Comments on: Constitutions as Meta-Policy

By: Joseph Sileo

Joseph Sileo — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:27:17 +0000

I think there are two major reasons it existed then and not now. 1st is technology. At the time most people did not have the means or desire to travel a few towns over let alone another state. In fact this is a big reason larger states broke up. Western North Carolina became Tennessee, Northern Massachusetts became Maine, etc. 2nd before the ratification of the Constitution the states were Sovereign nations. So it stands to reason that the average citizen still thought of themselves as a member of their state and not the United States. That aside all the states willingly surrendered their sovereignty to the federal government. With the only exceptions being North Carolina and Rhode Island, who ratified only after the federal government came into effect.

By: thrica

thrica — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:47:21 +0000

True. But the very fact that it was such a contentious issue shows that there was some sentiment they had then that we don’t have now. Can you imagine the president sending troops to South Carolina today to enforce some mandate? We’ve come to accept the federal government’s power over the states in a way that they hadn’t yet.

By: Joseph Sileo

Joseph Sileo — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:12:01 +0000

“State loyalty I’d guess would have been a major factor in the South before the civil war in preventing encroachment upon state rights.” Federal supremacy over the states has been enforced well before the civil war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinance_of_Nullification

By: thrica

thrica — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:09:35 +0000

Joe: I would call the backward movers reactionary as opposed to conservative, but I guess it doesn’t matter what terms we use as long as the definitions are consistent. Also a good point with the central bank – I need to learn more about its history.

Michael: Thanks! State loyalty I’d guess would have been a major factor in the South before the civil war in preventing encroachment upon state rights. But I think the main factor as far as encroachment upon individual rights was FDR seizing upon the disillusionment of the great depression and the mania of wartime. It’s frightening how far America went back then (the government decided to forcibly expropriate all sizable gold holdings and outlaw gold possession outside of jewelry, for example). We’ve come a long way back since, but we’ve never really recovered the belief in individual rights or wariness of federal government that we had before.

By: Michael Wilson

Michael Wilson — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 02:24:20 +0000

Very well thought out and well written as well. Clearly the 10th amendment reveals the intentions of the founders. Are states’ rights (and subsequently individuals’) simply casualties of the modern era due to technology and a lessening of individuals identifying themselves with their respective state? Or would you point to federal expansion under Wilson and FDR? Or something else exceedingly insightful?