In the Founders Words!

Encroachments of the Federal Government

2010-08-17T21:49:00.001-06:00

"But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm... But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity." --James Madison, Federalist No. 46

The New Constitution

2010-08-15T13:56:00.000-06:00

"Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution." --James Madison, Federalist No. 39

State Sovereignties

2010-08-15T13:54:00.000-06:00

"So that the executive and legislative branches of the national government depend upon, and emanate from the states. Every where the state sovereignties are represented; and the national sovereignty, as such, has no representation." --Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank, 1791

2010-08-15T13:50:00.000-06:00

"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of any definition." --Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank, 1791

The true test is

2010-08-15T13:49:00.001-06:00

"The true test is, whether the object be of a local character, and local use; or, whether it be of general benefit to the states. If it be purely local, congress cannot constitutionally appropriate money for the object. But, if the benefit be general, it matters not, whether in point of locality it be in one state, or several; whether it be of large, or of small extent." --Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

The proposed Constitution

2010-08-15T13:45:00.001-06:00

"The proposed Constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the State governments, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation in the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive and very important portions of sovereign power. This fully corresponds, in every rational import of the terms, with the idea of a federal government." --Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 9

In the first place

2010-07-24T07:02:00.000-06:00

"In the first place, it is to be remembered, that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any." --James Madison, Federalist No. 14, 1787

Directed from Washington

2010-07-24T06:55:00.000-06:00

"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread." --Thomas Jefferson

Washington as the center of all power

2010-07-24T06:54:00.000-06:00

"[W]hen all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Charles Hammond, 1821

Distinction of Color

2010-07-24T06:52:00.000-06:00

"We have seen the mere distinction of color made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man." --James Madison

Speech to the New York Ratifying Convention

2010-07-24T06:51:00.001-06:00

"While the constitution continues to be read, and its principles known, the states, must, by every rational man, be considered as essential component parts of the union; and therefore the idea of sacrificing the former to the latter is totally inadmissible." --Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, 1788

Excessive taxation

2010-07-24T06:47:00.000-06:00

"Excessive taxation ... will carry reason and reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election." --Thomas Jefferson

Federal usurpation - Google Books

2010-03-26T08:23:00.000-06:00

Federal usurpation - Google Books

James Madison

2010-03-22T00:17:00.002-06:00

"For the same reason that the members of the State legislatures will be unlikely to attach themselves sufficiently to national objects, the members of the federal legislature will be likely to attach themselves too much to local objects." --James Madison, Federalist No. 46

James Madison

2010-03-22T00:17:00.001-06:00

"The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex." --James Madison, Federalist No. 48

Federalist No. 33

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"If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people ... must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify." --Federalist No. 33

George Washington, letter to Marquis de Lafayette

2010-03-22T00:14:00.001-06:00

"Next Monday the Convention in Virginia will assemble; we have still good hopes of its adoption here: though by no great plurality of votes. South Carolina has probably decided favourably before this time. The plot thickens fast. A few short weeks will determine the political fate of America for the present generation, and probably produce no small influence on the happiness of society through a long succession of ages to come." --George Washington, letter to Marquis de Lafayette, 1788

Thomas Jefferson

2010-03-22T00:12:00.001-06:00

"[G]iving [Congress] a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole [Constitution] to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please. Certainly, no such universal power was meant to be given them." --Thomas Jefferson

Facebook

2010-03-15T09:08:00.000-06:00

"I had been in the habit of thinking, that those who denied to the federal government all power, except that which is granted in express terms, or which is necessary to carry into effect some power expressly granted, expounded the Constitution more correctly than that sect who would wish to confer power by implication...." Senator Hugh L. White, 1827

Federal Law is Always Supreme. Right? | Tenth Amendment Center

2010-01-16T01:18:00.000-07:00

Federal Law is Always Supreme. Right? | Tenth Amendment Center

Founder's Quote Daily for Monday, December 14, 2009 - PatriotPost.US

2009-12-14T10:27:00.000-07:00

Founder's Quote Daily for Monday, December 14, 2009 - PatriotPost.US

American Thinker: Why Leaderless Tea Parties Are Beating the GOP

2009-12-14T00:09:00.000-07:00

American Thinker: Why Leaderless Tea Parties Are Beating the GOP

Benjamin Franklin

2009-11-17T23:46:00.000-07:00

Benjamin Franklin

2009-11-17T23:42:00.000-07:00

"Strive to be the greatest man in your country, and you may be disappointed. Strive to be the best and you may succeed: he may well win the race that runs by himself." --Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1747

Thomas Jefferson

2009-11-17T23:37:00.000-07:00

"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare.... [G]iving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please." --Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Franklin

2009-09-23T10:51:00.000-06:00

"I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -- that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid?" --Benjamin Franklin, to Colleagues at the Constitutional Convention

James Wilson

2009-09-23T10:50:00.001-06:00

"The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it." --James Wilson, Of the Study of Law in the United States, 1790

