The Coming Storm - State Sovereignty

[moss20]

We are on the edge of a vast storm that is blowing wind in all directions. The winds are blowing dangerous objects all about like a many headed hydra; Healthcare Reform, Card Check, Financial Industry takeover, GM takeover, Stimulus Bill, Cap and Trade, earmarks. We are all concerned about our safety and our future, especially the future of our loved ones. We are beginning to see that the one thing that was constructed to save us (the U.S. Constitution) has been distorted, manipulated and ignored. The federal government which was sworn to uphold and protect that construction has morphed into a corrupt, concealed and dangerous body. Alarmed and outraged, We The People are running around chasing the many heads of this hydra. But it seems that each day a new one grows. It also seems that some of these heads are empty threats designed to misdirect us, and confuse and anger us.



There are literally thousands of organizations that have sprung up to fight the fight. Millions marched on the federal capital and were ignored. As each new disclosure is made known WE spread the word, do a lot of talking and call and write our government representatives. The pace of change and oppression is unprecedented. Our cries to our representatives are greeted with ridicule, disdain and hostility. Some of them propose to be on our side, they sympathize and declare that they will work to effect change, and recommend we vote for change. We are seeing now that some of those we trusted were secretly a part of the destruction of our nation and way of life. Who do we trust? What do we do? How can we maintain our way of life and enjoy the promise of our unalienable rights granted us by our creator?



Our runaway federal government and those that are pulling the strings feel we are easily distracted, easily managed and cannot comprehend these mass control techniques they have the ability to perpetrate upon us. They lead us by fear, all 300 million plus of us. We respond to them just as they hope. We write letters and send emails, call their offices and even go to Washington DC to plead our case. All this seems to do, is reinforce their sovereignty over our very lives. This must stop. Let us create a storm of our own!



When the 13 United States were in a similar position with regard to England and George III, they rebelled and signed a compact which created our federal government with expressly enumerated authorities. Fear that even those authorities would be twisted and manipulated by those of bad intent, the 10th Amendment was forged. The 10th was created to assure that the states and the people of those states maintained control of their own destinies as sovereign representative governments. In 1793 Chisholm v. Georgia the U.S. Supreme Court upheld that a citizen could sue a state. This led to the quick ratification of the 11th Amendment which guaranteed sovereign immunity for states against actions of citizens of another state, or foreign state.



This divided sovereignty was accepted as reality until the 1830’s and 1840’s. The Tariff of 1828 and the Tariff of 1832 were rejected by the state of South Carolina as unconstitutional and were therefore nullified in their state. This action nearly resulted in federal troops marching against South Carolina. Though the tariff’s were modified to be acceptable, it was generally accepted that nullification was rejected as valid, a clear infringement upon state sovereignty.



The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 further empowered the federal government by ordering free states to return fugitive slaves to their state of origin. While some states fought the new law, many did not. In 1854 the Wisconsin State Supreme Court held that the Fugitive Slave Act was unconstitutional. Then in 1859 Ableman v. Booth the U.S. Supreme court overruled the Wisconsin state court, another strong blow against state sovereignty. The theories of state sovereignty, and the ability to nullify unconstitutional laws, ultimately led to Secession and the War Between the States, in 1861.



Though it appeared federal sovereignty was settled by the victory of the north over Secession, the later U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on the 14th and 15th Amendments (ratified in Reconstruction) upheld a distinction between federal and state sovereignty. In the Slaughterhouse Cases 1873 the Court held that Americans had certain rights as U.S. citizens, and others as state citizens. From the end of Reconstruction until the Great Depression, courts interpreted governance of property, family, morality, public health, safety, crime, education and religion as powers reserved for the states.



However, a federalism revolution occurred in the 1930’s with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, described as an ‘expansion of federal activity on a scale unprecedented in peacetime. U.S. Supreme Court decisions, beginning with Nebbia v. New York, expanded the power of federal sovereignty over the states, and supported the policies of the New Deal. In 1954 Brown v. Board of Education declared state education laws unconstitutional. This ruling was considered by some to be a fatal blow to state sovereignty. Continuing in the 1960’s and 1970’s, Lyndon Johnson’s expansive Great Society programs were upheld by the Court validating his civil rights programs. It was until 1995 when we see the Court support state sovereignty when U.S. v. Lopez invalidated prohibiting firearms from within 1000 feet of a school, public, or private.



Nearly from the beginning, there has been an ongoing battle to strengthen and enlarge the federal government and assure their dominance and control over the people of the United States. However, the arbiter of the issues related to control and the violation of the 10th Amendment to accomplish such, was the Supreme Court. It is just a coincidence that the members of the Court were put into power by the very same factions that were legislating illegal laws to control and dominate state sovereignty. It has been a battle since the creation of our constitution, one which we appear to be losing.



Do we do battle against each bill proposed in congress which is designed to strengthen THEM at our expense? We cannot accomplish success with that, it is their game. In sport, or battle, you always want the opponent to play your game, respond to your actions. This is a game your opponent can never win. So how do I propose to fight the battle. The battle plan is already in the field. States around America are forging 10th Amendment resolutions designed to reassert their states rights. Some states have not joined the fight and other states are seeing resistance, both overt and covert. The federal government is already of the opinion, supported in some cases by the Supreme Court, that the states are not sovereign, and are subject to the control of the federal government, if not by law, then by economic extortion. Sovereignty must be declared in the most powerful sense possible in the 50 United States, or at least in a super majority. But what then?



