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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 12/28/10

The Founding Fathers on the GOP's Anti-Constitutional "Repeal Amendment"

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Michael Reed
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But worry not. Luckily, the proposed "Repeal Amendment" is unconstitutional, and will never happen. Here's why. The Democratic Congress, will oppose this Trojan Horse move of the GOP, by using the words of the Constitution, and the words of the primary authors in the "Federalist Papers", to prove the Founders intent.

From the Constitution:

Article I, Section 10: No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; . . .

To me, the GOP's 28th Amendment, the "Repeal Amendment", looks exactly like what the Founders were guarding against - States trying to align with each other to usurp the "supreme Law of the Land".

For a deeper understanding of the Founding Fathers fears about this, we seek the wisdom of Publius, in the Federalist Papers. The Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787 and distributed to the States for ratification. In the months that followed, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison wrote a series of articles titled The Federalist, using the pseudonym "Publius". They were published, primarily, in two New York newspapers, The Independent Journal and The New York Packet, between October 1787 and August 1788. They came to an end just after New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution. It was official, the United States of America had replaced current law of the land (constitution), the Articles of Confederation, with the new, improved, United States Constitution.

On the surface, from the titles of the two constitutions, it sounds a bit like an intentional shift from a "confederation of states" to "one united nation", doesn't it? That's precisely what it was, and that truth can be easily ascertained in the writings of Publius. Keep in mind as you read the words of these great men, that the essays that they are from were compiled into a two volume set called "The Federalist". Now, in modern times, referred to as "The Federalist Papers", they are a primary source for interpretation of the United States Constitution.

Please note: All bolding emphasis in the excerpted essays are mine.

In the very first The Federalist essay, Alexander Hamilton identified the rage surrounding the disagreement over the balance of powers between "the Union" and "the several States".

The Federalist No. 1, by Publius (Alexander Hamilton)

Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments; and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from its union under one government.

Hamilton understood from the start that the State legislators would recognise that the new Constitution was a "diminution of [their] power". The question now becomes, did the primary Founding Fathers, bend to this pressure from the States, or stick to their original intent, and make the Union, the "supreme Law of the Land"?

The second clause of Article VI was not amended by the "Article the Twelfth" (the 10th Amendment) of the Bill of Rights. The "powers", that the 10th abrogates to the State, are powers subordinate to the Union's "supreme Law of the Land" powers.

For the proof of that, the Justices of the Supreme need only look further into the "Publius" essays yet to come. Hamilton, again, identifies the "power" of the States issue.

The Federalist No. 33, by Publius (Alexander Hamilton)

THE residue of the argument against the provisions of the Constitution in respect to taxation is ingrafted upon the following clause. The last clause of the eighth section of the first article of the plan under consideration authorizes the national legislature "to make all laws which shall be NECESSARY and PROPER for carrying into execution THE POWERS by that Constitution vested in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof"; and the second clause of the sixth article declares, "that the Constitution and the laws of the United States made IN PURSUANCE THEREOF, and the treaties made by their authority shall be the SUPREME LAW of the land, any thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."

He then asks, rhetorically, this about the "powers" clauses in question . . .

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"Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion - several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made (more...)
 
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