Samuel Adams

2009-09-23T10:27:00.000-06:00

"Shame on the men who can court exemption from present trouble and expense at the price of their own posterity's liberty!" --Samuel Adams

James Madison, Federalist No. 62, 1788

2009-05-03T15:19:00.002-06:00

"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be tomorrow."
James Madison, Federalist No. 62, 1788

James Madison, Federalist No. 45

2009-05-03T15:16:00.000-06:00

"We have heard of the impious doctrine in the old world, that the people were made for kings, not kings for the people. Is the same doctrine to be revived in the new, in another shape -- that the solid happiness of the people is to be sacrificed to the views of political institutions of a different form? It is too early for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of government whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object.
James Madison, Federalist No. 45

Benjamin Franklin

2009-05-03T15:11:00.000-06:00

"History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy... These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed; whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manner of connections, by which the whole state is weakened."
Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations

Thomas Jefferson

2009-05-03T15:08:00.000-06:00

"If a nation expects to be ignorant -- and free ... it expects what never was and never will be." --Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, 6 April 1816

2009-04-24T09:16:00.001-06:00

"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, 6 April 1816

The Anti-Federalist Papers

2009-04-18T00:53:00.002-06:00

Antifederalist No. 1

A Dangerous Plan of Benefit Only to the Aristocratick Combination
From The Boston Gazette and Country Journal, November 26, 1787.

I am pleased to see a spirit of inquiry burst the band of constraint upon the subject of the NEW PLAN for consolidating the governments of the United States, as recommended by the late Convention. If it is suitable to the GENIUS and HABITS of the citizens of these states, it will bear the strictest scrutiny. The PEOPLE are the grand inquest who have a RIGHT to judge of its merits. The hideous daemon of Aristocracy has hitherto had so much influence as to bar the channels of investigation, preclude the people from inquiry and extinguish every spark of liberal information of its qualities. At length the luminary of intelligence begins to beam its effulgent rays upon this important production; the deceptive mists cast before the eyes of the people by the delusive machinations of its INTERESTED advocates begins to dissipate, as darkness flies before the burning taper; and I dare venture to predict, that in spite of those mercenary dectaimers, the plan will have a candid and complete examination. ....

The Federalist Papers

2009-04-18T00:53:00.001-06:00

Soon after the American colonies declared their Independence from Britain, the "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union" were drafted to serve as the bonding document between the newly formed United States. But the confederation was weak, which necessitated the drafting of the Constitution of the United States of America.

The Constitutional Convention was a heated affair, with great and learned debate about how the new constitution should be structured. Once drafted, at least nine state legislatures had to ratify it. Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, in an effort to persuade the voters of New York and other states of the importance of ratification, wrote a series of papers explaining and defending the new constitution.

To this day, The Federalist Papers, written under the pseudonym "Publius," remain the most definitive resource for legal and historic scholars in search of the original intent of our Constitution...

A "Living Constitution" for a Dying Republic

2009-04-18T00:44:00.000-06:00

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. ... Done...the seventeenth day of September, in the year of our LORD one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven." --George Washington and the delegates

On 17 September of each year, we observe Constitution Day, in recognition of the anniversary of that venerable document's signing by our nation's Founders. Of course, most of the federal judiciary pay no homage to that date. They are preoccupied rewriting the so-called "Living Constitution," amending it by judicial diktat rather than its prescribed method in Article V.

For its first 150 years (with the notable exception Marbury v. Madison in 1803), our Constitution stood as our Founders, and more importantly, "the people," intended -- as is -- in accordance with its original intent. In other words, it was interpreted exegetically rather than eisegetically, textually as constructed, not what could be read into it by later generations of jurists. ...

Constitutional exegesis v. eisegesis

2009-04-18T00:41:00.000-06:00

"I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress." -- [Ronald Reagan |http://Reagan2020.US/]

"Judge not, lest ye be judged." It's notable that this text from the Bible has replaced John 3:16 as Americans' favorite scriptural quotation -- but what does it actually mean? Is this ageless admonition really a call to unmitigated tolerance over discernment between right and wrong? Is it really a biblical nod of the head to the virtues of postmodern morality and multicultural society?

Of course not.

As Christ's imperative against judgment appears in the Gospel accounts, a different picture emerges. With the Pharisees clearly in view, in the Sermon on the Mount account of Matthew 7, and again in Luke 6, "judge not" appears in the context of the proverbial man who perceives the speck that is in his brother's eye, but not the log that is in his own. The context, then, suggests a warning against hypocrisy, not moral discernment. Indeed, the full imperative of the passage encourages righteous judgment: "first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." ...

An unlimited power to tax

2009-04-17T01:17:00.001-06:00

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation."