The state of Tennessee is working on a letter to go out to the other 49 states declaring an intent to collaborate on the force of sovereignty and re-establish the 10th Amendment. How long will this take? Remember the legislative process is THEIR game. We may play it but seldom ever win.



Let us all generate a great storm in the 50 United States. We must march on our state capitals and demand a sovereignty bill and resulting actions to force change in Washington. And we must continue to do so until our states are all, either united and we remove the threat, or until we are subjugated by the troops being amassed to put down the civil unrest that we represent.



If the many thousands of groups all take up one cause, one goal, then perhaps we can create a storm of our own! We must quit responding to the outrageous actions that are distracting us. We must do the one thing we can do. Force state sovereignty, reassert our freedom. Let THEM try to play our game. For I promise you this one will not end well for those attempting to destroy our constitution and subjugate us to a way of life that is not compatible with our unalienable rights.



Our representatives in our states must refuse to accept unconstitutional laws that are designed to control us and remove our freedoms. They must demand a repeal of the illegal legislation by which the federal government holds power over the states. When we occupy our state capitals they will see that a storm is coming. Let us pray to our creator for courage. And if there be a storm that is coming, let the storm be of our making and the devastation be upon those that oppose us.

[zephyp]

Great post and idea Doug. Did you write this? If not, can you provide a source. I'd like to investigate. If national campaigns against a certain bill can be organized so can this.

[moss20]

It was posted on Va OK forum under discussions yesterday. Thought I would pass it along.

[zephyp]

It was posted on Va OK forum under discussions yesterday. Thought I would pass it along.

Thanks. I havent been over there since signing up. Busy with other stuff.

[nite750]

This is an excellent post. Thanks.

[ksanftleben]

I’m certainly not a constitutional lawyer, but here's my two cents on this.

It seems to me that one of the obstacles in attempting to revitalize state sovereignty (that is, federalism) by using the Principles of ’98 (that is, nullification) or revising the 10th Amendment is that—like it or not—the body of the Constitution contains two clauses which specifically enumerate rather general powers to Congress: the “Commerce Clause” (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3) and the “Necessary and Proper Clause” (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 18). These clauses, when coupled with the “Supremacy Clause” (Article 6, Section 2), have been used by Congress—with the repeated approval of the Supreme Court—to allow Congress to pass whatever laws it deemed necessary to make the national government work and simultaneously impose those laws upon the states. Although some, like The 10th Amendment Center, believe that these are a significant flaws in the Constitution, in fact, a strong point can be made that framers of the Constitution knew exactly what they were doing when they included these clauses (see Federalist Paper No. 44.)

So . . . . rather than focus upon the current impotence of the 10th Amendment, Justice Scalia, Zell Miller, George Will, Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Ron Paul, Judge Andrew Napolitano, and many others have repeatedly asserted we should concentrate on what they believe to be the real factor behind the erosion of federalism and state sovereignty, the 17th Amendment. That amendment changed the very carefully designed structure of the US government (that is, the Constitution), which in turn has led directly to current sad state of affairs. They have argued that in order to return to federalism and a recognition of state sovereignty, the 17th amendment would have to be repealed.

Until the 17th Amendment became part of the Constitution, senators were not elected by popular vote; rather, they were selected by their state legislatures. The founders specifically included this provision in the Constitution as a check to ensure that it would always be difficult for any federal law to be passed that that would step on states’ toes. James Madison eloquently laid out his argument for this division in the Federalist Papers, and Alexander Hamilton believed that this would be an “absolute safeguard” of states’ rights. While George Mason didn’t have quite that much confidence, he stated that it would certainly provide states with a “means of defending themselves against the encroachments of the National Government” (See Federalist Paper No. 10, Federalist Paper No. 51, and ‘Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment’ by Thomas J. DiLorenzo, LewRockwell.com, May 2005.)

“The result of the framers' deliberations was a tripartite division of political power among representatives chosen directly by the people, senators chosen by state legislatures, and a chief executive chosen by a temporary college of electors selected specifically for that purpose, either directly by the legislatures or in the manner they prescribed. Thus, while all political power ultimately derived from the people, each branch answered in an immediate way to an essentially different constituency from that of the others, and was thus considered less liable to fall victim to the same errors, the same impulses, or the same corrupting influences.” (See Democratizing the Constitution: The Failure of the Seventeenth Amendment, C.H. Hoebeke, Humanitas, Vol. 9, No. 2, 1996.)

Until the ratification of the 17th Amendment, “the role of senators as representatives of the states was assured by a procedure, now forgotten, whereby states would ‘instruct’ their senators how to vote on particular issues. Such instructions were not conveyed to members of the House of Representatives because they have always been popularly elected and are not expected to speak for their states, but only for their constituents. When senators represented states as states, rather than being super House members as they are now, they zealously protected states’ rights.” (See ‘Repeal the 17th Amendment’ by Bruce Barlett, National Review Online, 12 May 2004.)

If one agrees with Justice Scalia and his like thinkers about this, it would seem that rather expending effort to overturn years of precedent with regard to nullifications and/or the interpretation of the 10th Amendment and its relationship to the Necessary and Proper and Commerce Clauses, a more viable solution to restore federalism and state sovereignty would be to work towards the repeal of the 17th Amendment.

Here are a couple of good summaries:

Should the 17th Amendment be repealed? by John Dean

Repeal the 17th Amendment by George Will (some of the follow-on comments are insightful as well)

R/Kurt