Since we have been posting videos concerning the holiday events, we would be remiss if we did not include a holiday favorite for today. While you await election results, please enjoy Tuesday In November brought to you by archive.org. You’re welcome.
Category Archives: History
Happy Birthday John Marshall
The power to tax involves the power to destroy,” wrote Chief Justice John Marshall, McCulloch v. Maryland, 1819.
The thirteen original States were a band of brothers, who suffered, fought, bled, and triumphed together; they might, perhaps, have safely confided each his separate interest to the general will; but if ever the day should come, when representatives from beyond the Rocky Mountains shall sit in this capitol; if ever a numerous and inland delegation shall wield the exclusive power of making regulations for our foreign commerce, without community of interest or knowledge of our local circumstances, the Union will not stand; it cannot stand; it cannot be the ordinance of God or nature, that it should stand. It has been said by very high authority, that the power of Congress to regulate commerce, ‘sweeps away the whole subject matter.’ If so, it makes a wreck of State legislation, leaving only a few standing ruins, that mark the extent of the desolation. – Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824
Chief Justice John Marshall was born this day in 1755. He was not only a brilliant jurist, but also fought in a War for Independence. McCulloch v. Maryland is one of his much quoted cases; particularly in the area of the Tenth Amendment.
His decision in the case of Gibbons v. Ogden was so maligned by subsequent Supreme Courts (Mainly during the Franklin Delano Roosevelt era) that the actual decision in the case has been lost.
Chief Justice Marshall is quoted by the so-called left when it serves their “decades of precedence” on gun control. They do not refer to this case when it comes to the matter of the bureaucracies they have created. In this case Chief Justice Story ruled bureaucracies, and particularly “private” agencies such as the Federal Reserve, unconstitutional. In Gibbons he wrote:
…for the power which is exclusively delegated to Congress, can only be exercised by Congress itself, and cannot be sub-delegated by it.
Article I, Section 1 states:
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
Only CONGRESS has the power to make law or to effect anything that can be construed as law. They cannot delegate that authority to a bureaucracy.
Article I, Section 8, Clauses 2 and 5 give CONGRESS the power to:
To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
AND
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
Therefore that cannot be turned over to any other authority.
For a brief introduction to this Chief Justice, see American Minute with Bill Federer
A journey through history
Opinion By Glen Davis
Earning the Order of the Locks in 1978.
You may have heard that the Panama Canal recently celebrated its 100th anniversary on August 15. That news, no doubt, sparked every response from raucous partying to a shrug of the shoulders. If you heard about it at all. I cannot be sure about the raucous parties, either, as I was not invited to any of them.
To explain the significance of the event to me; in short I passed through the Panama Canal in March of 1978 when it was a mere 64-years-old.
Please, please. Hold your applause.
When I joined the Navy in 1977, my first assignment was aboard the pre-commissioning unit for the USS Oldendorf (DD-972). The ship was built by Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The ship was homeported in San Diego. As a consequence, after commissioning in March of 1978 we passed through the Panama Canal to get to the Pacific side.
Our first mission was to kick the tires and check the oil looking for any “warranty” items needing repairs. That required returning to Pascagoula giving us another chance to pass through the canal.
What I remember being most impressed about was what an engineering marvel it was to that day. I recalled the hundreds of lives lost to accident and disease to accomplish this feat.
To pass through the canal, the ship was pulled into the locks by engines set on tracks on the sides of the canal. The ship is raised or lowered to get it to the appropriate level to travel to the next stage whether it be to the next lock or one of the lakes created in between. All of this is accomplished by the force of the water, itself. There are no pumps, as I understand it.
While this may seem insignificant to you, as I will someday grow old, I look back on some of the places I visited in my Naval career. I reflect on the changes I have witnessed.
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The Tenth Amendment
“When government acts in excess of its lawful powers, individual liberty is at stake.”—Justice Kennedy, Supreme Court, Bond v. United States (564 U.S. __ (2011))
“One great object of the federal Convention was, to give more power to future Assemblies of the States. In this they have done liberally, without partiallity to the interests of the states individually; and their intentions were known before the honourable body was dissolved.”—Casius
Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.—Articles of Confederation, Article II, March 1, 1781
“But let it be admitted, for argument’s sake, that mere wantonness and lust of domination would be sufficient to beget that disposition; still it may be safely affirmed, that the sense of the constituent body of the national representatives, or, in other words, the people of the several States, would control the indulgence of so extravagant an appetite. It will always be far more easy for the State governments to encroach upon the national authorities than for the national government to encroach upon the State authorities. The proof of this proposition turns upon the greater degree of influence which the State governments if they administer their affairs with uprightness and prudence, will generally possess over the people; a circumstance which at the same time teaches us that there is an inherent and intrinsic weakness in all federal constitutions; and that too much pains cannot be taken in their organization, to give them all the force which is compatible with the principles of liberty.”—Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper No. 17
Let Freedom Ring
Thomas Jefferson on government powers
“Our tenet ever was…that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated, and that, as it was never meant that they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money.” — Thomas Jefferson 1817
Defenders of Freedom
James Madison on General Welfare
“With respect to the words ‘general welfare’, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by it creators.” — James Madison 1831
Rare Benjamin Franklin-Owned Newspaper Unearthed at Auction Reveals Stunningly Simple Text of Historic Moment
While July 4, 1776, gets all the glory for being the day the Declaration of Independence was signed, just 12 words in a newspaper owned by Benjamin Franklin announced the historic move that came first in the form of a vote on July 2.
“Philadelphia, July 3: Yesterday the Continental Congress declared the United Colonies free and independent states.”
That’s all it said in the Philadelphia Gazette.
There were so few characters in this message that Deseret News described it as “America’s 238-year-old tweet,” a nod to Twitter’s 140-character limit.
According to Deseret News, only 1,000 copies of the newspaper were printed holding the text that declared independence from Great Britain. It was buried under pages of classified ads looking for runaway slaves. One such copy turned up at an auction catalog last month and was snapped up by collector Brent Ashworth, who last year displayed some of his other rare items at Glenn Beck’s “Man in the Moon” event held over the Independence Day holiday.
“I was shocked,” Ashworth told Deseret of the copy. “It’s a very rare paper. … It’s a great piece.”
Read more at The Blaze
Property by James Madison
James Madison, Property
29 Mar. 1792Papers 14:266–68
This term in its particular application means “that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.”
In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.
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