John Marshall, McCullough v. Maryland, 1819

James Madison

2009-04-17T00:00:00.000-06:00

"Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution."
-James Madison

Liberty versus Tyranny: The primacy of free enterprise over socialism

2009-03-29T14:50:00.000-06:00

Now that Barack Hussein Obama and his enablers have enacted the most massive redistribution of wealth in history -- more than four trillion dollars of it, with trillions more yet to come -- just ask yourself: "Are you better off today than you were in the good old days under George W. Bush?"

Is your home, or your market investment, or your retirement account worth more today than it was last November, when the election of BHO ushered in the era of "hope 'n' change"?

For some reason, both the housing and equity markets began declining after Democrats regained control of the Senate and House in 2006. Since Obama's election, the bottom has dropped out. We as Americans have not only lost income and jobs, but also some 35 percent of the value of our homes and market/retirement accounts.

What happened? I thought the election of Obama and the rush to pass his so-called "economic stimulus package" was supposed to restore confidence in the economy and our national leadership?...

States Rebellion Pending

2009-03-29T14:45:00.002-06:00

By Walter E. Williams

Our Colonial ancestors petitioned and pleaded with King George III to get his boot off their necks. He ignored their pleas, and in 1776, they rightfully declared unilateral independence and went to war. Today it's the same story except Congress is the one usurping the rights of the people and the states, making King George's actions look mild in comparison. Our constitutional ignorance -- perhaps contempt, coupled with the fact that we've become a nation of wimps, sissies and supplicants -- has made us easy prey for Washington's tyrannical forces. But that might be changing a bit. There are rumblings of a long overdue re-emergence of Americans' characteristic spirit of rebellion.

Eight state legislatures have introduced resolutions declaring state sovereignty under the Ninth and 10th amendments to the U.S. Constitution; they include Arizona, Hawaii, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington. There's speculation that they will be joined by Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nevada, Maine and Pennsylvania.

You might ask, "Isn't the 10th Amendment that no-good states' rights amendment that Dixie governors, such as George Wallace and Orval Faubus, used to thwart school desegregation and black civil rights?" That's the kind of constitutional disrespect and ignorance that big-government proponents, whether they're liberals or conservatives, want you to have. The reason is that they want Washington to have total control over our lives. The Founders tried to limit that power with the 10th Amendment, which reads: "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."

New Hampshire's 10th Amendment resolution typifies others and, in part, reads: "That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General (federal) Government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force." Put simply, these 10th Amendment resolutions insist that the states and their people are the masters and that Congress and the White House are the servants. Put yet another way, Washington is a creature of the states, not the other way around.

Congress and the White House will laugh off these state resolutions. State legislatures must take measures that put some teeth into their 10th Amendment resolutions. Congress will simply threaten a state, for example, with a cutoff of highway construction funds if it doesn't obey a congressional mandate, such as those that require seat belt laws or that lower the legal blood-alcohol level to .08 for drivers. States might take a lead explored by Colorado.

In 1994, the Colorado Legislature passed a 10th Amendment resolution and later introduced a bill titled "State Sovereignty Act." Had the State Sovereignty Act passed both houses of the legislature, it would have required all people liable for any federal tax that's a component of the highway users fund, such as a gasoline tax, to remit those taxes directly to the Colorado Department of Revenue. The money would have been deposited in an escrow account called the "Federal Tax Fund" and remitted monthly to the IRS, along with a list of payees and respective amounts paid. If Congress imposed sanctions on Colorado for failure to obey an unconstitutional mandate and penalized the state by withholding funds due, say $5 million for highway construction, the State Sovereignty Act would have prohibited the state treasurer from remitting any funds in the escrow account to the IRS. Instead, Colorado would have imposed a $5 million surcharge on the Federal Tax Fund account to continue the highway construction.

The eight state legislatures that have enacted 10th Amendment resolutions deserve our praise, but their next step is to give them teeth.

--Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

2009-02-24T23:19:00.001-07:00

"This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still."--Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

In the Founders Words!

Encroachments of the Federal Government

The New Constitution

State Sovereignties

Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank, 1791

The true test is

The proposed Constitution

In the first place

Directed from Washington

Washington as the center of all power

Distinction of Color

Speech to the New York Ratifying Convention

Excessive taxation

Federal usurpation - Google Books

James Madison

James Madison

Federalist No. 33

George Washington, letter to Marquis de Lafayette

Thomas Jefferson

Facebook

Federal Law is Always Supreme. Right? | Tenth Amendment Center

Founder's Quote Daily for Monday, December 14, 2009 - PatriotPost.US

American Thinker: Why Leaderless Tea Parties Are Beating the GOP

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Franklin

James Wilson

Samuel Adams

James Madison, Federalist No. 62, 1788

James Madison, Federalist No. 45

Benjamin Franklin

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, 6 April 1816

The Anti-Federalist Papers

The Federalist Papers

A "Living Constitution" for a Dying Republic

Constitutional exegesis v. eisegesis

An unlimited power to tax

James Madison

"Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution."-James Madison

Liberty versus Tyranny: The primacy of free enterprise over socialism

States Rebellion Pending

--Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

"Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution."
-James Madison