In the past, I believe I have recounted a passage from an American history book where, in the first chapter following the American Civil War, the first line was “Hamilton won.” The reference was to the competing visions of the United States between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. The former envisioned a strong federal government. The latter envisioned a weak one. Testing the strength of the federal government, Southern states committed treason in defense of slavery. The rebels in the southern states were too weak to defeat the United States, and Hamilton won.
Senators Delph and Boots have introduced SB 141 which would purport to limit the effect of federal law in Indiana. Also, just by the way, the bill appears to repeal the common law (at least the piece of it in place prior to 1607) as governing law in Indiana. It offers some declarations of the General Assembly about the purpose of the U.S. constitution and then says a federal law found to be unconstitutional pursuant to that declaration is void and unenforceable and, in fact, anyone attempting to enforce such a federal law is guilty of a felony. The statute is conspicuously silent about who has the authority to declare federal law in violation of the federal constitution under this new state statute.
Here is the thing: federal judges get to interpret the federal constitution. And, if they say a law is constitutional, then the Supremacy clause of the United States Constitution says that a state law to the contrary is void. The U.S. Civil War answered the question of who wins when the states and the federal government get into a pissing match over the scope of federal authority.
And the bit about striking the old English common law in place prior to the founding of Jamestown as a source of binding legal authority in Indiana is just bizarre. The common law is the soil in which our democracy grows. Throwing out the stuff at the bottom because it happened to come from Britain is foolish. (If that’s what they’re doing. It looks like knee jerk xenophobia, but maybe they have something else in mind.)
I think throwing out English common law is in response to the recognition that we do look to foreign law, appoint that has been made with regard to recent efforts to ban application of foreign law (i.e. sharia law).
Hamilton only “wins” if we let evil prevail.
Good for Delph and Boots.
Nonsense.
As you deny individual sovereignty, it’s hardly surprising that you’d support any effort to remind the people of the proper order of governmental power.
Any advocate of individual liberty denies the notion of “individual sovereignty,” because “sovereignty” is a collectivist, authoritarian notion, and it is impossible to separate that out of it.
So it’s not surprising that a collectivist authoritarian like yourself would be in favor of it.
Wow Freedom. Please let me know where to send Doug’s (or any) American History Book so you can read a little.
Wouldn’t you need to teach Freedom to read first?
Precisely what part of History do you presume I don’t know?
Let’s see… The US Constitution and Madison’s notes from the deliberations, The Federalist Papers, the Bill of Rights, the Civil War and Nullification chapters, and pretty much anything on the 20th Century Supreme Court decisions. Or you can just deny 227 years of American political history.
HOne, it seems you’ve lost the plot and forgotten the issue.
The question isn’t where we ended up. That much is merely observable.
Engage your brain before you post.
I am so sick of the reactionary policies of the lawmakers of Indiana. Indiana is basically a one fascistic (not hyperbole) party rule in this state. They haven’t respect for ALL tax-paying citizens of Indiana. The amount of disgust I have for them at this point is totally unutterable.
Frankly, I’m tired of this revisionist backward thinking mentality that seems to predominate in the General Assembly. You’d think they’d have shamed themselves enough last year, but I guess not.
But then I see the sponsors’ names and – well, nevermind.
The capacity for shame, or even simple humility, is not a part of their psychological make-up. Psychology textbooks treat it as a symptom.
It’s all from the same Wingnut Model Legislation Factories (TM) that Kruse used to copy & paste his bills last session. The first sections of their bill come straight from the Tenth Amendment Center’s talking point list.
The “common law” part is new by me, though — I’ll have to look that one up.
Not to disagree with your book Doug, but Hamilton won the day President John Adams appointed John Marshall as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Jeffersonian Democrats held out as long as they could (some into the 20th Century), but the weakness of their theory eventually caught up with them.
I wonder if my home county were to pass such a law concerning actions by the Indiana Legislature what would be the legal response from the state. Since we have an active legislature in regards to placing restrictions and mandates on local government then why could not a local unit decide that actions by the legislature can be ignored and even be a criminal offense to enforce?
LIKE! I’m game for this. Reminds me of Austin saying that if Texas ever seceded from the Union, Austin would secede from Texas. So, let’s take it to the city level if necessary.
Inapposite, Jack. Counties are created by the State. States are not created by the United States government.
So the Indiana territory was not created by an Act of Congress and the State of Indiana not created by an Act of Congress? I wonder what the hell President Madison thought he was doing when he signed an Act that did just that.
Your historical perspective is fascinating, and I’d like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Correct, Doug. The other states merely admitted Indiana into the club upon consideration of Indiana’s application. Like any club, members come and go. Some find other clubs. Some choose not to renew their dues.
