “cooperative federalism,” where Congress creates new state programs by affixing certain conditions to the receipt of funding.

These acts may become so intolerable that long-term structural sustainability is in real question, and the ultimate danger is the erosion of the principles of federalism whereby Virginia and her sister states become, effectively, wards of the federal super state.

Based on this growing concern that Virginia may lose its priority role in the structures of our American republic, I introduced House Resolution 61 in the 2009 session. Resolutions honoring the 10th amendment stand in the tradition of Richard Bland, Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Randolph, Patrick Henry, Henry Lee, James Madison, and indeed virtually every other significant Virginia Revolutionary and/or Founding Father.

Its precepts may even be far older even than the Tenth Amendment, which according to scholars only made explicit that principle where Virginians were told what was already implicit in the US Constitution when they agreed to ratify it 221 years ago.

Over the past year, states around the country passed resolutions claiming sovereignty under the 10th Amendment and resolving to serve notice and to demand that the federal government cease and desist mandates that are beyond the scope of its constitutionally delegated powers. This movement in over 35 states demonstrates an imbalance and growing concern that the federal government is increasing its dominance over state policy affairs. Visit: legis.virginia.gov to read HR 61 which after several “whereas” clauses reads:

RESOLVES by the House of Delegates, That the Congress of the United States be urged to honor state sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.  The Commonwealth of Virginia hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States.  The Commonwealth by this resolution serves notice to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers.  Further, the Commonwealth urges that all compulsory federal legislation that directs states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties or sanctions or requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding shall be prohibited or repealed.

Some may discount this act as merely political or posturing — that a resolution is just words. Just words… Well to quote our President during last year’s elections he said  “Don’t tell me words don’t matter. I have a dream’ — just words… ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself’ – just words. We have nothing to fear but fear itself. Just words. Just speeches.” I would add just these words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness

Our community and communities like ours around the state and nation must inspire others and it is our hope that with HR 61 these words will have a profound impact. In the words found on our Liberty Bell we must “Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.”

I encourage you to visit my website at www.chrispeace.com and stay in touch with me and this committee to help me and my colleagues show support for the legislation in committee.   May god bless you and the USA

Delegate Christopher K. Peace represents the Virginia House of Delegates’ 97th District and serves on the prominent Courts of Justice, Health Welfare and Institutions, Science and Technology, and Finance Committees. The district spans parts of Hanover, Caroline, King William, King and Queen, Henrico, Spotsylvania Counties and all of New Kent County

It is federal, because it is the government of States united in a political union, in contradistinction to a government of individuals, that is, by what is usually called, a social compact.To express it more concisely, it is federal and not national because it is the government of a community of States, and not the government of a single State or Nation.
–John C. Calhoun

Two hundred and thirty-three years ago, a group of men from states with different ideas and strengths convened to design a new form of civil government. Federalism emerged as the compact that became the U.S. Constitution. Federalism provided the protection of a central government while protecting the individualism and creativity of each state.

Delegates from the colonies engaged in lengthy debate and settled on what powers they would relinquish to a central government. Everything else they left to the states to decide and govern separately.

The 10th Amendment became the codification of such an understanding: “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.”

Federalism was the ideal model for improvement because it acknowledged each state as a laboratory of ideas. No state had a monopoly on good public policy. States retained autonomy over education, business, religion, over how to address healthcare or poverty.

None of these issues were debated to consensus as a part of the Compact, so the federation was granted no power over them. Such a system of government fosters experimentation and change. It is the governing structure of entrepreneurs, pioneers, and idealists.

A national government, on the other hand is the opposite of federalism. It reduces statehood to geography and fosters political posturing and prejudice. Such a governing structure is designed to protect and promote the status quo.

It is by nature a hindrance to change because there are no “state-laboratories,” no places to test new ideas or debunk old ones. Once nationalized, public policy becomes the best by default, not by performance.

Washington D.C. is actively indoctrinating America away from federalism and toward a nationalistic government – one size fits all. We must not stand idly by and allow Missouri to be swept up into failed public policies against our will just because a political elite demands that we conform.

America did not begin as a nation of conformists, nor will it survive as such.

America’s exceptionalism is rooted in individualism and the free flow of competing ideas, not in the genius of a monarch. As Missourians and Americans we must remember our roots, actively defend our Constitution(s), and promote Missouri ideas via our state legislative process. I believe Missourians do not want California, New York, or Chicago deciding our policies or our fate.

Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, along with over a dozen cosponsors, reintroduced legislation in Congress to strengthen legal protections for state-authorized medical marijuana patients.

The bill, entitled the Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act of 2009, seeks to amend the discrepancy between federal law and the laws of over a dozen states that have enacted regulations governing the therapeutic use of cannabis.

Thirteen states – Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington – have enacted laws prohibiting medical marijuana patients from state prosecution. 

