Congress’s power and that of the central government is essentially unlimited today...and federal courts have come to supervise virtually all of the states' policies...essentially on the basis of federal judges’ policy preferences. No one today even pretends that the Bill of Rights serves its intended purpose...restraining and restricting the Federal Government.
Unlike 100 years ago, today the federal courts are likely to step in and stop state legislatures from adopting policies that the majority of the people in that state voted for. The founding generation never consented to have the federal judges hold that kind of power.
If you read the debates of the Constitutional Convention and the ratifying debates from the free and sovereign states, the meaning and intention of the Constitution is quite clear. A document that was ment to limit and restrict the central government. The purpose of the first ten amendments was laid out clearly by it's Preamble. Preamble to the Bill Of Rights? Yes. The Constitution's preamble is nearly always included when published...but you may look long and hard to find the preamble to the Bill Of Rights.
The preamble says that Congress is recommending amendments to the states because a number of states in ratifying the Constitution “expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added.” The founding generation was afraid the central government would read some of the general clauses and phrases too broadly (aww surely no one would ever do that!) so the Bill Of Rights was added to further explain the restrictions on the central government more carefully.
The Tenth Amendment stated what Thomas Jefferson called the underlying principle of the entire Constitution: “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 Constitution gave the Federal Government a few enumerated powers, and those were all.
The American Revolution was fought not simply over "taxation", but for self-government. Self-government by elections of STATE legislatures. The King and Parliment told the colonies that the state legislatures could only govern as far and much as they, the King & Parliment, saw fit. Of course the founding generation rejected the idea of far off, unaccountable officials over seeing their local affairs.
So it's only logical when they would meet in Philadelphia that they insisted that the principle of local self-government...of federalism...be made explicit through the Tenth Amendment and the other nine. They wanted explicit statements that the distant new Congress could not violate Americans’ most cherished rights...rights the king and Parliament had repeatedly infringed...most notably the right of local, self government.
This was an uncontroversial understanding of the Constitution during it's first century. The Supreme Court unanimously said in 1833 and thereafter that the Bill of Rights was a limitation solely on the Federal Government.
But the 20th century brought about great changes...Unconstitutional changes. And the New Deal of the '30's sought to eleminate the 10th Amendment from constitutional law. So today we have a central government of virtually unlimited powers and federal courts that unconstitutionally over rule the people of the free and independent states...As bad or worse than the King and Parliment.
Who Killed The Constitution?
Politcally Incorrect Guide To The Constitution
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