This is the essence of a federal system. The members are the supreme authority. The national organization merely tends to those few matters that concern the states’ relations with other members. Anything internal to the state is left to the state’s administration.
Your position implies that the Constitution is a contract between the states and the national government. It is not. The Constitution is a contract between the people and the national government. States are simply subject to the contract. If you want things your way you should campaign for the reinstatement of the Articles of Confederation.
This is mind-blowing. I’m sitting in Phoenix at an event to discuss advocacy for implementing the #CommonCore and SB 141 seems like a preemptive strike to waylay that and any other idea that may have a hint of originating in Washington.
Doug was right about SB 141 having an air of xenophobia. I’d wonder, how you stop that xenophobia from spreading so rampantly that your circle becomes infinitesimally small.
You’d hope that the electoral process would render this dynamic self-correcting. As the circle gets smaller and smaller, eventually it will reach a tipping point and the circle becomes politically irrelevant.
One more thought. It may be a rhetorical question. Depends.
Didn’t we decide in the late 18th century to major in the federal government and minor in the state government?
Wow, nullification? Were Delph and Boots inspired by confederate license plates?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2586531/Venice-votes-split-Italy-89-citys-residents-opt-form-new-independent-state.html
Great news from Venice. Peaceful secession, unlike Lincoln’s war crimes of forcing people to suffer under a government they didn’t want to be part of.
The freedom movement in Venice will likely restart secession discussions in the U.S.
“How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?” — Samuel Johnson
What a silly, nonsensical comment. Just looking our for you, I wouldn’t stand behind something so crazy.
Less than 5% of Southerners owned slaves in 1861. Pretty much all the South, however, was fed up with the North’s crippling tariffs.
Many “drivers of negroes” in Venice? How about Scotland? Crimea? Quebec? Basque?
What percentage of the men who voted for secession owned slaves in 1861? I’ll bet it was a lot, lot higher.
Follow up questions: what percentage of black Southerners were consulted on the question of secession? How many of them owned slaves and how many of them voted for secession?
I know fuck all about the secession questions in the other parts of the world and do not purport to have formed an opinion. But the supposed secession of the Confederate States was a sham for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that black Southerners weren’t given a choice in the matter. The slave population of the antebellum south represented something like 40% of the people there. That’s a pretty significant omission when we’re talking about the will of “the People” to secede.
The North didn’t start it’s War to Prevent Southern Independence over slavery. That was a cheap gloss the North slapped on its murder in an attempt to hide that it was after money and power.
Further, that wasn’t a civil war, at all. Civil wars are fought between factions to see who will control the government. The South expressed precisely no desire to control how Massachusetts and New Hampshire would govern themselves.
To your would-be defense of Blacks, Lincoln’s plan was colonization. He didn’t see them as any form of American, much less 3/5 of one. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/lincoln-colonization-and-the-sound-of-silence/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
The North was wrong and desperately needed to create a moral veneer for killing 750,000 Americans merely because the Southern Nation didn’t want to be subject to or send revenues to Washington.
The North went to war to preserve the United States. Southern whites committed treason in order to preserve slavery. It says so in their secession documents. Northerners had the better moral cause, particularly if your allegiance is with the U.S.A.
“The North went to war to preserve the United States.”
Thereby committing a mammoth human rights violation and war crime. Killing people to force them to remain in a country they don’t want and denying them their right to self determination would today find the warlord before the Hague.
“Southern whites committed treason in order to preserve slavery.”
The South was a sovereign nation entitled withdraw from crippling taxation and to defend itself from Northern aggression.
“Northerners had the better moral cause,”
Stealing from the South to fund Northern industry is no moral cause. Killing 750,000 people to keep up profits and revenues is decidedly immoral.
The Union was war criminals and its apologists will always be reprehensible.
By the way, Doug, Johnson’s insult was issued against the Founding Fathers. Rare is the American who would line up with the Crown against Jefferson or who would impugn the very Liberty we fought to obtain.
We still have hot tar.
Yeah, I know when he made the comment. It’s still apropos. Slavers waxing poetic about liberty have a hypocrisy problem to overcome regardless of the era.
All Southerners were victims to the North’s tariffs, threats and meddling, just as everyone is a victim of the Left’s big government.
It’s a laughable tactic to tell people that since they’re not perfect, other people get to oppress them. That doesn’t fool anyone.
“just as everyone is a victim of the Left’s big government.”
…. and the Right’s Orwellian state.
The Right built it, the Left hasn’t dismantled it.
The Orwellian state, by definition, is Leftist.
A refusal to refute my point is taken, as usual, by an inability to deal with the corner you’ve painted yourself into.
You need another of your vacations. Try visiting De Nile – I’ve heard it’s just not a river in Egypt, it’s a state of mind.