by Rob Natelson
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has issued a press release in which she purports to rebut those of us who have expressed doubts about the constitutionality of some health care reform plans.
Pelosi (or her ghostwriter) claims:
“The 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that the powers not delegated to the federal government by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states… or to the people. But the Constitution gives Congress broad power to regulate activities that have an effect on interstate commerce. Congress has used this authority to regulate many aspects of American life, from labor relations to education to health care to agricultural production. Since virtually every aspect of the heath care system has an effect on interstate commerce, the power of Congress to regulate health care is essentially unlimited. (bolded in original).
For several reasons, this is a highly misleading statement. Continue Reading
Posted on 17 September 2009 by Michael Boldin
Posted on 16 September 2009 by Tenth Amendment
by Walt Garlington
“The people who lost”: Bill Kauffman uses this quote from historian William Appleman Williams to begin his book, Forgotten Founder Drunken Prophet, on the Anti-Federalists – those who opposed the ratification of the current U. S. Constitution during and after the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
Most of the state delegations at Philadelphia were populated by Federalists –men dedicated chiefly to strengthening the power of the federal government. To this class belonged the famous men of our history: e. g., Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Gouverneur Morris, James Madison (a surprise to me to find him in this camp). Continue Reading
Posted on 11 September 2009 by Michael Boldin
Posted on 10 September 2009 by Tenth Amendment
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Tom Woods appeared as a guest on Antiwar Radio to discuss his article, The States’ Rights Tradition Nobody Knows, which was recently featured here at TenthAmendmentCenter.com.
He discusses the debt some progressive causes owe to states’ rights, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, state nullification of unconstitutional federal laws, the undue respect given to the Supremacy Clause, and more.
Thomas E. Woods is the New York Times bestselling author of nine books, including Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse. A senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Woods holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard and his master’s, M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia University.
Posted on 07 September 2009 by Tenth Amendment
by Michael S. Rozeff, LewRockwell.com
As I read the many editorial columns and articles in support of Obama’s speech, I can see that many writers are very upset and emotional over criticism of Obama’s action. They also are clueless concerning the reasons why his address is unwelcome. They are name-calling. They are not bothering to mention, much less rebut, the reasoned objections of people like me.
I can at least articulate my reasons for objecting. Continue Reading
Posted on 01 September 2009 by Tenth Amendment
by David Gordon, Mises.org
[How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution. By Richard A. Epstein. Cato Institute, 2006. xiii + 156 pages.]
“Lochner-era jurisprudence” elicits a mindless sneer from most contemporary legal theorists. In Lochner v. New York (1905), the Supreme Court held unconstitutional a New York state law that limited bakers to a ten-hour workday, on the grounds that the law interfered with the bakers’ freedom of contract. In doing so, the law violated the clause of the Fourteenth Amendment that forbids any state from depriving anyone of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. Critics of the decision allege that the Court’s application of “substantive due process” in this case and others like it was a legal outrage. The Court wrongly imposed its own view of economic matters, usurping popular sovereignty. As Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said in dissent, “The 14th Amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer’s Social Statics.” Further, critics of Lochner allege, the pre-New Deal Court acted in other highhanded ways to thwart the people’s will. Continue Reading
Posted on 18 August 2009 by Tenth Amendment
by Rob Natelson
During the Bush administration, many within the dominant culture expressed concern about the constitutionality of detaining several hundred alleged enemy combatants in Guantanamo.
Whenever legal restrictions on abortion are proposed, many express doubt about the constitutionality of interjecting government between patients and their doctors.
But those voices have been mostly silent about the constitutionality of empowering the federal government with decisions over the life, death, and health of three hundred million Americans. Continue Reading