Passage of the the Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act would ensure that medical cannabis patients or providers who are compliant with state law, such as Charles Lynch (who was sentenced in federal court), would no longer have to fear arrest or prosecution from federal law enforcement agencies.

Previous versions of the Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act were introduced in both the 108th and 109th Congress, but failed to receive a public hearing or a committee vote.

While campaigning for the presidency, Barack Obama promised not to use Justice Department resources “to try and circumvent state (medical marijuana) laws” — a pledge that has been repeated in recent months by US Attorney General Eric Holder.

Nevertheless, agents from the US Drug Enforcement Administration have continued to target medical marijuana providers in states that allow for the drug’s use, and federal prosecutors have continued to bring federal anti-drug charges against defendants who were acting in accordance with their state’s cannabis laws.

It is time that we allowed our unique federalist system to work the way it was intended. Patients and their state representatives should have the authority to enact laws permitting the medical use of cannabis — free from federal interference.

Please write your members of Congress today and tell them to stop targeting and prosecuting medical marijuana patients and providers.

CLICK HERE TO TAKE ACTION TODAY

Rob Natelson, recognized national expert on the framing and adoption of the United States Constitution, and Professor of Constitutional Law, Legal History, and Advanced Constitutional Law at the University of Montana School of Law, discusses the origins and nature of federalism, the benefits of a federal government, the role of the 9th and 10th Amendment, the Necessary and Proper Clause, Enumerated Powers, Rules of Construction, States Rights vs People’s Rights, and the Compact Theory of Government.

More from Rob Natelson:

It’s the People’s Right!

The Ninth Amendment, The Tenth’s Partner

The Enumerated Powers of States

Rob’s Page at the University of Montana

I propose the United States of America change its name to the Federalized States of America, or better yet the Coerced States of America. We should either make this change or return to a literal reading of the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

The Tenth Amendment reads, “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.”

In other words the federal government, which is what the states created with the Constitution, has only the authority to govern in the areas directly stated in the Constitution. All other areas of government fall to the state governments or to the people of those states.

In the last 100 to 150 years the federal government has grown like a rabbit warren in springtime. In this growth it has expanded its control into areas that were meant by our Founding Fathers to be governed by the states. The biggest intrusion into the states’ responsibilities has been in the area of education, but it is by no means the only area.

In the early days of government-sponsored-education each state developed its Board of Education with State resources. This is the most efficient method of managing government education. Who knows better how to educate its citizens, the people of the state or the distant federal government? The answer is a no-brainer.

This intrusion is not confined to one party or the other. Under the Republican President George W. Bush, federal control of public education hit an all time high with the “No Child Left Behind” programs. Now under the Democrat President Barak Obama, federal mandates to the states have been further dominated through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The federal government passes laws regarding things like education, health care, social services and highways, all of which are powers not delegated in the Constitution and thus are reserved for the states. The federal government does not carry out these laws, but mandates or coerces the states into administering them.

These laws often are accompanied by funds but usually not enough funds to fully accomplish the requirements of the laws. In some cases no funds are attached to the laws, as when the Congress passed a national speed limit of 55 miles per hour. States were compelled to adopt this speed limit or they would lose federal highway money needed to maintain the federally mandated Interstate Highway System.

Federal encroachment does not stop at the state government. It extends to our city and county governments in the areas of our local board of education and department of social services. How a group of politicians in Washington can think they can decide what is best for the people of Roxboro and Person County is beyond reason. They pass one-size fits all laws that end up not fitting anyone. I just hope they don’t start passing laws governing underwear.

It is unconstitutional for the federal government to pass laws governing education, health care, social services, and anything else not enumerated in the Constitution. But they aren’t the only perpetrators here.

The state governments and the people have allowed and in some cases even welcomed this federal invasion into states rights. The path of least resistance is not always the best path to take.

There is a growing bipartisan movement to reverse the infringement by the federal government on state and local governments. States such as Texas and Oklahoma have begun to pass state laws and resolutions calling the federal government to task.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry addressed the unconstitutional expansion of the federal government and the violation of the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution when he said,

“I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state.That is why I am here today to express my unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm the states’ rights affirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I believe that returning to the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution and its essential 10th Amendment will free our state from undue regulations, and ultimately strengthen our Union.”

On March 26, 2009, 31 district House representatives filed Resolution 849 in the North Carolina House. Section one of the resolution reads, “the North Carolina House of Representatives supports the state’s right to claim sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government or reserved to the people by the Constitution of the United States.”

Section two reads, “the North Carolina House of Representatives urges the federal government, as the agent of the State, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of any constitutionally delegated powers.”

I hope you will give our North Carolina House representative, Winkie Wilkins, a call or e-mail letting him know you support this measure.

If the states and the people take back these areas of responsibilities, we will have less expensive and more effective education and social programs, our federal taxes will be cut, and citizens will have a more effective voice in the governing of our nation.

Brinn Clayton [send him email] is Publisher of the Roxboro Courier-Times