THE COMING CLASH; RISE OF 10TH AMMENDMENT

Call it a flanking maneuver against an irretractable federal government. But it is happening. GOP majorities (with conservative Tea Party, Libertarians and Evangelical help) are now re-scripting our relationship with the federal government. Unable to achieve legislative gains in Washington, state capitols are flexing their own legislative muscle and reasserting state's rights.

Gun control, union bargaining, right to work, pension reforms, taxation, Obamacare, medicaid, immigration, etc.
As the red-blue split in the nation widens further, the new wedge issue in politics won’t be any single issue as in years before, but will be the broader issue of the massive opportunities for flanking liberalism’s failures from outside Washington. Stay tuned. And shore up your flanks, the battle for liberty is just beginning. This will be an interesting time.
Credit to Steven Hayward at Powerlineblog for this perspective....

http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2009...ietly-growing/
CuteOldGuy's Avatar
This is where it starts. Long Live the 10th Amendment!
joe bloe's Avatar
This is where it starts. Long Live the 10th Amendment! Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy
Hope springs enternal! Somewhere, Lucy is getting out the football.
@ Joe, you might be right; I don't under estimate the left's desires to kill any state right's issue that leads to greater freedoms and individual responsibility.

But that doesn't mean state's should not fight the fight.

More importantly, it is a battlefield that gives the conservative agenda an edge.

Look at how hard the left fights Citizen Ballot Initiatives. They know that America is still a center right country.
JD Barleycorn's Avatar
It was the same thing that led to the south seceding. You can argue about their motivation in so far as slavery goes but they also saw an errosion in their legislative powers. From the time the Constitution was ratified to about 1850 most presidents were southern democrats. The southern democrats had the majority power in the Senate and House. After 1820 that power started to drift away. Western states joined with the north and in violation of the Missouri Compromise the federal government restricted the creation of new government states. By 1860 the citizens and state legislatures knew they would either have to risk war or become vassels of the north.

You can try to make this about slavery as I know some of you will but the north was also passing tarifs that harmed the south only and their cotton industry. The federal government was also making it harder for the south to industrialize (to protect the northern industry) with new laws on property and patents. I can easily see why some states would rather go their own path than allow California, Illinois, and New York (by way of Washington) to force them to carry other states debts and eventually the IRS will make it harder to move your wealth from states like NY and CA to TX and FL.
joe bloe's Avatar
@ Joe, you might be right; I don't under estimate the left's desires to kill any state right's issue that leads to greater freedoms and individual responsibility.

But that doesn't mean state's should not fight the fight.

More importantly, it is a battlefield that gives the conservative agenda an edge.

Look at how hard the left fights Citizen Ballot Initiatives. They know that America is still a center right country. Originally Posted by Whirlaway
I'm all for it. If we only fight the battles we're guaranteed to win, we're finished.

We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
Winston Churchill


Another Blue State refuses to go along with Obamacare...


GOVERNOR SAYS PA. WON'T SET UP HEALTH EXCHANGE


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...12-12-14-58-27
TexTushHog's Avatar
I'm always amused by laymen "discovering" the 10th Amendment, yet who are ignorant of the obviously sound case law surrounding it. As Justice Stone wrote, the 10th Amendment adds nothing substantive to the Constitution.

The amendment states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered. There is nothing in the history of its adoption to suggest that it was more than declaratory of the relationship between the national and state governments as it had been established by the Constitution before the amendment or that its purpose was other than to allay fears that the new national government might seek to exercise powers not granted, and that the states might not be able to exercise fully their reserved powers.

U.S. v. Darby
CuteOldGuy's Avatar
Well, Darby was incorrectly decided, and Justice Stone is wrong. The 10th Amendment was added for a reason, and that reason was to further prevent the federal government from overstepping its enumerated powers in the Constitution.

I'm amused by lawyers who think they are so far above the average person, and only they can understand the law. That's partly why I'm out of the profession. Can't take arrogant bastards anymore.
Chica Chaser's Avatar
"The powers delegated.to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, [such] as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce..The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people.

James Madison

And Thomas Jefferson emphasized that the states are not "subordinate" to the national government, but rather the two are "coordinate departments of one simple and integral whole. The one is the domestic, the other the foreign branch of the same government."
http://www.nccs.net/newsletter/mar95nl.html
CuteOldGuy's Avatar
I think Darby was decided after Roosevelt threatened to pack the Court. I could be wrong, but that is my recollection.
I am sure out constitutional understanding of the 10th amendment will continue to evolve; much like the 2nd has. But we were citizens of the state well before we became citizens of a united republic.
I am sure out constitutional understanding of the 10th amendment will continue to evolve; much like the 2nd has. But we were citizens of the state well before we became citizens of a united republic. Originally Posted by Whirlaway
Unless you were around in 1776, I don't see how that is true.
CuteOldGuy's Avatar
That's the way it was supposed to be, but President Lincoln ended that.
Just as conservatives have fought (and won) on the 2nd Amendment; have no doubt, conservatives understand the importance of the 10th and will fight that battle as well. We are now forced to re-awaken the 10th as a flanking maneuver to the Socialism tide that Obama has visited on us.

PS. I am not an attorney, but I did hobby at a Holiday Inn last night.